This is going to be jump ahead post. I will find a way and time to post about our time in Horta Faial, and our visit to Pico one of the islands close by Faial. I understand is confusing, inconsistent with the idea of blogging and a habit I need to break. But not today. We departed Horta on the Island of Faial this morning. We left the seawall behind to starboard almost exactly at 0930 after topping off our fuel less than 45 gallons. We burned little on our way to Horta because of the glorious sail there. We motored past the headlands on our port and soon set sail. In a word they are beautiful to look at, especially in the morning sun, there is the ever present volcanic rock, but covered with bright green grass, rock walls defining pastures, cows, goats and the occasional house. I imagine this is what Ireland to look like from the deck of a boat. Bobby suggested we take a slight sight seeing tour of the south coast of Sao Jorges one of the islands making up the Faial, Pico and Sao Jorges group. Sao Jorges is the longest Island of the group at forty miles west to east. The islands of the Azores archipelago are volcanic in origin so they are literally mountains rising up from the ocean floor. what we see are the tops sticking out of the water. A boat can get quite close and still be in thousands of feet of water. It was a good idea so we motorsailer along the south side of the island and admired natures handiwork and the small villages along the shore. Once at the east end we adjusted our sails, turned off the Volvo and set our course for slightly N of Lisbon. We are making our usual 7.5 to 8.5 kts on port tack. The wind is north at 15 kts. It should be five or six days to Lisbon and the weather forecast looks good. We are making a course of 80 deg true with is 10 deg to the left or above Lisbon harbor inlet. The forecast calls for the wind to gradually shift NE so positioning OL N of Lisbon we should be better able to use the wind to our advantage of the wind when it shifts.
We have lots of dolphins visiting from time to time, jumping completely out of the water as they race to Orion’s Lights bow to play in the wake. The forecast is calling for week cold from to pass through so the temperature s cooled and there is a dampness in the air. We had our happy hour of popcorn and wine which will now become a tradition thanks to Graeme. He told us a story of when he and his crew sailed from Chesapeake to South Africa in a 47′ sailboat and no matter the weather they always had a happy hour in the cockpit. That’s a lot of miles, days and happy hours and sounded to me like a tradition worth carrying on OL. I cooked up some pastrami and cheese sandwiches for dinner. My watch started at 0900 ending at 1200 when Bobby takes over. The cold and dampness set in hard and I was chilled the entire watch. Ol was sailing along nicely so it was an easy watch. Bobby took over at midnight and I went below to warm up dry out.
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