The Crossing: First landfall, Horta Faial Azores

The Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is an archipelago of nine volcanic islands and a cluster of islets. The islands are in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo to the west; Graciosa, Terceira, Sao Jorge, Pico and Faial in the center; Sao Miguel, Santa Maria and the Formigas islets to the east. The islands are characterized by dramatic landscapes, fishing villages, green pastures and hedgerows of blue hydrangeas and lots of cows. We were told that the cows out number the humans in many parts of the Azores. Sao Miguel, the largest has lake filled calderas, Pico has the 2,351m Mt Pico and is known for its vineyards. You can still see the cows (bulls?) run the streets in Terceira.

After an eventful 14 day crossing from Bermuda, Sea Dog arrived in Horta, on the island of Faial, in fine fashion. I won't bore you with the details of the crossing as they are pretty well documented on our Predictwind tracking page which can be viewed here:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SeaDog

I will share with you some of the highlights and photos that did not make the tracking page.

During our passage from Bermuda, some of the other boats were reporting their fishing succes. They would post pictures of their catch with crew members lying besides the fish to give an idea of the size. One of the more memorable fish was a Yellowfin tuna caught by the crew of  the catamaran Abundance.

Well not to be outdone by a catamaran, I displayed our own catch along with the requisite photo. Note, while we did not actually catch this whopper, it caught us, stranded by one of the many waves crashing over Sea Dog during out passage.

During the passage, to keep herself entertained, Michele started a series of cartoons. One of the series involved cruisers (Michele and I) vs racers (Michelle and Keith). Here are a couple of snippets. Hopefully I can get Michele to post more of her cartoons. They were quite entertaining.

In this cartoon, every time Michelle and Keith adjusted the sails on watch, it was super loud down below, especially in the aft berth where we were trying to rest/sleep off watch. To trim (adjust) the sails you grind in and/or let out the sheets (lines to the sails) for maximum sail performance. Lets just say SeaDog was trimmed for maximum performance.

Here we find Michelle and Keith starting to understand there is something more than discussing wind angles and adjusting sails. I particularly like how Michele portrayed me, she nailed it.

Many of the boats, along with Sea Dog had Starlink, the satellite internet service by SpaceX (thanks Elon Musk). It was a game changer for offshore passage making. We had access to incredibly fast and reliable internet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Note, offshore use is not cheap, it cost $2 per gigabyte. It does not sound like a lot, but it adds up quickly if one is streaming Netflix (which we did not do). We used it to check out weather routing and forecasting apps on a daily basis. We also used it to communicate via WhatsApps with the other boats in the Arc Europe 2023 fleet that were similarly equipped with Starlink. At first, we were using it to report our position and the conditions we were seeing to each other, but that grew old fast as we could see each other on the Yellowbrick tracking app that each boat was equipped with via Arc Europe. One of the boats suggested a limerick challenge to pass the time, which caught my attention. I have included several of the more memorable limericks below. Each limerick is preceded by the name of the boat.

Vaughanderlust

On Vaughanderlust, they held tight

As the waves crashed with all their might

Though delayed on their trip

Their hope never did slip

To Horta they're sailing day and night

Longstory

Longstory ventured to Horta

She sailed halfway there, sorta

The asym was torn

The main halyard shorn

Yet still she will make it to port-a

Longstory

Motoring on a sea of glass

Longstory was getting low on gas

Rally mates lent a hand

So she could make it to land

To Abundance, you're first in class

Sea Dog

There was a young sailor in Horta

Who knew his way town sorta

While he had no cash to his name

He could run a good game

Till he found the next boat out of porta

Longstory

Autopilots in war with Poseidon

He never will face the horizon

In high seas like now

He swings right around

So we're calling him crazy Ivan

Sea Dog

There was a young man named Chad

Who thought himself quite the lad

With a charming quick witted flair

And a flick of his long lustrous hair

He would drive all the girls mad

Abundance

There was once a sailor quite spry

Who cast out his rod with a sigh

He caught loads of fish

Fulfilling his wish

And he was completely depleted by nigh

Landho, the final approach to the Azores. It was a much welcomed sight. Fourteen days offshore, at 5 to15 degrees of heel takes its toll. We were all really looking forward to getting ashore.

We arrived on the afternoon of May 31, 2023, Michelle Deribles birthday. On Michele's last watch she prepared the salon of Sea Dog with a birthday greeting for Michelle, and readied the bottle of Veuve Clicquot to celebrate our arrival in Horta, Falal

                                           Blue tape, the glasses are secure while still offshore.

Peters Cafe Sport,  which you may remember being described in an earlier blog post, "Michelle, the police want to talk with you",  was in our sight,

While the marina in Horta is a good size, there were a lot of boats in town and it was packed. We were rafted three boats deep on one of the marina walls.

We were lucky to get good views of Mt Pico on the neighboring island of Pico, a large dormant volcano. The last time Pico erupted was December 1720. Pico is know as Ilha Preta (“Black Island”).

    

                              Some members of the Arc Europe fleet hiked to the top of Mt Pico.

Once in town, I went in search of a new cell phone. I broke mine on the passage from Bermuda, second time in less than one year! First time was last August on our trip to Maine. While searching I came across a section of town under repair. Most of the side walks and some of the streets are beautiful hand laid cobble stone. You can see below the labor involved with building these surfaces. Remember what these side walks looks like, they come into play in a future blog...

Further into town I came across a pretty little park with a couple of black swans. I have heard of black swans, but have never seen one. They are actually quite pretty.

The following day Arc Europe sponsored a half day bus tour of Faial.  One of the highlights of the tour was the cheese factory. It was a small shop on the side of the highway with large fields between it and the cliffs of the coast. The fields were dotted with the milk (to cheese) producing cows. The cheese was incredible, five inch rounds, that when cut into produced a creamy wonderful tangy cheese. Each round was 6 euro, what a deal!!

 

The next stop on the tour were the Varadouro natural swimming pools. These swimming pools are located on the western side of Faial with a wonderful panorama over the Castelo Branco Mount. The swimming areas are comprised of cement pools built into the black basaltic rocks that were formed with the solidification of the lava as it flowed into ocean.  The pools interconnected with cement walking paths and various view points to watch the ocean and waves. The pools are fed by the ocean surge and breaking waves of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a beautiful spot with the dark rugged volcanic rocks standing strong against the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Since the bus tour was just a couple of hours, we took a few photos and were whisked away to our next stop,  Vulcão dos Capelinhos, a volcano known for its huge 1957 eruption, with a museum in an old lighthouse & scenic hiking trails. This is located on the western tip of Faial, on the other side of the island from Horta. This volcanic eruption led to many of the Azorean people moving away from the Azores and relocating in other parts of the world.

        Nova Iorque (New York). We sailed a long way to get here!

                                                        Farol (Lighthouse) da Ponta dos Capelinhos

Unfortunately due to weather we were not able visit one of the main attractions on Faial, 

Caldeira do Cabeço Gordo, a large caldera in the center of the island. It was shrouded in fog and we were told it would be cold, windy with no visibility. Oh well, next time...

On the drive back to Horta, we passed some amazing views of the country side with lots of blue hydrangea everywhere.

Our last stop of the tour was at an overlook with views of the harbor and marina in Horta.  A fun tour was had by all. We saw lots of interesting and beautiful sights. We definitely could spend more time exploring the island of Faial.

                                                Harbor in the foreground is the ferry terminal

Stay tuned, there is more... Next up "The Crossing: Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Azores"

Michelle, the police want to talk with you.

This was the absolutely last thing I was expecting early on the first morning, June 1, after arriving in Horta, Azores. I was sitting on board enjoying my coffee and reading the New York Times when I noticed the marina manager walking across the two boats that we were rafted up to along the wharf. As he was stepping onto our boat, I headed to the cockpit to intercept him before he knocked on the boat so as not to wake the others on board.  In his broken English, he told me that the police were on the wharf and needed to talk with Michelle. My mind was racing, police? The marina manager could see my confusion so continued that she had lost a lot of money and others things.  

A bit of back story is needed. We arrived in Horta in the afternoon the day before, May 31, 2023 after 14 days of sailing from Bermuda. We had been pushing hard for days to arrive on May 31 so that we could celebrate Michelle's birthday at Peter Cafe Sport, the famous watering hole in Horta where all of the sailors from around the world meet and swap stories of their sailing adventures. Note, we have two aboard Sea Dog, with similar names,  Michele Vivas and Michelle Derible, also know as one elle and two elle or tall Michele and short Michelle.

The story continues, starring Michelle with two elles. Along with pushing hard for a May 31 landfall, we had all been talking and dreaming about our first gin and tonic (for which Peter Cafe Sport is known for). Now, all aboard Sea Dog are known to enjoy a wee tipple now and again.  As responsible sailors, on an offshore passage we all agreed that Sea Dog would be a dry boat. We do so that in case of  an emergency or other mishap we would all have our wits about us and be able to handle any situation that the mighty gods of the sea and winds might throw at us (of which they did).

The birthday celebrations started on the back of Norm the Storm, a large catamaran from Canada, also part of the Arc Europe 2023 flotilla.  I meanwhile, as Skipper, was holed up in the marina office checking in, followed by immigration and customs, so I missed a good hour plus of the early celebrations. I joined the crew as we moved onto Peter Cafe Sport. The first gin and tonic was heavenly, the second was just as good. The party moved onto a restaurant in town, Canto de Doca, that was hosting the early Arc arrivals for a dinner. As Michelle and Keith entered the restaurant, everyone there broke into song, a rousing version of Happy Birthday. It was special! The specialty of the house was a selection of thinly slice meats and fish that you cook yourself at the table on a super heated slab of volcanic stone. Included with this unique dining experience, were flowing bottles of  red Azorean wine. Michele and I were tired, so we called it an early night and headed off to Sea Dog for a restful night of sleep, the first in 14 days,  in which the boat was not bouncing or rolling and one did not need to wake every four hours for a watch.

Michelle and Keith had booked a hotel room for the first couple of nights in Horta, as a birthday treat, so they could relax in comfort after the long passage. I should have known something was awry when I woke early the next morning, expecting the boat to be empty and found Michelle sound asleep in the Pullman berth and Keith wedged into the V berth among various sails and assorted gear.

After my conversation with the marina manager, I went below to wake Michelle. I nudged her gently and as she woke, as casually as I could, said "Michelle, the police want to talk with you". It took a moment or two for those words to sink in. It seems that she and Keith along with a group of others from the rally had closed down the restaurant trading shots with Normand (Norm the Storm) from Quebec among others. It was late, they were tipsy and could not or were not up to finding their hotel room so found their way back to Sea Dog for the night. Now I am pretty sure that Michelle and Keith were sporting a decent hangover from the late night celebrations, but it is funny how fast it can sober one up when you are told the police want to talk with you. Michelle quickly threw on some clothes and headed up to speak with the police.

It turns out, Michelle and Keith were carrying a couple of bags, with the intent to go to their hotel after dinner. When it was time to pay, Michelle opened one of the bags to retrieve her wallet to pay,  was somehow distracted, perhaps by another round of shots, I can only speculate. Michelle is having a hard time remembering the exact sequence of events, shots can have that effect on you, been there, done that! All that can be surmised is that one of the bags was inadvertently left behind that contained her wallet, id and various other items for a night at the hotel.  A good Samaritan found her bag and delivered it to the local police, that kindly waited until the next morning to work with the marina manager in locating Michelle upon Sea Dog. 

Alls well that ends well. The bag contained all of their money, cards and other gear. They found their hotel the next night and stayed for several nights as Michele and I worked to air/dry out Sea Dog after her gallant voyage across the North Atlantic delivering us and our crew safely to the shores of the Azores.

Headed for the Azores: The Start

Now that I have had a few days to relax in Horta,  its time to catch up with all that happened on the way to the Azores. There was not really a boring moment.

Start day, Wed May 17, was setting up to be a beautiful day, sunny, good winds taking us out of St Georges Harbor, through the Town Cut and east to the Azores.  We had 15knts from the south, so a nice beam reach through the Town Cut.  We had a plan,  Michele and Michelle were head sail trimmers, Keith would trim the main and provide his racing acumen to help me, at the helm, navigate Sea Dog around the inner harbor amongst 29 other boats, all jockeying for position to be first across the start line, Mind you, this is typical in all sailboat racing starts,  lots of boats sailing in close quarters wanting to be the first boat across the start line. The difference here was that most of the sailors and boats are not racers, they are cruisers and sailing in close quarters with lots of other boats in a small contained space with wind was not necessarily their forte. Again the plan, thirty minutes before the start, we would weighed anchor and head to the west end of the harbor to start our pre-race setup. As we left anchor, we noticed something very wacky in the steering, we could turn fully starboard (to the right), but only partially to port (to the left). We should have known then that we had a stow away aboard, a certain Mr Murphy had decided to join the crew aboard Sea Dog without invitation and very much unwelcome. I gave the helm to Keith and descended below decks to investigate the problem. Quickly throwing the mattresses off the aft berth and clearing the panels, I gained access to the steering quadrant. It only took a couple of minutes to ascertain the problem. The bolt that holds the auto pilot piston arm to the steering quadrant was jamming against the upper support when turning to port. Strange I thought, we sailed almost 1000 miles from Annapolis, down the Chesapeake, anchoring multiple times, in and out of harbors without a hitch since the steering system had been worked on at Bert Jabins Yacht Yard in Annapolis, now thirty minutes before the race start it breaks. Damn you Murphy! It took a good twenty minutes to get the bolt off and detach the auto pilot from the steering quadrant, a job that should typically take a minute or two, but the boat was being actively steered amongst a fleet of other boats (remember we were jockeying into position for the start) so I was working in a tight space on a, literally, moving target. Sure we could have moved out of position, slowed things down, but we had racers on board, we were now racers and we were determined to get across the start line as close to first as possible.  Once I detached the auto pilot arm, the steering quadrant was able to move fully in both directions, problem solved! I headed above, back to the cockpit to check the time and our position for the start.  We had a minute to the start line, Keith was on course to round up around the committee start boat that marked the south end of the start line. I took over as the main sheet trimer since Keith was in his race mode groove and moving Sea Dog around like she was a light weight pedigreed Whippet, fast and agile, ready to run. As the start gun sounded, we sped pass the race committee boat leaving them on our starboard with feet to spare, surprising all those onboard. They were not expecting anyone behind them, the look on their faces was priceless.  Across the start line we sailed, with two boats crossing in the middle of the line just ahead of us. Since the wind was from the south, and we were sailing east on a starboard beam reach, our plan was to hug the right side of the Town Cut so that no other boats could steal our wind. Just as we were reaching the entrance of the cut, with four of the longer, faster boats in front of us, a large boat was entering the cut from the east, the timing could not have been worse! We kept on our course, we had no options, while the boats on the left and middle had to converge to allow room for the east bound boat passage. To compound the problem, the cut is higher on the east end, thus the wind from the south was being blocked. We could see the sails on the boats ahead of us were starting to flog a bit as the wind slowed and shifted. Since this was not a "true" race where motors are forbidden and if used an automatic disqualification, all boats were advised to have their motors running and ready if needed. I think all of the lead boats used their motors for a few minutes to ease the bottle neck formed by the reduction in wind at the east end of the cut and the sudden appearance of the large westbound boat, I know we did. We cleared the cut in fifth place, ahead of many of the faster boats and were very pleased with our performance. We had a plan, we stuck to the plan, even with the surprise appearance of Mr Murphy and we executed well on the plan. Three cheers to the crew of Sea Dog for a picture perfect start to a 2000+ mile jaunt across the Atlantic ocean to Horta, Azores!!

      A beautiful sight, all of the boats BEHIND us (sorry, race mode mentality)

 

      Norm the Storm, keeping pace with us out of the Town Cut.

                                   Endeavor III, a Dufour 56, coming up fast on us. Long, faster boat.

I am unable to upload some of the race start videos to Blogger since they are too big so I have provided links below to watch the action unfold.

Michelle D, port trimmer extraordinaire

Stay tuned for the next installment, The Crossing, or perhaps a better title, What else could go wrong.

Thar she blows...

 After hearing reports of Fin whale sightings from some of the other Arc Rally boats north of us, we finally had a chance, actually several chances throughout today to see the behemoths ourselves. It was quite exciting. These are extremely large whales, second in size to the Blue whales. They are recognized by the tiny little fin on the back half. 

We first noticed them as they came to the surface and blew out a plume of water and air. They then broke the surface as they swam gently by. They are gentle giants heading slowly south west as we are headed equally slowly north east.

In each sighting we saw several whales, or a pod, that were moving along together.

To save you the effort of googling fin whale, I did it for you:

The fin whale, also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of cetacean on Earth after the blue whale. Wikipedia

On one of the sightings as we were admiring the whales, a pod of dolphins came roaring over and were playing around the front of Sea Dog. Its like they were saying, whales, big deal, what about us, look at us...

Along with whales, dolphins and Man-o-War jellyfish, the fishing has been pretty good for some of the catamarans that have been fishing. The catch so far are a couple types of tuna, a couple of wahoo (aka Ono in Hawaii) and some smaller fish. Sadly they are nowhere near us, hopefully they will share the bounty in the Azores. One of the tuna was HUGE, at least 5.5 feet long. One of the female crew on the boat laid down on the deck next to the fish to give a perspective of its actual size. They reported they took several hours to land the fish... Incredible.

Party time in Bermuda with the Arc Rally!

We had a wonderful few days in Bermuda which were spent resting, repairing, relaxing, restocking, sight seeing, socializing and most importantly showering, not necessarily in that order. We met the crews of many of the other boats, joining us on our Atlantic crossing as part of the Arc Europe 2023 Rally, at the various social events organized by the wonderful World Cruising team. The social events included a meet and greet open bar with finger food at the St George's Dinghy and Sports Club, a costume party with a cash bar and tasty buffet for dinner and finally a rum tasting put on by Goslings Rum preceding the sit down awards dinner.

At first of the events, the social meet and greet, the entire crew donned their Sea Dog finery which includes custom embroidered polo shirts and some pretty snazzy shorts (thank to Michele for the idea and execution).

The theme for the costume party was Pirates night out. Michele took it a step further and being that we had four members on board Sea Dog, myself, Michele, Michelle and Keith, she suggested we do Peter Pan. We were a smash  hit!  I am sure we would have won best costumed boat crew if they had a contest. I will let you figure out who was who...

On Saturday night we were entertained by a traditional Bermudian dance troupe knows as the Gombeys. They are an iconic symbol of Bermuda blending the cultures of Africa, Caribbean and Britain through dance and drumming. After the performance we enjoying a BBQ on the outside deck of the St George's Dinghy and Sports club that offers sweeping views over the harbor.

The final night started with a rum tasting sponsored by Goslings, a 200 year rum dynasty on Bermuda. An interesting side note, they do not actually distill the rum in Bermuda as it is against the law to distill any hard alcohol. They import different rums and do the blending and aging to produce the various runs under the Gosling label. Goslings even makes there own ginger beer for the iconic Dark and Stormy, a Bermuda tradition and one tasty totty!. They do allow brewing, the local Bermuda ale was a big hit and very tasty. They ran out after the first night of events.

The rum tasting was following by a group picture on the lawn in front of the club and then another tasty buffer hosted the club.

We are the group of white polos shirts in the back left corner.

                     Check out my new official Bermuda shorts.

We ended up buying a couple different bottles of the Goslings rum duty free and have them stashed away on Sea Dog to be enjoyed on our arrival in the Azores.

Sea Dog and her crew where actually given a bottle of rum and a six back of ginger beer by Brenda the bartender at the club for being her favorite crew.  Lets just stay, it was a Dark and Stormy night aboard Sea Dog prior to departure and that one bottle of rum did not see a new day!  Arrrgghh.

Walsingham Nature Preserve and Blue Hole Park

We weighed anchor early this morning and motored down to the south west corner of Castle Harbour. We dropped anchor in about 25 ft of water and jumped in the dinghy for a wet ride to a small beach near Walsingham Nature Preserve. Once ashore we round our way thru the jungle like trail until we found one set of caves. We spent a hour or so exploring the caves. 

Michele, Keith and Michelle letting there eyes adjust to the darkness before venturing deeper into the cave.

There are multiple entrances into the caves so you get light from different angles that are really pretty.

I only bumped my head once and once is enough.

We then headed to Blue Hole Park, where there is literally a hole in the rocks filled with very blue water. It is a popular spot for locals and tourists alike. You can swim, snorkel and cliff jump from various spots along the rim.  The hole is affected by tide, so you need to judge the depth before you take a plunge. I went to the highest spot at the far end of the hole, but it looked to shallow for the height, so I changed plans. Really, the water was too shallow...

Here we go!

A safe landing.

The high spot with the shallow landing.

Michele taking the plunge.

I went to the next high spot where you can get a running start.

Second attempt, showing off a little bit.

There was also nice flora and fauna to be found in the preserve.

Not far from the preserve you cross the road into civilization in the form of the Grotto Bay Beach Resort and Spa. On the grounds is Cathedral Cave that is back lit with walking paths. You can swim in the cave but the water was pretty chilling, never seeing the sun.

After an exhausting morning of caving and cliff jumping, we acted like we were staying at the Resort and partook in the beautiful swimming pool on the ledge above a white sand beach and the blue waters of Bermuda. At the pool is an outside bar and cafe, unfortunately no one remember to carry a wallet, credit cards or cash. The grounds have pretty natural landscaping and I took this picture of a bird of paradise.

It was time to leave Castle Harbour and head back to St George's Harbour. The rest of fleet was starting to arrive. The fastest boats were in the harbour as we returned. Tonight was the first of several social events the are put on by the World Cruising Crew as part of Arc Europe 2023. It was an open bar socializer at the St George's Dinghy and Sports Club. We got to meet some of the other boaters that will be joining us on the next leg of our journey across the Atlantic. Seems like a good group of people and we are looking forward to more adventures and camaraderie.

Another spectacular sunset looking west over the St George's Harbour toward town from the balcony of the St George's Dinghy and Sports Club.

Sea Dog out.