Sao Jorge 5-8 July 2011

 Horta to Velas is just 20 nm and I had a very pleasant sail, passing close to the end of Pico. The small harbour at Velas towards the east end of the southern coast of  Sao Jorge has a new marina run by a very friendly harbourmaster. I was welcomed in great style and the reception committee included a number of people I know from travels in the Caribbean. PS was moored expertly without me lifting a finger except to take a cool beer as I stepped ashore. Some welcome!

The original grand entrance after you landed was no doubt intended to impress and 200 years later it still does.






The island is narrow and steep sided with peaks along the centre ridge rising to 1000 metres. In a few places along the coast there are fajas which are small areas of  flat land at sea level where small communities were built. Access to the faja would be by very steep tracks and paths from the central ridge. I joined a group to do a circular walk to a faja, the route being described as easy. This appealed as I am not walking fit after many weeks at sea.





The group includes a woman circumnavigator who happens to have built her current yacht,  a teacher, a "wheel" in the Ocean Cruising Club, a mathmatician and a stem cell research scientist. It was decided to walk the very steep path back up from sea level at the end. Our helpful taxi driver arranged to meet us at a cafe near the end of the walk. The descent was a pleasant walk on a dirt road with stunning views out to sea. Finding the path to go back up proved to be a serious challenge. It took 3 or 4 climbs of several hundred feet up false trails before we found the right one which did have the correct marks but so meanly done that I found only 3 on the whole route. Luckly our taxi driver could be forewarned of our lengthened walk.

Horta does not have a monopoly of interesting pavements. Velas has certainly gone to town with a fine display of this art form.

The stem cell scientist and mathmatician, Jim and Becky left for Angra do Heroismo on Terceira at the same time as I left thinking I might go to Praia Vitoria. Plane Song is a little bigger than Rona, a Rival 34, and made more speed from the very light winds. I vacillated a long time before I finally got around to flying the drifter, a very large light weight loose footed genoa. At the time 2 to 3 kts was all I could manage but once flying the genoa increased speed to over 4 kts. Just before this I passed a Sperm whale quietly swimming on the surface only 50 metres away. By the time I had the camera ready it was of course further away but I'm pleased I managed a picture good enough to identify the whale. To see the biggest preditor on earth that close is awesome.

The sun was setting as I passed the end of Sao Jorge and I sailed on through the night having decided to join Jim and Becky in Angra. I hove to a mile off at 0300hrs and slept in hourly sessions rising to check the position. Rona made it a little after 0600hrs and I followed them to the visitors berth where we had to wait for the office to open. I was welcomed aboard Rona to a breakfast of scrambled eggs. Now thats what I call friendship!

Azores-Faial June 2011

Arrived here 6 June after a passage with a Polish female crew that will long stick in the memory. I have recovered from the experience helped by meeting up with a lot of friendly people I had encountered in the Caribbean, many of whom had difficult sailing conditions. Horta is full of yachts taking a break on their atlantic crossing but now we are into July the numbers tail off significantly. Few take the trouble to explore these very attractive islands. There is a long tradition of leaving a wall painting and some are beautifully done so I offer a selection to give an impression of some of the best of which mine is not to be included.

Plane Song has been here before and the painting I did then is still there albeit a little tatty now. My new effort incorporates the ceramic coaster/plaque I had made in Stoke on Trent before I departed. Should survive for a good few years!

Silver Harmony is a Contessa 32 sailed by Robert Fox. We ran into each other several times in the Caribbean.

Zeezot is berthed next to me. Albertien is a ceramic artist and it shows in their painting. The Granny with the US flag was done by a trained artist who now produces scrimshaw work[more below].

Those of you familliar with pavements in Portugal will have seen the wonderful decorations built into them. They do the same here and I think they add so much to the street scene.
































The park is only 50 metres from my berth and the blackbirds sing loudly every day.

Continuing the artistic theme, on the right is John van Opstal a Dutchman who for some 28 years has lived on Faial where he built his own house with the spectacular view you see behind him.Trained as an artistst, he took up scrimshaw work when he settled here. I have had an interest in this art form for a long time so I took the opportunity to buy a small example pictured below. His stock of whales teeth runs out soon so I'm pleased I made the investment.

Not long after my arrival a Swedish yacht departed from the berth next to me. There was a moderate cross wind at the time so we rigged a line to his bow so that I could help pull it into wind from the stern of PS. He put full power on  misjudging his ability to turn away from the stern of PS and rammed the protective bar on the Monitor. The damage is byond repair facilities here and I have after some effort sent it back to the factory in California where there is hope that they can straighten the frame. The Swede, a circumnativator, was mortified and I extracted 1800 euros as a down payment before he left. I'll be suprised if it covers the cost. As I'm cruising the islands, all of which are within a day sail, I will manage with the electronic steering but I will miss the Monitor-it steers PS 25/7 without complaint.

Pico is only a 30 minute ferry ride from Horta and dominates the view from the harbour. Most of the time the summit is in cloud but I was lucky to get a picture as the rays of the setting sun illuminated the island.

Cafe Sport in Horta is rated as the best yachtsman's bar in the whole world. They provide every kind of service to the visiting yachtsmen from holding mail, to changing money. It has great atmosphere. I was particulary pleased when Jose the grandson of the original owner let me hang a PS ceramic on the wall which can be seen as a white disc above my head.

In a couple of days I will depart for St George, a demanding sail of all of  20 miles. The island can be seen in the distance to the left of Pico.

Bermuda-Azores May 2011

Before setting off from Bermuda, I decided to change the big genoa for the yankee as it's a bit of a handful in the best of conditions. Whilst I was hauling up the yankee the winch  came apart just as I was pulling very hard and flung me backwards so that my pelvis hit the corner of the fore hatch. I think I was extremely lucky not to break bones. After 3 days I felt I could manage to sail the boat albeit still with a fair bit of pain and some serious bruising which took 3 weeks to disappear.

Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores is around 1780 nm from Bermuda. Various factors such as wind direction and course changes to skirt round a storm add to the distance actually sailed. We had to sail 2200 nm which took 19 days.  The detour to avoid the strongest winds of the storm turned out to have been unnecessary and added nearly 2 days to the passage. In the event, we experienced gale force winds despite the detour.  The best 24 hour run was 157 nm and the least 93nm. A high percent of the sailing[perhaps 70%] was hard on the wind in big seas at times that batterd PS to a worrying extent. She came through the experience ok but the movement stired up contamination in the paraffin supply tank originating from fuel taken in Trinidad. This got unwittingly transfered to the pressure tank and then blocked the jets and pipes on the cooker. I had to dismantle the cooker at sea in very testing conditions and then filter clean fuel from the supply tank. It took a whole day to achieve. But this setback was nothing to the problems with Eva the Polish crew.

Before leaving Bermuda I had thought about asking her to leave given the difficulty in communicating with her which had nothing to do with language. She simply resisted any effort to be a sociable part of a team. Alarm bells rang when I lay injured on the deck and evenually dragged myself to the cabin to get pain killers and recover from shock after the incident with the winch-she sat impassively in the cockpit never offering to help or even to sympathise.But I suppose my mind was concentrating on the passage to the Azores and I let it pass. Once at sea, her unremitting sullen, unpleasant selfish behaviour was a source of constant stress and I noted in my journal on day 3 that I was seriously considering turning back. This drove me to speak to her in capital letters to make the point that we were 2 mature adults embarked on a serious passage and we had better make the best of it in a professional seaman like way. For the whole of the 19 days at sea she spoke only to ask for something or in response to my questioning. Attempts at normal conversation were simply ignored. With time to reflect I believe she was unable to accept she could ever be wrong or be criticised and took umbridge if she was. A few examples of her reaction to being asked to do something as I would like it done, rather than as she did it, illustrate the problem.

 Of her own volition she took to pumping the bilges but although asked several times to tell me the number of pumping strokes so I would know whats going on she simply refused to do it. Then the way watches worked out she was on when it was necessary to record the days run and I showed her what to record but she never did as I asked and then stopped doing it after I had asked many times for the details I needed to be recorded. I found she was snacking on bread we had carefully calculated to last the passage and was therefore having more than her share. She reacted badly to me asking her to stick to the rationing we had agreed. There were many other examples of this stubborn refusal to anything other than the way she decided. All this made for a very stressful passage relieved at times by the visits by dolphins and the wonderful flight of the Sheerwaters which were constant companions.

 

Its not easy to get a good picture of these masters of the art of gliding. They use the air compressed above a rising wave to give them lift. Somehow, they keep just a few centimeters above the water diving into the troughs between waves then soaring up on the front of a rising wave to perhaps 20 feet before diving down low again. They manage this flight pattern for hours on end without the need to beat their wings.







I believe that when they are really close to the water they sometimes pick up food from the surface but I have never seen that happen. They manage to keep this up after sundown in very poor light, in rain and high winds.

There is a drawback to this form of flying. When its calm with no swell they can't generate the free lift so they sit on the sea, usually in small groups and wait for the right conditions. When I've approached such a group motor sailing in the calm, the birds are very reluctant to take to the air waiting to the last possible moment before moving.






None of my reference books say what food they pick up in flight. I wondered if they might take the very small Portugese Man of War which sporn in great numbers in places in the open ocean.

The nightmare passage ended in  Horta a place I have visited twice before and like very much. Some friendly conversations over a glass or two of Super Bock in the famous Cafe Sport with fellow ocean sailors, many of whom had similar horror stories, soon began to restore sanity despite the Silent One rushing off without paying her contribution to food costs. I look forward to exploring these islands during the rest of the summer.