Thursday, June 8, 2023.
We were – oh so – ready to go. And we weren’t the only ones. Some boats departed Wednesday afternoon. The storm had gone by, but the weather was still rough, doable but rough, and rough enough for us to wait for the following day.
Thursday came with a heightened activity on many boats around us. At ten o’clock, we dropped our lines and were on our way, part of an exodus out of the Azores. Horta’s high season just ended.
Of course, in line with Murphy and his laws, the boats rafted up to the quayside were the first wanting to go. There was a big hustle and bustle of trading places. Outside boats drop their lines, get out of the way, and return minutes later to become inside vessels after the original inside boats have left.
Conveniently our French neighbor was to depart with us, but his fridge gave up the ghost minutes before departure, and with it, his intended departure. He now needed to get out of our way. He motored forward and rafted up against a Danish boat ahead of him, opening up the way for us to get out.
We had a hell of a time getting out without the use of a bow thruster. Instead, people on the quay pushed our bow out as far as possible. The boats in front of us, three deep, pushed us away from them to stop us from crashing into them. So, with many a friendly helping hand, Ken maneuvered Windsong into the open waters. Good to go. Godspeed.
We motored north out of the harbor through the Faial Passage, keeping Faial to our left, Pico to our right, and the island of Sao Jorge ahead of us.
The lighthouse on the tip of Sao Jorge, Ponta dos Rosais, sits twenty nautical miles northeast of Horta. With about twenty other vessels within a three-mile vicinity, we made our way to the point.
After we rounded the point, we set ourselves up on a 55-degree heading, which would lead us, in a straight line, with 1200 nm to go to Falmouth, U.K.
The sailing formation of boats we had fallen into upon leaving Horta started to stretch out. The bigger boats separated themselves from the smaller ones because of their higher speeds, and some boats began heading to the Portuguese coast almost due east of us.
I suspect the Scandinavians, the Dutch, the British, and the Germans will remain with us the longest, but storms are brewing, and each will deal with that in their own way.
Sunday, June 11, 2023
In the last few days, we managed to maneuver between two minor storms, taking advantage of the opportunity to run on the outside of both low-pressure systems. Great winds. I don’t think we could have done that without the GRIB files, the models, and the weather forecasts. Modern-day sailing at its best.
Those were actually the best two sailing days of this whole eight months journey. Minimal wave action, wind on the beam, sailing in access of seven knots without straining the equipment. “Champagne sailing,” so Ken says.
We anticipate arriving Sunday in Falmouth next week, but we still have a little bad weather in front of us, so arriving Sunday could also mean Monday or Tuesday.
Upon arrival, I expect to be in the U.K. for a few days, helping Ken with whatever needs to be done and getting organized myself.
Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
Apart from Monday night, the weather has been really good, and because of that, we anticipate being in Falmouth sometime Saturday now.
Monday was a rainy day that stretched into the night. Even a 50-foot boat becomes small to live on when the weather is dreary, and you find yourself cooped up down below with all portholes tightly secured.
We saw a solitary Fin Whale today. And although quite a distance away, you could see it was a massive animal. An adult measures somewhere between 18 and 26 meters. The book says, “One of the distinctive features is the tall, columnar blow that takes several seconds to dissipate.” No kidding, it was like a fountain appearing in the ocean every time it blew.
Ken saw another Fin Whale, although it could have been the same one, after dinner, just off the bow. Much bigger than Windsong, he remarked, which is just over fifteen meters long.
I missed the spectacle. I had gone to bed for a few hours, getting some rest before my first night watch. Nine to midnight, and then back from three to six.
Thursday, June 15, 2023.
The wind died last night, and we motored well into daybreak. I went to sleep for a couple of hours at six, and when I got up just before eight, Ken had hoisted the sails and was about to turn off the engine.
We sailed into a very foggy day that turned into a rainy day, but with surprisingly flat seas and decent wind. All day we cruised at a clip well above six knots. Never saw a ray of sunshine.
The rainy day turned into a mostly dry day. A cold wind from the southeast forced me to wear my foul weather jacket when outside and pushed Windsong beautifully to the northeast, keeping her right on course.
We played our ‘almost’ daily backgammon, when weather permitting, best of five, in the cockpit. My victory today. Three to one, no game five.
We pretty well see dolphins every day, but not in big pods, just ten or twenty at a time passing by, and not much jumping either.
Friday, June 16, 2023.
Almost there. Although we’ve had fog and rain for most of the day, the winds had been reasonably good until this evening. We turned the engine on for the final approach with less than fifty miles to go.
We anticipate getting to Falmouth just before daybreak tomorrow morning, less than seven hours from now. We have made tremendous time on this last leg. What we thought would be a ten to fourteen-day journey has now become a just under nine days one.
For Ken, this arrival is quite a memorable occasion. Around the world, and six years later, he’s back again. Falmouth, the port of exit and the port of entry.
For me, it’s the end of a fantastic eight months of sailing. Not quite around the world, not by a long shot, but I still covered a big piece of it. And hopefully, I’ll be back on the water somewhere sometime soon.
I enjoyed writing about my travels, and I’d like to thank everybody that took the time to read my posts. I much appreciated the ‘likes’ and the comments on Facebook, although often, I didn’t get to see them until days or weeks after posting.
Most of these posts were written on my phone during the night watches and were sent to Sheena via the Iridium’s satellite email system. Sheena then forwarded them to an email list and posted them on Facebook. Redacted versions of all posts, a vain attempt to sanitize all texts of grammar and spelling errors, are on the website TourTalesTravels.com.
Fair winds!