Horta June 19th

At last, the sun is back :-)



The world looks very different now and way better to remember for our last days at Horta !

Monday, June 18th Horta Fayal

Still raining... never thought off so much fresh water for free, no need to rinse the boat :-)

We got the paint to put our mural on the wall but with this kind off weather there's no chance it will last for more then a day. I guess this will be a project for Rutger and Eline when we come back in July.

Last night we had a great time watching the match at Internacionale, the local pub. Bruno had our table ready, in the middle of all dressed up Portuguese.. I brought my Dutch flag and my fog horn, just in case...

It was an exciting and fun match to watch! Especially the first 20 minutes :-)

Since none of us is really really into football, we didn't mind that they won eventually, and it was a great match to watch.

After the match we had some drinks and Eline had to buy Bruno and the rest of the staff a drink :-o

Today more rain … so we did some jobs on the boat, adjusting the belt tension, putting some new rivets in the boom rail and the vang. The inverter also broke down but they can't fix it over here...

Tomorrow we planned to go on a whale watch trip. However.. when we checked later, the trip was canceled because of the bad weather... another thing left to do coming back in July :-*

Anyway, it still is a nice place to be but we all are quite curious how it'll look when the sun is shining

Saturday, June16th Horta Azores

Tomorrow Frits is flying home so today was his day.

We rented a car to explore the Island. We first stopped over at Mid Atlantic Yacht Service to pick up some stuff for the boat. It's a small shop but very well equipped and very knowledgeable staff.

The sailmaker recently had a double bypass operation and not in the mood to fix my gennaker. Well we'll see when I come back in July...

We had a very challenging drive all the way up to the crater of the vulcano. The [dirt]road was steep, with lots of hairpins ad the higher we came the thicker the clouds, until we couldn't anything at all.Half way up we had a flat tire, just in a corner of the road... but with 4 guys we had it fixed in no time.. :-)

The crater itself we never got to see .. but anyway.. we drove on to the West point of the Island where we did see the lighthouse and the lava stream that ruined the village some 50 years ago.

In all we had a great day anyway, in spite of the rain that's pouring down for two days now :-o

Later this week the weather is supposed to clear but the occlusion front seems to be very stable.

Tomorrow will be an exciting night. we're gonna watch the football match Portugal - Holland in a local pub ..

our table is reserved :-)

Friday, June 15th Horta, Azores

This morning at around 7:30 am local time we arrived at Horta. It took us 16 days in all. 16 days of great sailing, no storms, only 2 showers and only 3 days with no wind :-)

After clearing with port control, immigration, customs and the police we were free to go to Cafe Sport for lunch. Walking on the hard again was not easy. The whole place sees to be wobbling all the time..

Right now  we're all sort of exhausted and in for an afternoon nap.. probably till dinner time :-)

Thursday, June 14th Position 37°45.172 N; 31°02.610 W

We're sailing again:-) After a day and a night motoring this morning at around 6am, the wind picked up enough to set the sails and get a decent speed. While setting the sails, we had some real rain, first time since we left the Caribbean :-)

We didn't see much wildlife either. Some dolphins and an occasional bird. We did see a lot of Portuguese Warships, funny little jellyfish, quite colorful, sailing upwind. We tried to catch one but that didn't work out. I guess I'm fine with that, wouldn't know what to do with it and how to get it out of the net …

We're getting close to Horta now. While typing we were called over the vhf. A Portuguese fishing vessel called for a chat :-) For us the first sign of life in 2 weeks...

According to my latest grib files, the wind will hold for the next 24 hrs., by then we'll be there.
So, next update will have some foto's :-)

Wednesday, June 13th Position 36°53.466 N; 33°40.766 W

The wind has dropped a bit and we started the engine to keep up the speed. The ocean is flattening and there's only a nice swell that easily rock you to sleep :-)
Since its very calm we fueled up a bit. All went well without spilling a drop, but wen I got the hose out, the little chain that's securing the cap broke and next moment it was gone..
I had to use one of the wooden plugs as a cap and added another thing on my to do list when we get to Horta.

We thought to be very lucky catching a real big fish. There was something serious hooked on, and it took a while to get it in. However, when I could finally sea it, it turned out to be a fishing net, and of course no fish in it... So, corned beef stayed on the menu...Today Eline will show us how to catch a fish. That's what she promised anyway... we'll sea...:-)

Our ETA is now Friday afternoon, providing the wind picks up according to my latest grib files.
Sofar they were pretty accurate, so hopefully we don't have to motor the last part of our trip.
With about 250 Nm still to go, we all are starting to look forward to make landfall. Obviously we're all in for a real long shower and a nice long night of sleep After having some drinks at Cafe Sport of course !!

It would be nice if we get there Friday. That gives us some days to explore the Island.a bit.
Eline and I already booked our flights to Asd. leaving the 20th . Frits and Arie have to check at the airport when we get there. Frits is looking for a flight on Saturday or Sunday so hopefully there's still an open seat. Arie is planning to stay some more days, I guess he won't have a problem to get a ticket.

Monday, June 11th Position 35°38.483 N; 37°27.002 W

Today we again crossed a time line and gained another hour. Officially that is.... I was supposed to cook dinner tonight but woke up late from my afternoon nap, so I decided to stick to the time zone and adjust the clock tomorrow. So, I was still n time and we didn't have to change the watch times.
Captains privilege, ha.

Last night we had the best night so far starwise. The sky was completely clear and bright. There were so many stars, you could hardly find the ones you know, amazing!!

After breakfast we changed the sails. The night before we put in the first reef and furled in the staysail, still doing over 6 kts. We took out the reef, set the staysail again and changed the genoa for  the gennaker. For some reason the gennaker didn't hold, it wasn't the wind really. Anyway, we ripped it and an hour later we were back to the sailplan we started with...
Well I guess shit happens and sofar we're very lucky weatherwise, so it's not a big deal and easy to fix.

Tomorrow we're gonna celebrate Eline's birthday :-) and of course I'll give her a call over the sat phone :-)