Tuesday, June 10, we left the Canaries, but not before trying to top up our fuel tanks. Fuels is less expansive then anywhere in the vicinity in the Canaries, though this particular marina in Tazacorte sells it for a significant mark-up over street price, much different than Marina Santa Cruz on the other side of the island. It would still have been less than in the Azores where the price is still lower than on the mainland. So, on the way out we docked at the fuel dock to do all these things, just to find out that they had unknowingly emptied their tank when the pump stopp after 16 litres. Not a real problem for us as we have a range of about 1500 miles when full, and so we left anyway.
It took us 3 days an 20 hours to sail the 625 miles to the island of Santa Maria, 9 hours longer than last year, which was simply caused by lighter winds. But that way it was a bit more comfortable.
We arrived to well known Vila do Porto in the early hours of Saturday, June 14. It was easy as always to enter the little marina in the dark and tie up in the same berth as last year.
We love the little island of Santa Maria and including a day touring the island by car, it was easy to spend over a week in this place. Leaving earlier would not have been particularly pleasant due to strong Northwesterly winds.
It wasn't before Sunday, June 22, that we finally left the nice place, to sail over night to yet another very nice place: Lajes on the island of Pico, an old reef-protected whaling port about 175 miles from Santa Maria. Having looked at the place before, when we were visiting the island by ferry from Horta, we had some doubt's whether we would fit into this tiny place and find one of the very few berths that can take a boat our size. The book says it can accommodate boats of up to 14m and two of those at maximum.
Given this we had planned in the option to continue on to Horta, some 25 miles further. But then we had a nice trip, with dolphins playing around our boat and two hours before our potential arrival, we called the port-manager and asking if he had space for us. The answer was no problem! And no problem it was. We carefully and slowly entered the reef strewn, but buoyed channel into the inner part and found the best two places empty and well capable of taking boats up to 18m in these two spots.
Lajes is a pleasant little place, with not much going on, except for a bustling whale-watching business. Two companies and a total of 7 boats are kept busy all day long, driving tourists out to see whales and dolphins. Pico is a very nice island, not only because of the 2300m high volcano, but more because of the intense green, contrasting the black lava. It is pleasing the eye wherever you go. Add to this a 5km long lava cave, the whaling history and museums and you get a very interesting mix. Again, we rented a car and toured around the island and found it even better then when we had visited by ferry from Horta and had to be back to the ferry terminal in time for the last one back. So, even for us a great new experience.
We now want to move on to Flores which is just under 150 miles further west. The wind has been mostly from there in the last days, but tomorrow and the night to Saturday there seems to come the rare opportunity to sail with a light NNE. After that it seems like westerlies as far as the forecast reaches. So, stay tuned, we may report from there next.
As always more pictures and in higher resolution are to be found at:
Such beautiful pictures! The Azores is a beautiful place, so this should have been in your wishlist when you planned this cruise. Though the Azores is in the middle of the Atlantic, so if anything goes wrong, it could escalate quickly. But it seems that you're yachting pros already, but simple things such as checking out if you have enough fuel left would be important in a cruise such as this, lest you'd really want to use your sail! Have fun!
AntwortenLöschenAbraham Yates @ Apache Oil Company