Photos from Flores, Azores

Some more photos.

Talk about making a grand entrance…..having sailed 6 days from the Bahamas and torn both our Genoa (not the rich fruit cake – the sail) AND Mainsail, we had to motor which was fine until we were about 2 miles out from Bermuda when we ran out of fuel…..took us a while to figure this out…!....oh well, they always came in under sail in the olden days anyway…..we looked battle weary what with a tattered sail….style.

We LOVE Bermuda…..it’s just so English and friendly. It has all the facilities of many larger places but with people who are still interested in you as a person. On the other hand, you should try the bus rides, we saw a T shirt “I survived the Bermuda bus ride” accurate shirt!

Whilst in Bermuda we did a few jobs i.e. Sam was sent to the top of the mast and we had our sails stitched. We saw the annual dinghy race and although the boats were similar, the style was completely different to that we’d witnessed in the Bahamas. I think those 15ft dinghies carry almost as much sail as our 44ft yacht…no kidding.

When we sailed in through Town Cut we thought it was tight, but look at the photos to see what can get through and they had a Pilot boat beside them….takes some nerve.

Having waited around for post to arrive we learnt it wasn’t going to happen (Garmin were not dispatching our chip, because they didn’t have the correct packaging – brilliant) so we had to leave or run the chance of missing our ‘weather window’ for the trip to the Azores.

What an adventure, second day in and we drew up alongside a pod of Whales…..at first Sam thought it was a mini sub, it was only when we were 6ft from it and it flipped it enormous tail and slunk off were we sure it was Moby…..in fact as it moved away and we looked into inky blackness that we saw yet another whale below where it had been…..talk about heart stopping, I wouldn’t like to do our laundry for that day…!....later we realised that there were about 6-8 whales near to us from the blow holes we could see…..WOW.

Later that day as we were drifting (it was calm) we were overtaken by a green turtle swimming on the surface, no tow was offered.

Two days later it was different kind of day. Some strange sound alerted us to go on deck at 6am, turned out to be the flapping, torn mainsail…..whoops.

Luckily we had a spare and it was calm enough to swap them. All tolled this took us 3-4 hours and if it had happened at any other time of the journey it wouldn’t have been possible….meaning the wind ‘got up’. The rest of the trip was uneventful but wearing when we had 36hrs of 25 knot winds but we didn’t half make some progress. We were joined about 10 times by dolphins (they are two tone in this part of the Atlantic) who played around the boat again and splashed nearby, they were poetry to watch.

Once again we managed to arrive at night so we could have the fun of entering a strange port without the benefit of visibility. However, it is a wonderful feeling after bouncing around for 1800 miles to test the anchor and find that it is holding. This means the prospect of a really good nights sleep, which we did.

Strange to say today was a Public Holiday and all the shops were closed, we always seem to arrive when places are shut. We walked up the road looking for Customs but we were hailed by a passing Policeman who stopped his 4X4 because he was searching for itinerant yachtsmen. We cleared Customs and Immigration in broken English, Spanish, and French and of course Portugese on the roadside – brilliant and friendly.

So far, what little we’ve seen of Flores is very inviting and we know we’re going to like it, the name Flores means ‘flowers’ (hydrangeas Jill).