Sailing vacation Azores

Back in Portugal

Getting to the Azores from Zurich is not that easy. Ok, it's not like getting to the end of the world, but it can be an exercise in patience that gets you ready for the "island time". Irina, Peter and I spent a weekend in Lisbon before getting on a 6:50am flight to Horta. We had a great time in Lisbon! In the afternoon the air would heat up to 35C, but it was dry, so that was generally ok for walking around and exploring the city.

The joy of taking an early flight was having a whole day ahead of us. As the plane was descending, we were on the right side to see Mt Pico being hugged by clouds. The plane then made a loop to land into the easterly wind. Seconds before landing we could see water to our right and volcanic rock to our left. And then all of a sudden the landing strip. Welcome to Horta!

The taxi dropped us of at the marina at 8:30, just in time for breakfast. We walked through Horta while looking for a place to eat and then back to the boat. We picked up the laundry, stowed away our personal belongings and started to get the boat into a ship-shape condition. Irina's sense for what a livable boat should look like is very different from that of 4 salty sailors! And of course we will be 7 this week, not 4, so using the forward cabin as a storage place where all unnecessary things are piled up is no longer an option.

For lunch we walked to the other side of the town. We found an open-air restaurant Ah! Boca Santa, which was running on "island time", but the food was great. The nearby supermarket was closed for lunch until 14:00, so Irina stayed back to see if she could stock on fresh groceries. There were 2 reviews on Google maps for the place: one that said that the produce is great and a second one that claimed that the shelves were empty. To Irina's dismay, the latter one turned out to be correct.

In the meantime, Peter and I headed back to the boat through Mid Atlantic Marine Services (our boatsitter) and the Horta marina. We got a replacement line for the outhaul, ordered a replacement line for the boom lift, and secured a different place in the marina where we would actually have water to fill up the tanks and finally give Salty Ginger a rinse after the crossing and the month of sitting idle in Horta.

By 6pm Irina was done with the messages she had to send and in that time Peter and I reran the outhaul and tightened the stanchion that was knocked out of its balance by the spinnaker pole falling onto it early during the crossing. We were now ready to get groceries!

The Continente supermarket was nothing spectacular until we got to the fish department. I understand that for the locals this is "just a fishmoger", but between moray eel, some other eel, and the variety of fish, half of which I have never seen in my life, I was blown away.

We talked to the woman at the counter through Translate app, and got her recommendation for fish that would be good for grilling. She cleaned the two different groupers that we picked with her help and with a few full bags of food we called a cab and got back to Salty Ginger.

Even though our friends' plane ended up being delayed, they arrived just after we stowed all the food. After a short tour for Natasha, Assi, Galya and Adam we were off to dinner.

Getting ready

The day before, the attendant in Horta called the harbormaster in Pico, who said that he could accommodate us on the outer wall. Not the best place, but in the predicted easterly, that will be more than fine. Given the tiny marina, having a spot was already great!

Peter woke up well before 7. I asked him to sit down and read a book, but I had no luck with that. His footsteps were heard throughout the boat and shortly Adam was up, so now it was 2 boys running around, jumping onto the concrete wall, back onto the boat. Finally, I heard Peter stomping towards the bow. This time I couldn't be upset: he was there to close the hatches since it started to rain. Fine, fine. I will get up.

Coffee, eggs, melon, cheese from Faial, sweet bread was a tasty but a rather bizarre mixture of foods that we had for breakfast. How Galya ended up sleeping through all of that until 9:30 is incomprehensible to me, but teenagers have their way when then need and can.

All 7 of us showed up to the marina office for check-out. We were quickly informed that only the skipper and the passports need to stay. Assi stayed with me while the others went in search of something tasty (didn't we just have breakfast?). I only expected to talk to the marina office since we had no intention of leaving the Portuguese waters, but no, one has to follow the procedure in the same order: settle the bill with the marina, get a stamp on the form (very quiet this time around!) from the National Guard, get a nod of approval from the customs. This time around the same customs officer whom we saw a month ago was not as talkative. He found the original record of us checking in and wished us a good sail to Pico.

Off to Pico

I'm no longer confused by the wind doing the thing that it does as opposed to what the weather forecast predicted. Instead of a southerly we had a northeasterly that made it easy to get off the southeast wall to which we were tied. We unrolled the main and pointed the bow toward the southern side of Pico.

Soon enough the wind decided to take a break. Since it was lunchtime, and it was relatively calm, we decided to cook rice and grill the two fish. While Irina was making a salad and the fish was grilling, the conditions changed. The persistent easterly of the past week created waves that Pico was blocking while we were between the islands, but were very well felt when we were south of it. The appetite of our guests evaporated.

Arguably, it was a bit weird to be putting down food while 4 crew members were not going to touch it, but the captain was very hungry. Irina and Peter less so, but were also happy to have food in their tummies.

The wind continued to build, and while it was a lovely sailing weather, we continued to motor. We were maybe 10 degrees shy of being able to sail close-hauled. Rather than extending the passage, I let Galya and Adam sleep. Soon enough Irina and Peter were catching z's.

By the time we were ready to pull into Pico Lajes, the wind was almost 15 knots, but we were now sheltered from the waves by the protruding landmass. Natasha furled the mainsail and we motored into the narrow marina entrance. I tried calling a number I found on the web, but whoever answered the phone hung up on me, so we didn't have much choice, but to go in.

Since we have the dinghy tied to the starboard side, we had to tie up on the port side. A couple of guys on the dock showed us to the place where we could tie up, and I put Salty Ginger in reverse while the wind was pushing us off the concrete dock. The stern dock line was tied right away, but we did have trouble with the bow line. Luckily, Irina was able to hand the amidships line to the guy on land and we straightened out the rest. The guys turned out to be French, from a boat tied up right next to us. They explained where the office was and looking at our American flag, assured me "on peut faire un deal, un grand deal".

The harbormaster saw me walking with the boat documents and correctly figured out that I must have been the skipper from the boat that just docked. He apologized for not coming out sooner to help us. "You were so fast!" He also showed me where the whale watching boats were, so maybe, just maybe we will have a chance of seeing a whale or two on our way back to Faial in a couple of days.