A Few Days In Faial Now

Not a lot to report about Faial so far. We have stuck in Horta getting various things sorted out. The line for the jib furler had chafed through so we replaced that. I also changed the oil and filter in the engine. We have also been doing some much needed cleaning. Between that, we have been catching up with Nikki and Geoff of Spirit of Penmar - last seen in Tazacorte in La Palma. The scenery here is first class and we are looking forward to doing some exploring of the islands. Here are some photos so far.

Our First bit of Faial. Ponta Capelinhos was created from a then isl57 or so. We will be visiting by Land in due course of course.

Some ugly git stands on our side decks!

We are tied up against this wall. Previously outside a nice couple form the north of Holland but now alongside the wall. All the pictures are put there by yotties passing through. Ours is shown below.

The island of Pico is less than five miles away and it's volcanic cone is the highest peak in the whole of Portugal!

Another less cloudy view of Pico.

Our contribution to the plethora of graffiti here. Not very artistic but easy with a template and spray cans.

A rather chilling and poignant one though is a bit further down the quay.

We will stay here in Horta for a couple more days and then move on to the other islands in the central group till my Mother joins us on 19 July.

Flores And On to Faial

We are currently established in the oldest marina in the Azores archipelago which is in Horta on the island of Faial. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Flores though did not manage as much exploring as we would otherwise have wished. Our stay was enlivened by running into Dan and Charlotte on Hestur who we had last seen in Les Saintes in Guadeloupe.

Here is Hestur in the marina. We are in the background.

The harbour at Lajes is tiny and the marina only has space for around 45 boats, most of those quite small but it was extremely friendly and there was a nice atmosphere in the harbour and in the island generally. The harbourmaster in particular was very friendly and helpful and seemed delighted to have us itinerant yotties staying in his harbour. Our time in the marina wasn't the most peaceful owing to the amount of surge getting in which seems to be almost inevitable in these islands. After a bit of exploration up the steep hills of the village we found the supermarkets and the garage. We obtained delicious bread and cheese from the former and some much needed diesel from the latter. The attendant at the garage was very proud of his English and delivered 50 litres of diesel free to the boat which gave us enough to motor here to Faial.

Flores is one of the smallest and westernmost islands in the Archipelago and the town council in Lajes have a sign proudly announcing that they are the westernmost council in Europe! It really has a feeling of being on the edge of the world. The island is around 2000 miles from America and is 130 from the next island in the Azores while being somewhere over 1200 miles from mainland Europe. They have got the newest marina in the islands so it was easy for us to find space to put a painting on the wall announcing our visit. Here in Horta, there are literally thousands of them covering every spare centimetre of the breakwaters.

Here are a few pictures to bore you with. The weather was actually better than it appears in the photos though.

The entrance to the harbour. It was actually easier than it looks. We managed it with the dinghy towing the boat after all!

They do a very nice thing with old houses where the cement is whitewashed between the stones which makes for nice looking buildings.

This is the southern edge of the island and it really does feel like the edge of the world

Hydrangeas grow very profilically here and form the hedgerows which stop it feeling entirely like SW England though it is incredibly green for us who have been accustomed to tropical islands recently.

A rather steep lookout point.

Every night we had an amusing serenade (of sorts!) by some sea birds whose cry honestly sounded like a Pundh and Judy show! I believe that they were Cory's Shearwaters but we never saw them it being dark. There are even some here in Horta as well.

We celebrated our arrival in Europe with a meal at an excellent restaurant run by some German ex-pats. Good company was provided by a couple from the States recently arrived form New York. Joan and Wolfgang are working out where they can leave the boat and how they might be able to import it into the EU without having to pay VAT given that they will be taking it back to the US in due course.

Several of the other people in Lajes intended to take advantage of the light easterly winds to take themselves round to the western side of the island and spend some time at anchor in a bay called Faja Grande but we decided to head on east to Faial. Those same easterlies were very light and meant we had to motor the whole way for 36 hours! Still, we are now established in the marina and rafted next to a friendly Dutch boat.

Finally, thank you to everyone who identified our hitchhiker as a Booby of some sort though it wasn't a blue footed one. If we ever get into the position buy ourselves a new boat we have how decided to call it Blue Foot Booby!

I'll do an update on Faial once we have done some exploring.

St. Martin/Sint Maarten to Flores

I started writing this part way in...

Well, we are on our sixth day at sea now and are thouroughly in the passage making mode. St Martin and the Caribbean now seems a long way away though it is actually only about 510 miles as I write this. It will of course be 2500 miles away by the time anyone gets to read this.

Being at sea is very different from being in coastal waters if that doesn't seem too obvious. Shore based issues feel very remote but we still talk about them when we have our midday meal and general chit chat. The main issues are about where to go to find enough, but not too much wind. The daily plot on the chart at midday is the center of our life as it gives us an idea of how far we have come in a much more graphical way than the little boat icon on the chart plotter. I cannot imagine not using paper charts in conjunction with the plotter as some people do.

Night watches start by really dragging but now they seem to go quite quickly though we are exhausting our supply of radio plays which are our preferred means of entertainment for the night hours. Daytime is taken up with reading though I need to find more books for my Kindle!
This gave us a bit of a thrill, and a scare of course!

All in all, things are going quite well though we are still very much in the light wind area. We hope to get to more wind, and from the right direction in a couple of days though. A satellite phone conversation and a check of the tail end of our last GRIB file has however had the beneficial effect of suggesting a turn more to the east so the Azores are now much more dead ahead rather than being somewhere off to starboard while we make a lot of northing.

We had a hitchhiker for a night as well. Anyone able to identify what sort it is. We saw lots of them but do not know what sort of bird they are.

18 June
Well, we are now about 1500 hundred miles further on from where that last bit was written and are also safely moored in Porto do Lajes on the island of Flores. We have arrived in the Azores!

It turned out to be a very slow and rather frustrating passage the weather alternated with very light winds or very strong. At least it felt that way to us. We experienced two gales and two near gales though in general the wind was very light. Total time to cover 2300 miles was 26 days which works out at around 88 miles a day. We would normally expect to average 100 miles a day and often more than that. Somewhere along the way we managed to pick up a bit of rope round the propeller, we also contrived to run out of diesel for the engine which meant we couldn't motor the last bit into harbour and wound up accepting a tow into the anchorage outside the marina. Still, we are here now and very pleased to be so though it feels very cold to us!

The undoubted highlight, though rather alarming was to see a water spout. It was only two or three miles to the north of us in very calm weather. We hastily changed course to leave it to starboard but it quickly disappeared and then the cloud above it also disappeared! The landfall on Flores was also great. The sun was getting up around 0400 ships time and as I was looking ahead into the clouds, a couple of them looked too solid right down on the horizon. A check with the binoculars confirmed that they were indeed the islands themselves about 50 miles away. During Audrey's morning watch they were obscured by rain clouds for a while but those cleared and all through the afternoon, more and more detail became apparent until we were finally passing a mile off the southern tip and planning on how to sail into Lajes.

Without fuel, we used the dinghy to tow ourselves in to the tiny marina and are now savouring the delights of this beautiful island. Sadly, we are all cloudy and rainy today so there are not yet many pictures of this very beautiful island.

These were our first views of a truly lovely island!