The Azores to England Part II

Day 10: Friday 12th August
The next week (at sea, but it still seems odd to write that about a Friday!) continued well, with Maid surging along with just one of the large jibs up. Having made several hundred miles north from the Azores I’d been gradually changing course over the last few days, and was now heading more or less towards England, not that I was really thinking about that yet.

I had a rather surprising encounter with another boat – especially as I was talking on the satellite phone on the time saying how unlikely it was! I’d only ever seen 4 other boats out sailing since leaving the Canaries, and always with land in sight as well, so out here I certainly didn’t expect to! But just as I was saying that a little white triangle appeared…

Richard and I had quite a chat on the VHF radio for as long as we were in range – he presumably hadn’t seen another boat for even longer since he had sailed from the east coast of the United States. We were both slightly surprised to discover that we were heading for the same place since it looked as though he was crossing in front of me almost at right-angles! So we swapped weather forecasts as well as chatting, but both continued with broadly the same plan.

I don’t know if it occurred to him to consider trying to keep company for the rest of the trip, though we did swap satellite phone numbers – it didn’t to me at the time. Even if I had thought of it close proximity to another boat while sailing long-distances single handed would seem to bring as much risk as reassurance, not to mention the fact that he was probably going to go rather faster.

I seem to have managed an entire day without any photos – or at least not any on wordpress ready to slot in. Never mind, this is late enough anyway!

Day 11: Saturday 13th August
The log (or ship’s diary) for 0130 on Saturday reads ‘dolphins! or something’ in slightly wavy handwriting. I could certainly hear something…. Dolphins seemed more likely than a whale or giant squid, and happily more likely to be benign as well.

The wind was getting a lot lighter but I tended not to increase sail during the night unless Maid was starting to roll around, and we were still making pretty good speed. I had turned eastwards from my original northerly course a few days before and definitely seemed to be getting a helping hand from the Gulf Stream.

With full sail in the day things were going very well. There was even a bit of a lull for a peaceful lunchtime, and a generally fairly good forecast.

After the strong winds of the day before, progress was slowly but certainly more relaxing.

Day 12: Sunday 14th August

The wind was fitful early Sunday morning – half five is never a good time to wonder if the wind is about to die completely – but happily the lull was only brief.

After that it was a glorious day – the wind varied a little requiring a few sail changes but the weather was beautiful. Like many tasks – when things are going well overall it’s no hardship, and a pleasure to get the boat sailing at her best.

 

After a couple of days sailing close to the wind we were back to having it coming from behind us again – a smoother ride but with more rolling. It may look worse than it felt – it’s certainly something you get used to.

I was having no problems with solar power for the batteries either, with plenty spare for playing music in the afternoons, though I tended to conserve it at night.

Horace was doing an impressive job of steering – this is a tricky point of sailing as the wind feels relatively light since you’re sailing away from it and a large deviation from the course can cause a nasty surprise if the wind comes the wrong side of one of the sails.

Day 13: Monday 15th August

Early the next morning I saw the first boats from the UK, though I can’t say I was exactly pleased to be worrying about keeping clear of a fishing fleet in the early hours of the morning, especially when the wind changed at one point and I found Horace had brought us surprisingly close to them!

Still, if he hadn’t I suppose the photo wouldn’t have come out this well….

 

Dolphins are much better than coffee for waking up after a busy night though.

Maid was doing a speed they seemed quite happy with and we kep company for quite a while.

 

Photos can’t really convey the excitement of seeing dolphins in the wild but the next one gives a reasonable impression of the boat sailing fast and shoving her way through the waves- though of course a video would give a better idea of the noise!

 

In fact, why don’t we try that?

Day 14: Tuesday 16th August
The next day had rather less excitement, unless you counted the fact that it was starting to seem like I was getting lose enough to home that tidal streams might be starting to affect us more strongly – they’re much more powerful in narrow spaces like the English Channel than the open ocean.

I don’t think that counts though, especially as I tended to wonder it when going slowly! Thinking of 3 knots as slow showed how well the trip was going though – at two weeks in the routine of regularly looking round, plotting position and occasional course and sail changes was feeling very normal.

It felt far from dull though, as we were usually making good progress, which felt good in itself as much as it did as a means towards getting home.

The evening’s sunset was rather lurid. In theory this is as delightful for sailors as shepherds’s but it ddid’t quite work out like that.



The wind was dying away in the evening, though we were making reasonable ground with a lot of sail up. However, I was expecting stronger wind in the early hours of the next morning so reduced to the normal maximum, but ended up going very slowly indeed, and then even more so when the wind died away at around 11.

It ended up seeming best to take everything down – the boat rolled a little more but at last it wasn’t making a huge racket by flapping the mainsail back and forth. It would have been a lovely peaceful nights sleep, except that knowing we were drifting the wrong way wasn’t exactly ideal.

Day 15: Wednesday 17th August
The wind did come back the next morning, but nothing like the strength I’d been concerned about. The direction was tricky though – more or less straight from where I wanted to go, and (again blaming this on the tide flowing west) I seemed to have the choice of heading for Ireland or France!

It was especially frustrating as a few days before I’d been concerned about getting pushed too far north and putting up with spray crashing over the boat and a bumpy ride to avoid it. With hindsight I’d have been much better positioned now as well as more comfortable then if I’d just gone with it.

Still, with the latest forecast it looked like the best plan for now was to head straight north while I could and then turn eastward when the wind went northerly, even if I was wishing I’d done it earlier!

Tonight’s sunset was much less colourful…

…but we were making much better progress, though it was frustrating at times when the wind pushed us slightly east. Having made my plan I was happy to stick with it though – it seemed best still and even if it hadn’t I might have been inclined to wait till morning to change it dramatically.

Day 16: Thursday 18th August

The earl hours of the morning brought a fair bit of excitement, with the AIS showing lots of boats nearby.

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on, but I eventually realised my cunning plan involved crossing the fleet of yachts competing in the Fastnet Race (from Cowes round the Fastnet Rock just off southern Ireland and back to Plymouth) at right angles. Oops.

Not that I’d have wanted to go the way they were going – the whole point of my plan was to get north while I could and have an easier sail later on, rather than heading south of the Scillies and then having to try and sail close to the wind. Not that it was likely to pose much of a problem for them, but then racing is a different matter.

It was exciting to see the islands though – I would have loved to stop there but didn’t have any detailed charts of the area, which is very rocky and not a good place to go without them.

There was a horribly frustrating calm spell in the morning making that especially irritating – it’s much easier to be patient in mid-ocean that within sight of land – partly psychological and partly for very good reasons relating to the strong tides and number of ships and boats around.

Thankfully the wind did get up again, quickly going from very light airs to a lovely breeze – facing the challenge of trying to fold a sail measuring several hundred square feet into a sensible size on deck felt a very small price to pay!



From then on the sailing was fantastic, with a great wind, smooth seas and the tide helping Maid charge past the Scillies. There was added excitement from sightseeing – from the Seven Stones lightship…

…to Land’s End and Cape Cornwall..

…and the Wolf Rock lighthouse.

After a fortnight of measuring progress on a chart it was a real thrill to actually pass things I could see, especially with the boat going so beautifully.

 

 

There were even some welcome-back fireworks at Land’s End that evening.

It could be considered slightly anti-climatic to spend that evening becalmed off Mount’s Bay, but lying just north of the shipping lanes it was a very peaceful night.

Day 17: Friday 19th August
The morning was beautiful but calm, and the forecast wasn’t promising much wind.

I rather fancied stopping somewhere quiet for a first night or two, and ended up heading to the nearest anchorage in Mullion Cove, tucked in behind Mullion Island. That is, I did after belatedly realising I was heading into the next bay north and turning round rather hastily in case there were any rocks lurking – even after a thousand miles a few hundred yards can make a lot of difference!

Although the previous day’s sailing had been among the best of the whole trip, it still felt very nice to have the anchor down – and it helped that it was a beautiful day, perfect for getting the kayak out, taking some photos, going to the beach and seeing if I could buy some fish off a couple of locals….

Of course, readers with impressive memories might recall some of that, and recognise that last photo but then getting to this post has taken quite a while – time definitely seems to move rather differently now!

The internet is very very strange. Or rather, it is used by strange people.

Getting there on Part II of the way back, but it’s going to be a little while. In the meantime, we have something completely different.

As well as providing the basic tools to make a very easy-to-write blog (well, once Caroline had set it all up anyway), WordPress provide various features that I generally don’t really use.

One of these is the option to look at what terms people who’ve found the blog via search engines like google or yahoo had typed in.

After reading them, I think that the puzzledometer Sarah made me at university needs recalibrating slightly. Something like this…

puzzled

- kittens. Surely that’s a bit nonspecific?

- going through the mistiness and less poetic, but even more general, windy and raining, windy in cloud and frosty morning. No-one seems to have found the blog looking for nice weather.. Which is remarkable, given the prevailing climate for most of the trip.

- fuerteventura girl. What, the Fuerteventura girl? Actually, I can’t remember being introduced, and I’m sure I would..

bemused

- 3 hits from soda machine ballast - well, I guess it could work, especially with a remote control. Good for cleaning bilges too.

- diving and guinness. Doesn’t sound a good idea.

- don’t look down at the mud. Why not?

- tenerife +the pirate and the nun 1) in which monastery does the nun ‘sleep’ today – they seem to have had something very specific in mind, but I have no idea whatsoever as to what it might be

intrigued

- homemade madeira wine (twice). Now that sounds like a project!

- cocoa crater erupted (twice). Mmmm. Pyroclastic flow here I come!

- bolo do pico (twice)- assuming Pico refers to the island in the Azores there may be more exciting posts about bread to come.

– mount teides shadow longest uninterrupted in the world – that does sound possible.

horrified

- 2 hits from mouse being eaten by terrapin. I guess that also sounds possible, but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind. Ugh.

- i feel my waist is aching travelling towards my legs there’s a discharge like cheese. Um. On the off-chance typing this attracts you back again, I’d go and see a doctor, whether that’s a description of physical symptoms or random rambling.

amused

- 1 hit from definition arjee bargie. And argee bargee. And arjee bhajee (that one sounds like it might be tasty). Well, I guess Caroline did provide a few, but I don’t think they’re the originals.. Bit confused that they kept coming back..

- madeira scary. That cake can be vicious. Though I think they probably meant the steep drops alongside the levadas..

- horrible hilly hundreds ?

- how to handle maid quit impromptu I’ve

generally worried about me/us, not Maid. Can’t help you I’m afraid..

- seasick maid. Similarly, she’s the only one that’s never suffered.

- on that note, all the variations on biodramina. I think Caroline may be the internet authority. She and Chris probably share that title for bolo do caco too.

- queen christmas dinner. Maybe next year.

- sailing euphemisms. Unless she hears some of those anyway.

- 1 hit from one step forward two steps back. Not something I or we tend to intentionally look for. Unlike..

- 2 hits from huge roast dinner, 1 for roast dinner, 1 for carvery, 1 for huge carvery, 1 for roast dinner, carvery, 1 for huge carvery dinner

- Carvery and roast good, pizza variable: 1 for pizza hut buffet versus 1 for nasty pizza buffet

baffled

- 2 hits from throwing tin of beans. I guess it’s a step away from the gluttony entries.

- And 1 for tin of beans cakes. Probably a bit strange, but probably less dangerous and wasteful than throwing it.

- 1 for eating tin beans. Hurrah, someone with a normal relationship with tins of beans! Although hang on, what are they hoping to find by searching for that on the internet? If you’re looking for reassurance, yes, that is a common activity.

- 4 hits from tank hone. I may need to search for ‘tank hone’ now to see if I can find what they were looking

for. Not interested enough for it to qualify as intrigued though.

- how much for bread in porto santo? How much were they planning on buying?

- what is mt teide’s fuel (?) ? indeed..

Some of them I understood, but still look pretty funny in the context of the blog, or just generally. How about a little quiz?

What could rouse reign mean? (click here for answer)

and why on earth could hermione granger knitting bring our blog up? (click here for answer)

back to amused again

1 search for lovely confusion. I think that says it all really. Ah, recursion..

The Azores to England Part I

normal service is resumed : )

Day 1: Wednesday 3rd August

It was a pleasant surprise to have a nice breeze leaving the sheltered eastern coast of Graciosa, and an even nicer one when the wind and waves didn’t increase significantly on getting clear of the island. In fact, my immediate reaction was ‘is this it?’ – though with a fair bit of excitement at starting the trip, with over 1000 miles to go.

Of course it helped that things were going well – sailing quickly and comfortably, and also with some desserts from a cafe in Vila da Praia to savour. I’ve forgotten what this is called, but it’s effectively a pastry containing a caramelised miniature rice pudding, and extremely tasty.

I was heading almost due north initially, following the advice of the pilot book and also hoping to follow the movement of favourable winds for a significant chunk of the way back towards England.

There was some initial excitement that night – I called an approaching ship up on the radio and was told they could see me were keeping well clear of me, but it didn’t look that way. The AIS showed them swerving suddenly to one side after I called them, and then back again after they’d passed, and 3-400m (confirmed on the AIS) didn’t feel like a long way off at all in the dark!

Day 2: Thursday 4th August

Maid was still sailing very well the next day, though the latest forecast suggested I might not be quite as lucky with the weather as I’d hoped.

Here’s another anonymous dessert (or two!) from Graciosa – this one a layered coconut confection.

The wind had been gradually increasing and by the middle of the night I’d taken one of the jibs down and reefed the mainsail to it’s smallest possible sail area. We were still making excellent progress northwards, though I was careful to make sure we stayed clear of a large underwater ridge extending north from Graciosa.

Day 3: Friday 5th August

The next day was similar, although the wind was forecast to get significantly lighter that evening and Saturday.

It did reduce during the day, but also swung round to come more from ahead rather than the side, and together with me putting more sail up again we kept moving nicely.

Day 4: Saturday 6th August

That lasted though the night, but not long after breakfast the wind pretty much died for half the day. I did have another visitor, though much less chatty than Cheepcheep, and more inclined to lurk in corners than perch on heads.

I definitely need the Passagemakers’ Bird Care handbook, as this one died as well..

The last time that had happened a strong headwind blew up not long afterwards. There was indeed a forecast of strong winds for the next day, but from a more favourable direction, and a nice light wind to get going again in the meantime. It was a bit shifty at first but I was glad to be able to get onto a settled course by the evening.

Then it changed again. It’s hard to convey the depth of the (ridiculous) indignation this can inspire when you think you’re just going to be popping out for the occasional look around overnight and then find you’re heading for Portugal.

Still, having tacked I was able to head in about the right direction….

Day 5: Sunday 7th August

…until very early the next morning. The situation eventually resolved itself with a dead calm. No concerns about sailing in the wrong direction now!

This is one of the things I was getting on with – cutting some plywood blanks to go over the fittings where the anchor chain passes down through the deck into the chain lockers below, and tying the chain on and lowering it right in before sealing it up.

Normally that’s not necessary, but a near gale was forecast which would probably mean that area of the deck getting quite wet, and draining water out of the chain lockers is a time-consuming and awkward job, definitely best avoided if possible.

After a while of pottering around doing jobs with all the sails down the wind eventually increased a little. I guessed wrong the first time about which side to pole out on of the largest jibs, but didn’t mind too much since we were moving again.

This continued steadily for a while, until quite a sudden increase in the evening. I got the large jib down and was rather impressed to see Maid was sailing at 2 knots with no sails up at all!

Unsurprisingly, putting a couple of smaller jibs up made for even better progress.

Day 6: Monday 8th August

There was a very odd sea state early the next morning. The waves weren’t at all big but breaking a lot – noisy and disconcerting, and making the boat roll quite jerkily. I tried altering course and setting a jib either side of the boat, but that didn’t improve matters at all.

It seemed a bit better by the morning – I think the waves had settled down a bit though of course daylight may have helped! Noises and motion are definitely more significant when you’re trying to sleep.

The wind was gradually decreasing, and by the evening I set the mainsail to get going a bit faster.

It gave a nice speed boost for a while, but later that evening the wind increased and it came down again. It seemed to be a pattern that the wind was stronger overnight – not particularly welcome!

Day 7: Tuesday 9th August

The next day broke the pattern though, with the wind increasing further and gusts reaching the forecast near gale strength. With the wind slightly from behind it wasn’t a problem though, and Maid was storming along doing around her theoretical maximum speed despite a lot of weed and barnacles on the bottom.

I was glad I wasn’t further west, where there was a lot more wind, and hoped to keep moving north-east to get closer to home and keep away from the stronger winds nearer the centre of the low.

There’s always a balance to strike between progress and preparedness though, and I took one of the jibs down late in the evening and turned more away from the wind for a quieter night.

Day 8: Wednesday 10th August

Things were still going well on Wednesday, gradually increasing sail a little as the wind dropped. The weather was not great though..

I decided it definitely wasn’t worth setting an alarm to keep looking round when I couldn’t see anything anyway, and it actually led to a very nice night’s sleep – a very pleasant novelty not to be regularly interrupted for once!

Day 9: Thursday 11th August

I might have been less at ease if it had been the next night, as I was clearly approaching a shipping route, and after ages without seeing any several appeared in the space of a few hours.

There definitely weren’t enough to interfere with cooking though…

All in all, it was a pretty good first week.

Have A Nikita M’Dear: the non-eponymous drinks of Madeira

(This is a bit of a jump in time, but it is going to take me a while to sort out videos etc. to write the full colour version of the sail back from the Azores – so here’s something I started writing in Madeira but didn’t get around to finishing at the time..)
Not that madeira wine isn’t very nice, but there are plenty of other options…

Although poncha is now very much associated with Madeira, some guides will admit that this was originally an English import from India in the mid eighteenth century, which was adapted to local ingredients and became extremely popular. The most common version comprises sugar cane spirit, honey, lemon juice and lemon zest.

(with carne de vinho e alho – beautifully tender pork marinated in wine and garlic)

Freshly made it is delicious, albeit with quite a kick, and is served hot or cold depending on the season. Some bars make a vast number of variations, from pescador (fisherman’s) to maracuja (passion fruit) and a rather lethal sounding verde (with absinthe as the spirit).

Bottled you mostly get the kick – or you did when I tried it once, and probably won’t again.

If you’re ordering a niquita, or nikita, that’s not really an issue since it contains ice cream. I might have had a bit more trepidation about drinking it if I hadn’t mistakenly though the alcohol content was just white wine, rather than white wine and beer, with vanilla ice cream and chunks of pineapple. It makes for a very refreshing long drink, especially on a hot day.

Having tried these, I was left with the one that definitely didn’t sound drinkable, or even edible, in whatever language. The Pe da Cabra, or the Goat’s Foot. I was rather expecting it to be a Regional Specialty very much in accord with the Pratchett usage of the term.

I knew it was a little strange, but I’d actually forgotten the full details of the ingredients list the day I tried it, so watching the barman make it was fascinating but tinged with revelatory horror at nearly every step.

He began with a small bottle of beer from the fridge.
Then he poured a small glass of dry Madeira wine, and mixed them.
Then he added some sugar.
Then he added a big heaped teaspoon of drinking chocolate powder and mixed that in too.
Then he cut some big chunks of rind off a lemon and added that in.

It was actually very good.

Now we go from the traditional to what’s apparently quite a modern idea – sugar cane juice (rum is of course very traditional). It’s unsurprisingly sweet, but not excessively so, and wonderful chilled in warm weather.

This cherry liqueur was unsurprisingly served up at the cherry festival in Jardim da Serra – a gorgeous colour and quite tasty as well, though actually a bit too sweet for me – rather surprising in comparison to the sugar cane juice!

And this is cidra (or sidra) – similar to English cider, this was quite a sweet version, but quite a few different versions are available.

I never actually got around to having a caipirinha, more famously associated with Brazil but unsurprisingly popular in Madeira and Portugal as well. They’re considerably easier to find elsewhere though..

P.S. I’ll be impressed if anyone figures out the reference in the title..

Going to Graciosa, and further on. Or should I say further back?

After the tour of Faial my thoughts turned to leaving the island again. I had been hoping to travel a couple of hundred miles further west to Flores and Corvo, but after spending nearly a week in Horta it still wasn’t looking like it was going to happen, with either calms or wind from the west.

It was looking quite a good forecast for heading home, though I did want to make a stop at Graciosa first, and it looked like that might even be an advantage for the trip back.

Again it was a bit frustrating leaving, with the choice between either leaving in the day and probably arriving in the dark, or leaving in the evening and quite possibly getting becalmed by the wind dropping at night. I nearly left one evening, but I stopped by Harry’s boat to say goodbye, and got invited to share dinner with him and Reiner, by which time the wind had died.

Early the next morning was beautifully still

but the wind started picking up, so off I went.

The first hour or so sailing away from Horta were beautiful, but as I turned towards Graciosa the wind died, and I ended up rolling around while the catamaran I’d been more or less keeping pace with shot away to the east. I was starting to think that while I’d be sorry to leave the islands I was rather fed up of sailing between them.

The wind kept reappearing in bursts, sending Maid hurtling in one direction, then stopping, and then off in another.

Eventually I decided that on average, sailing straight downwind with one of the largest jibs up would probably work, and was rather surprised when it did!

You can see the end of Sao Jorge in the background. It’s a very long, narrow island, and the view of the western tip with the lighthouse I’d walked to and along the coast was quite something, especially with the thick layer of cloud above it.

Here’s the view from the other side of the point, where you can see further along the north coast.

The wind got slightly stronger and steadier and it turned into a superb sail until I eventually dropped the anchor off the little fishing harbour at Vila da Praia on Graciosa at about 4 am. Any doubts about the plan to stop had been firmly quashed when I realised I was considering starting a voyage that would probably take 2-3 weeks without any garlic aboard.

Besides the obvious, I was also looking forward to following in Prince Albert of Monaco’s path and visiting the ‘Furnas do Enxhofre’ caves in one of the largest craters on the island.

So at 8 or 9 in the morning I nosed my way into the fishing harbour to try and find a berth. It was pretty windy, so initially I just went in for a look before going alongside the easiest looking pontoon on the second go, though I was guessing I’d probably have to move… once I could find someone to tell me.

Or as it ended up being, someone who would tell me the right answer. I didn’t really understand the first bloke I asked, but he didn’t seem very encouraging. Happily I could understand the second man I found much better, and he seemed to think Maid would be fine just where she was.

Handily there was a bus due to go into the capital where I could change to go to the crater, though I ended up going a bit earlier as the man I’d been checking directions with and I were both offered a lift in another local’s truck.

I had a little time to look around Santa Cruz, the not-particularly-bustling capital,

before getting a bus towards the Caldeira. From the nearest village it was quite a nice walk to the crater’s edge

though I was glad there was a tunnel through the rim rather than having to climb up it – maybe later..

I got as far as the entrance to the caves and accompanying visitor’s centre

but unfortunately no further. Carbon dioxide emissions within the caves are monitored continually as they can build up to dangerous levels at times, especially when the temperature difference between inside and outside is relatively small.

The readouts definitely didn’t look good today, in fact promising unconsciousness or death within a matter of seconds in the area of the subterranean lake. Here are a couple of pictures from the visitors centre to show you what I’d been hoping to see – the 7 storey entrance tower (strongly resembling Orthanc, I’m sure Saruman could have bred some hideous orcs down there)

and the underground lake.

Maybe another time, if there is one.

I got talking to Manny and Bea, an emigrant couple returning to the Azores on holiday from their home in America, on the way back up and accepted their kind offer of a lift up to and around the crater rim. We couldn’t always see very much due to low clouds, but it was still relatively clear over the east coast and Vila da Praia.

As the weather improved slightly I said my goodbyes and hopped out to continue on foot and visit a couple of lava tubes before returning to the boat.

The most impressive one was a big pear-drop shaped (as the lava tend to pool downwards) tunnel

going right through the top of the crater wall

The weather got better still as I descended the crater side, and in the end I was quite glad of the shade of an old tree-lined path once used by ox-carts hauling goods inland from the harbour.

There were lots of abandoned buildings along the route. Several waves of people have emigrated from many of the Azores in times of economic hardship or poor harvests, leaving a number of the islands still relatively sparsely populated today.

It was also time for me to head off once I’d done a final restocking of the galley and check out the weather forecast in Vila da Praia, in a little bar with the locals noisily watching bull-running videos inside and football outside.

That said, there was nearly a last-minute hiccup – just as I was stowing the food below another sailing boat which had temporarily moored alongside me during the day moved to another berth which had become free. In the process of very nearly executing an impressively slick turning manoeuvre they motored straight into the back of Horace.

Leaving for England with a damaged self-steering gear did not appeal – though nor did sailing the 40 miles or so back to Horta and the probable nearest machine shop if anything needed fixing. Fortunately Hydrovanes are very strongly built and he seemed fine, though I would now need to check the adjustable vane wouldn’t rub as it’s upright position appeared to have been shifted forwards slightly.

After that it was a bit of a relief to get out of the harbour and past the little island just offshore.

Normally I’ve had a strange kind of sense of unreality, of feeling almost like I’ll come to my senses and change my mind any moment, while leaving places, but though this would be easily the longest passage so far it was also very much the clearest good forecast.

Waiting would mean sitting out another few days of calms before rather strong westerlies, which might have tempted me to delay further, and that would get me uncomfortably close to the time I wanted to have gone by, with the likelihood of rough weather increasing as August wore on. Sooner definitely looked better than later.

Faial (out of imaginative titles at the moment)

From the moment I stepped ashore to go and show my passport and papers I was walking across the paintings which cover pretty much every flat surface around the harbour of Horta.

Here are a few (!) of them with a bit more light, and Pico towering in the background.

It’s a long-standing tradition that the crew of visiting boats should make their mark somewhere or risk bad luck for the coming voyage away from the islands.

Since the nearest other land is hundreds of miles away, the result is that the harbour is very colourful indeed, although old designs get painted over as they become illegible.

It looks like this chap may have expired part-way through working on his…perhaps he was in a bit of a rush?

I think this is my favourite, managing to make rough concrete look like the natural surface for an impressionistic painting – I wonder if Monet ever tried it?

I was hoping to head off to Flores within a few days, so my painting was one of the first things I did. It took a fair bit of walking round to find a free space, but I eventually managed it. I was surprised by the number of paintings I recognised even with the huge number of them.

As I started I realised just why it was free, and had to go back to the boat to get a bucket to stand on so I could actually reach it! Still, it worked out reasonably..

This is another icon of Horta – the Peter Cafe Sport, which has been a harbourside institution for years.

I went there for a drink with Harry, who we first met in Madeira and had sailed up from Las Palmas a month or two before me. I’m glad I left later and didn’t share his experience of tacking into a gale..

The walls and ceiling are covered with nautical memorabilia, and even this late in the season it was bustling. It’s still within the good season for cruising in the Azores, but many boats that have been away for a year doing a circuit across the Atlantic and back had been and gone already as it doesn’t allow so much time for stopping in the Azores.

Another tradition is the board of messages tacked up above the bar – I was delighted to find one from Trycha, Alice and Jilly who we’d met on Triple D on Porto Santo and Madeira the previous year, with another note from Mick who I’d met in Las Palmas.

There’s definitely more to Faial than the harbour and it’s surroundings though – in fact there’s a magnificent half-a-crater easily within walking distance

with a great view back over Horta

You can see most of the town there – it’s a bit surprising that it’s only home to about 15,000 people considering the fame of the harbour, but then these are quite remote islands. It is very pretty though.

The beach at Porto Pim was an unexpected delight, though sadly anchoring is forbidden to protect submarine data cables. It’s still a beautiful, gently shelving beach for a swim though, feeling really pretty warm.

Once it would have been rather different – the building on the far side of the bay is the old whale processing factory – now a museum, with a lot of the equipment still in situ, including the giant furnaces

and various machinery for grinding etc. – meal and oil were the main outputs.

I was surprised to learn that whaling was actually introduced here from North America rather than the other way round. Many Azorean men joined North American whalers as crew, and after a couple of decades they had more or less taken over most of the whaling ships in the north Atlantic until it became uneconomic in the 20′s. There are still large expatriate communities in American east coast ports today – in fact I think about as many Azoreans live abroad as in the islands.

Whaling from the islands continued until the 80′s – I’d imagine that the Portuguese economy wasn’t rich enough to enable it to be continued as ‘research’. A lot of the entries in the guestbook took a surprisingly moralising tone about whaling having been carried out here at all, though I’d imagine they weren’t all vegan. Apparently size matters.

It certainly does make an impression, even in photographic form.

It is quite strange to see the film clips from the 70′s and 80′s, with men still using hand harpoons in small boats towed out from the islands by motor launches – Herman Melville would probably have found it quite familiar. This is one of the whaling boats in the harbour

and here are a few more under sail

A lot of the locals interviewed were somewhat nostalgic for that way of life, but it’s also clear it was hard, dangerous and poorly paid work, and probably only continued after it had ceased in America because there were less alternative means of employment in the islands.

Happily whale and dolphin-watching trips are now proving very popular, though having arrived by boat I wasn’t really tempted!

I was keen to see more of the interior a few days later, thanks to the friends I’d made on Pen Duick II, who were there as part of a classic boat rally from France to Horta and back. The skipper David had stopped by to say hello and ask something about Maid, and after a few minutes of chatting and offering him a drink I found myself on Pen Duick enjoying some Pico wine and cheese with the rest of the very hospitable crew (thanks to Bernard for most of the following photos).

She’s quite some boat – much longer than Maid but less headroom inside- but then she was designed as a racing boat, most famously competing in an early singlehanded transatlantic race sailed by Eric Tabarly.

Having seen a bit more of each other over the next few days, including a very nice dinner cooked up by Bernard, I jumped at the chance to join them for a tour of the island.

We first went up to the main crater in the centre

- an opportunity to check roughly how far there was left to go -

- and then on a bit of a coastal tour, before stopping for a very nice barbecued buffet lunch in a woodland picnic similar to the one I’d walked through on Sao Jorge. Even with our coachload there were vast amounts of space free- it must be quite something if they ever get fully used. Probably half a village could picnic in one!

After lunch we carried on to the western end and another abandoned lighthouse, this one due to a volcanic eruption sometime in the 60′s or 70′s that filled it’s ground floor with sand

and created a large area of new land beyond it, presumably meaning it could be rather misleading. Most of that has been eroded away now but there’s an awful lot left!

Although the morning had been quite misty the afternoon was beautiful, and quite a few of us went for a quick swim when the coach stopped for a coffee break on the way back – a lovely end to a very nice day.

And being the start of August, time to think about moving on again..

Kernow a’gas Dynnergh

Or welcome to Cornwall. Just when I thought I’d run out of tricky foreign languages to try and learn..

I did say I’d try and catch up on what I’ve been up to since I got back as well as carrying on with the story through the Azores and back to here. You can use the tags and categories to get things to appear in a more sensible order if it gets too confusing.

So, my first stop in England, sorry, Cornwall – many would say there’s definitely a difference – was Mullion Cove. It’s a little bay to the west of the Lizard, looking back across Mount’s Bay to Penzance and Mousehole, provided with a very little shelter by Mullion Island just offshore.

It was idyllic in the afternoon – I paddled ashore to the beach visible just astern of Maid..

and also said hello to some locals out for a days fishing, who very kindly provided me with a very fresh fish for dinner.

Unfortunately it didn’t stay this idyllic – the wind got up rather more than forecast and when the tide was going the opposite way to it the shelter of the island wasn’t really enough to make it all that uncomfortable. I’d been just about to enjoy a celebratory drink of honey rum & lemon juice but decided I’d better leave it for the next day in case I had to make a hasty exit.

The next morning was much less pleasant – grey and wet, and the sea still quite lumpy. I left straight after the early morning forecast with the aim of tacking around the Lizard while the tide was still favourable.

At this point, the wind promptly dropped away to nothing, so I ended up motor-sailing for an hour or so into a rather lumpy sea, in the rain..

Happily, that only lasted an hour or so – then the wind returned, I was able to turn eastwards and ride the waves rather than plunging into them, and the tide was helping to rush Maid eastwards around the point rather than trying to take her northwards into the bay.

Time for the sushi I’d made with some of the fish yesterday…

The sun even came out later, providing a lovely sail around to the Helford River on the opposite side of the peninsula, just south of Falmouth. The wind got lighter again, but with some additional sail and flat water it wasn’t a problem this time.

In fact the opposite was the case when the wind suddenly increased again just as I was approaching a lot of moored boats – cue a rapid removal as all sail as I didn’t fancy storming through them at that speed since I’d only visited the river by land before..

I did at least have verbal instructions, as there was a good anchorage just upstream from Mike & Carolyn’s Phantom Lady – I’d been planning on on stopping here since saying goodbye to them several months before in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.

This is the view looking downstream from there. It’s certainly a beautiful and sheltered spot, and it was great to see them both again over the next few days.

I ended up staying a bit longer than I’d planned to see the Helford regatta, and did quite a bit of exploring round the local area in the portabote, the kayak and on foot.

The banks of the Helford are home to some lovely woodland

- and some very nice little villages.

and have inspired at least one novel – Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchmans Creek, the bottom of which you can see below.

A lot of people seem to have been grumbling about the summer weather this year, but it was mostly pretty nice there, though some mornings were rather misty, almost like those French canals…

Definitely porridge weather..

Fortunately the evening before the regatta was beautiful, as the village stores in Helford was hosting a paella night. Didn’t I leave Spain a while ago? I think about 300 people were there, and very well catered for – below you can see just one of the three dishes…

I think this is pretty much the final fling of the village social calendar before all the second-home owners disappear for the winter – it was certainly a good party

and an excellent adventure finding my way back out of the village and through the woods to the dinghy afterwards, with a long line of us winding our way down muddy paths having forgotten to take torches..

The regatta day itself looked like it might turn out rather wet, but fortunately it cleared again by the time the tide had risen enough to allow all the races to be held in the creek in front of the pub. The one-oar paddling race and backwards rowing competitions were definite highlights.

The most gruelling event was probably a two-man effort – rowing to one place, dropping off a runner who had to go up a steep hill and back through Helford to get to another landing spot in the other direction before being rowed back to the finish.

Afterwards most people moved up to a cafe near the sailing club for refreshments and music before the fireworks display.

Mike had said the fireworks would probably be very good, and he was definitely right. It might not have been quite on the scale of some of the Portuguese displays, but for a spectacular 8 or 9 minutes it was pretty close.

The next day I went ashore to pick a few more blackberries and then set sail about an hour before low water. That meant I had the tide with me to get down to the bottom of the Helford River, and slack water and then tide with me to take me up Carrick Roads and the Truro River to an Ocean Cruising Club gathering.

I did make a bit of a spectacle of myself on arrival with a couple of aborted approaches to the pontoon before deciding I definitely needed to approach from the other direction, at which point Maid pretty much berthed herself while I moved the fenders around.

I was also decidedly late, so it was a dramatic entrance all round! It had been a very nice sail though, and all the people I knew (Liz, Mark & Chloe on Lone Rival, the boat ahead of Maid) or knew by association and occasional correspondence about pilot book revisions (Anne on Wrestler, moored outside Lone Rival) were planning on staying overnight.

Although they’d pretty much finished lunch this did have it’s advantages, as the food and drinks tables were moved down alongside Maid a few minutes after tying up.

Everyone staying for the night met up again later on for dinner with some additional guests helping themselves to Chloe’s very tasty punch.

Mum made all of these three at various times, and they’ve done a fair bit of sailing between them – Scubus (left) racing across the Atlantic with Liz and Anne, and lots more cruising since, Cornelius going all round Africa in Lone Rival, and Josh having accompanied me down to the Canaries and back.

The next day I rather remarkably managed to establish mobile contact with Si & Cat who we’d met last year in France, and sailed back down the Fal and went past St Mawes to a beautifully peaceful and sheltered anchorage at Percuil

before joining them for a trip to the famous ‘Plume of Feathers’ in Portscatho. It was quite strange to see them again on land, with both our boats having their masts up and everything, but another very good evening.

The next day I dropped down to St Mawes in the evening to catch up with Nick on Wylo II, who I’d last seen in the Canaries (and before that in Penryn not long after we’d bought the boat), and marvel at his photos of classic boats racing in Antigua this summer. He designed the boat himself, and has since sailed her around the world three or four times at least. Falmouth harbour is another crossroads similar to Horta – I’d seen one of the boats in the last photo there as well though I’d never spoken to the owners.

St Mawes itself is a very picturesque little town, still with a couple of working fishing boats though it is largely a rather genteel seaside resort now.

From the other side of the Percuil it’s a short and very scenic walk around the coast

to St Antony’s Head, which eighties kids’ TV aficionados may be excited to learn was the home of the Fraggles.

The water is beautifully clear, if a little chilly. In fact the first time I went swimming it felt like I’d imagine rolling in broken glass would be, but much nicer once you stopped, though after that it’s seemed much more pleasant.

Brrrrrrr!

The cliffs are also a great place for watching boats racing in the harbour, especially the traditional working boats which set a huge area of sail.

I sailed across and anchored off Falmouth for a few days (Maid is on the left). It was quite strange approaching Custom House Quay from the sea when I could really only remember it from the land – it is tucked right round the corner near the docks, almost in the shadow of the warhips. I suspect anchoring there would have been banned by now if it wasn’t such a long-standing tradition.

From there I got a rather early bus to Helston to see the Cornish Gorsedh, or ‘Gathering of the Bards’ – hence my use of Cornish in the title. This is the equivalent of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and was attended by guests from Wales and Brittany as well as the surprisingly numerous Cornish bards.

The weather was unfortunately living up to Celtic tradition, with some additions to the ceremonies required – well done for your poem in Cornish, efforts in schools or promoting Cornish culture, we’ll just tip the rainwater out of your cup; sit down here, I’ll just tip the water off it..

The music and singing was unsurprisingly very good, though it did come as something of a relief to enjoy it indoors out of the drizzle after the main ceremony had ended.

Thankfully the weather didn’t stay like that… This is Gyllngvase beach on the southern side of Falmouth after a walk around the castle.

It’s not all that cheap to stay off Falmouth even anchoring, but it was handy to have hot showers and things, and I did a lot of washing and a little shopping before sailing back to Percuil to check it would be a good place to leave the boat for a few days. It was certainly a good test of it, with near gale force winds roaring up the river. It was certainly noisy, but not really rough, and none of the four of us anchored there shifted.

I felt pretty happy things would be fine with the weather calming down as I left to go for a job interview and meet up with friends from my old office, before before meeting Mum in London and coming back down again. I did get a bit more tense on the way back to the boat, but she was still happily just where I’d left her when we got back.

It was another very misty morning the next day when we’d planned to sail to Falmouth…

We dropped the anchor off St Mawes first for lunch in the hope it would clear, but ended up going for a very slow and gentle sail with lots of practice on the foghorn (not sure it’ll help much with the harmonica though). It was quite strange as being able to see something would’ve been the only sense that really told you the boat was moving!

Still, we made it across to Falmouth, and tied up ahead of the boat I’d crossed paths with in mid-ocean on the way back from the Azores. Having chatted with Richard via VHF radio and satellite phone it was nice to finally see him at closer range than half a mile!

We had a lovely meal with Liz, Chloe and Anne, and a few days later welcomed Mark, Liz and Chloe onto Maid for an evening.

Mum and I also did some walking – both on the Roseland peninsula

along St Just creek

to the beautiful little waterside (well, at high tide anyway..) church

and around Pendennis Point at the entrance to the harbour

as well as having a look in the impressive National Maritime Museum.

When Mum went back home I went with her a few stops up the branch line to visit Penryn, where Chris & I had first bought Maid several years ago. It looked fairly similar

though most of the people who’d been there had moved on, though I did find one of our further neighbours, and further down the bank another acquaintance I’d made in the Canaries.

Back in Falmouth I met up with Si and Cat again, who’d sailed over in Planet for a quick stop

before we both sailed back over to St Mawes. Since this was the first time we’d actually seen each others’ boats under sail after meeting a couple of years ago we obviously took a few photos..

Here are Maid just leaving Falmouth…

and Planet setting out across Carrick Roads.

We met up again a few days later for lunch after I’d walked over to Portscatho – a slightly odd experience as it’s not that long after leaving the banks of the Percuil that you can see the sea on the other side of the high ground -

and then again for dinner on Maid the following day. I’d made a bit of an expedition of getting blackberries for dessert, walking up over the fields around the Percuil

to Place Creek

and along to St Anthony’s Head before taking the other path along the coast back to the dinghy via Towan Beach.

It’s not that convenient a place to keep the boat, which is something I’ve been spending a while considering, but it’s a very nice place to holiday.