Landfall – Horta, Faial The Azores

After 15 nights at sea, land was sighted (where it should have been) on Sunday 26 May. We have had a good trip from Fort Louis, St Martin, though large portions have been in very light winds, and other parts in seriously strong winds. We endured a night of terrific thunder and lightening, 2 days and nights of torrential rain and 6 days where we did not see the sun. For the sailing part it was nearly all a broad reach on white sails, but the Bora Parasailor did make a very useful appearance for 9 hours, covering around 40nm as the wind dropped. That 40nm has made all the difference to our ability to motor the last 36 hours in the light airs.

2 am, pitch black and the lightening is awesome and terrifying.

Fishing wise we caught a lovely Mahi Mahi at the beginning of the trip but other than that have failed to land anything else. We did have 2 large fish on, so large that we could not even hold them on the reel, let alone start winding them in. The fish just made a run, stripped the line of the reel and than snap went the line. We also had a stowaway for a couple of days, a small yellow coloured finch. The custom of hands to bathe was followed a few days out whilst the wind was non-existent.

We have suffered relatively little damage on the crossing. Just the big genoa requires looking at. Some of the stitching is coming undone along the seams, a panel is flapping and we can see a few small holes. Luckily the sailmaker in Horta seems confident that they can sort out the issue next week. There is also some bad chafing on the genoa sheets, but that is easily resolved.

Despite all of this, we still had some wonderful sunsets/sunrises, even if we did go 5 days without seeing the sun.

2 sunrises and a sunset – can you tell which is which? (A clue, we are heading in an Easterly direction).

For those that have followed the updates on Yellowbrick our destination in The Azores has changed a few times, but we are now back to Plan A, Horta. We did think it would be pleasant to visit the most Westerly on the islands, Flores, but it is unclear how easy it is to get fuel there and they have very limited facilities. We then thought we would go to Ponta Delgada, the large marina on the most Easterly island. They have plenty of space and it would put us a day closer to the UK. However, a combination of fuel concerns and being turned down by the sailmaker prompted us to revert to Plan A and Horta. Our sail is now in the repair shop and we hope to have it back in a few days. The marina and anchorage at Horta is jam packed. The harbour master took pity on us and allowed us to spend our first night alongside the fuel dock. This made life convenient and also meant that we were first in the queue for fuel the next morning. By the time we were refuelling, there were another 3 boats rafted alongside us all waiting to fill up with diesel and water. We have also deposited a large load of smelly clothes at the serviced laundry.

Dolphins on the last day as Failal appears with Mt Pico above the clouds.

We now intend to spend a few days recovering in Horta, repair the genoa, refuel, charge up the batteries, fill the water tank and get more fresh supplies. We envisage departing Horta around 31 May/1 Jun depending on weather, sail repairs and whether we can squeeze in a short visit to another island. The aim is to get back to the UK in time for the crew to participate in the annual RTI race that commences in Cowes on 15 June.

Valent at anchor Horta with Pico in the background. The crew enjoying a well deserved meal at Peter’s bar after arriving.

For those that like some stats, we spent 15 nights at sea, the total crossing time was 15 Days and 5 Hrs. We covered a distance of around 2,300nm and motored for 136hrs or about 1/3 of the way. This is more than hoped but as expected given the light airs forecast at the start.