Sao Jorge

All the islands in the Azores are different and maybe hard to compare. There are favorite towns, favorite islands and until we saw Flores this year for the first time, we thought maybe Sao Jorge is the most beautiful, when looking at the largely unspoiled green landscape.

Now it is hard to tell, further into the late summer, the lush green starts to show brownish tones, the Hortensia are fading, but still it offers breathtaking views.

Again we checked into the little marina at Velas and found one T-finger empty and waiting for us. Jose, the very friendly harbor master, was seemingly home for lunch, but dropped by later to give us a warm welcome back. And when I checked with the police (GNR), they just looked up from whatever they were discussing and asked: 'Welcome back, same crew as last year?" "OK, just let us know when you move on."

And so we rented a car again for a day, a must to see this island, and toured around the north coast with its picturesque Fajas, via the highland to the east end and back along the south coast.

Eventually we left for the island of Terceira, a course that leads along most of the south coast of Sao Jorge and is yet another fine sight seeing tour.

Horta

It is said that about 1000 sailing yachts pass through Horta every year, the main bulk arriving from the Caribbean or the US East Coast from mid May on. Now, in early August, the big rush seemed over when we arrived late in the night and tied up to an otherwise empty reception pier.

But it wasn't to stay that way, as Horta just started the big "Week of the Sea Event" with all sorts of regattas, even of remote controlled model sail boats, to cruisers or old whaling boats. In the evenings food stands opened all along the promenade and every night various bands, more or less famous, performed on stages erected on the sea front. Even our favorite rock band, Bild Zero, was here on one evening.

Otherwise Horta remained what it is, a cross-roads of long distance sailors of all flavors. It is certainly all different from the rest of the Azores, but also different from other yachting Meccas, and still a place we like to visit. Now it isn't the much commercialized Cafe Sport that we like to drop by for a small meal, but the simple, local Clube Nautico, where they serve quite a nice lunch, including drinks and coffee for 5 Euros.

So six days passed by quickly, before we moved on to another old favorite, Velas on Sao Jorge.

Flores

Many of the Canary Islands are pretty and they are certainly all different. From the black lava fields of Lanzarote to the spectacular mountain range of Gran Canary on to a Gomera that shows two faces one might think to have seen most of the imaginable spectrum. But nothing prepares you for the difference of sailing a few days to a completely different world. This is Taniwani's fourth time in the Azores, and so we should have been prepared for a small surprise, yet picking the one island we had not yet seen made all the difference.

Like the Canaries, all Azores islands are different, but in its consistent beauty, Flores beats them all. Wherever you turn your eyes it is just a pleasure that one cannot describe, so we will let some of the many pictures we took try to convey our impressions.

Green is dominating, but there are so many flavors of it. The bands of Hortensia hedges from the far look like silver streaks, and then the many lakes, all of different color. Or the the steep walls of Faja Grande, again green and only disrupted by a hundred waterfalls.

That is one side of the island equation, that other is that is is still quite remote with only around 3000 inhabitants. There is simply not much going on, provisioning is basic and fresh supplies rare, as the small super markets get their stuff from the weekly ferry, the rest people get from their own gardens. The tiny new marina has brought some new life into town and probably extended the season that yachts visit by a month. Previously only yachts coming from the west, typically returning from the Caribbean, would stop by, weather providing. Now several boats come from the middle group, like us on summer trips to the Azores. Add to this that the marina is still not officially open and that it is for free this year, one can easily see why several boats have been staying for 6 or 7 weeks.

Studying the weather patterns one can eventually see the down sides: The islands of Flores and Corvo are so far to the north west, that they get much earlier effected by low pressure systems tracking towards east-northeast and so the good season is probably a month shorter than at the islands in the middle group, whereas Santa Maria, some 300 miles east-southeast would have an even longer nice period.

The first such depression was moving in and prompted us to leave to leave a day before the worst, providing us with a fast spinnaker run to Horta. Several other boats did the same and so it emptied out quite a bit in Lajes.

But Flores will now definitely be on our list of places to return to.

The average weather

Pictures: Sunrise near Faial and Pico. Dolphins dropping by. Our destination Flores and the village of Lajes. In the small marina.

The forecast was tempting, it looked like a chance to not have too much down south at the Canaries and none near the Azores. A situation quite typical in the summer. Now it looked like Saturday, July 23, is the right day to depart from Gomera. Wind was predicted for almost all the way to be NNE to NE between 11 and 18 kts. The routing software predicted exactly 5 days for the 966 miles to Flores -with the wind on the beam we would be running at good speed all the time.

But we knew that this was unlikely and calculated with our usual 175 miles a day and a difficult last day when we would reach the center of the Azores high and so we left Gomera very early to get at least half a day of extra daylight. We raised our anchor at 5 am and quietly sailed out of Valle Gran Rey and quickly picked up the strong accelerated wind around the corner of Gomera. It was a fast ride to the south end of La Palma, where the wind picked up even more and then suddenly switched to nothing behind the island.

After motoring for three hours the full blow came back for some time and eventually we were clear of the islands and in the sort of wind we had hoped for. Blue skies and nice sailing for the rest of the day.

Given the forecast one would think it would go on like this for most of the rest of the journey, but the next day was all overcast with many low rain clouds and while the wind maintained the predicted average, we saw it pick up to 22 kts approaching a cloud, and drop back down to 8 kts afterwards. To make things worse, the stronger wind backed so that we always found ourselves 60 degrees to the true wind, moving to 110 degrees as it dropped.

Practically this means our sail surface needed to be constantly changes. Being an old an lazy couple, we left the main double reefed and tried to regulate things with the genoa. On average this means we didn't carry enough sail to keep optimal speed. And it was a bit annoying to work the sails every 20 minutes. This sort of went on for over two days.

We had more luck near the Azores: The High had moved to the SE of Flores and formed a ridge in NNE to SSW direction, with Northeasterly winds on one side and Southwesterlies on the other. We reached the top of the high shortly after sunrise on the last day, passing well south of the island of Pico and Faial. (See sunrise pictures with the silhouette of two islands).

The void going over the top turned out short and we only motored for half a day, before we had a fast motorsail into Lajes on Flores where we arrived Thursday, July 28 at 8 pm.

The marina in Flores is new, and had just opened a month ago. Still not really open and therefore still for free. It has been well accepted and quickly filled with many of the boats returning from the Caribbean, but now beginning of August it should slowly clear out. Our friend Anne Hammick inspected the webcam and gave us an update via e-mail on our last day. So we had an idea where to go. We had picked out a yacht in the middle of the long pontoon to go alongside.

Looking into the marina, that yacht turned out to be AbraCadabra with Phil and Anne and their two kids. We first met them in Chagos, and we have been together many times there, In Seychelles, In Madagascar and South Africa. Very nice surprise!

Phil pointed out that there was enough space behind them towards the corner of the marina and so we backed into this cozy corner and tied up.

Looks like we will stay in this nice place for some time.

more Gomera, then off to the Azores

Pictures above: South coast of Gomera, Vueltas and the Valle Gran Rey anchorage.

Leaving windy San Sebastian took some time, first a few walks to the marian office and back, eventually with the proper receipt from Gran Canaria where we had payed the lighthouse dues for one month, the minimum, even if only a day in the islands. Now San Sebastian tried again to charge us the 50 plus Euros, but this was soon sorted out.

Then on to the fuel dock with careful maneuvering in the narrow marina and the gusty wind. Fuel is much cheaper in the canaries than elsewhere in Europe, Diesel goes for 89 cents right now. Strangely, you cannot just fill your tanks and pay whatever odd amount this may result in, no, you have to tell them for how many Euros you want to take fuel. Guessed and said 300, but it wasn't enough, was still far from full. So, asked for another 30 Euros. All done the nice man at the dock wrote the bill and walked of to process the credit card. When I looked at the bill it was €300.30! Told the man and took him a while to understand and then he couldn't believe I told him, not in the Canaries where everybody tries to take any little advantage or try to add something to a bill assuming the foreigners wouldn't notice, and there is usually no repeat business anyway. So this was completely outside the normal behavior and the good man now declared me the best friend. Then the credit card machine didn't work and so the two of us walked around the marina to the marina office one more time. From him I learned that this much wind even annoyed the local folks, and that it was not normal to just blow like that for now over a month.

We just unfurled a little bit of the genoa and surfed off towards the south of the island, maybe 3 miles and it went to zero wind as expected and stood that way all the way to Vueltas, the old fishing village at the Valle Gran Rey. Just a few miles further one could see the white crests, where the wind was coming around the other side of the island.

But we anchored in same place as in 2003 and 2004, a scenic anchorage under a huge cliff, half a mile from the village. A peaceful and quiet anchorage we thought. But around midnight salsa music exploded inside the boat, as if we had turned our stereo to the maximum volume. Incredible, the band was about 1 kilometer away and it sounded like they were playing inside our boat.

Not much sleep and from what we learned at the tourist office, two more nights like that. So we decided to move three miles south to a bay with the ruins of an old cannery. No music here, but certainly more swell, so that we slept just a bit better than the night before, but decided to move back to Valle Gran Rey. And now it was actually ok, as the band that played on the last night had decent rock music at a fraction of the volume. One could hear it, but it wasn't painful.

Our plan had been to sail to Hierro, before departing for the Azores, but it turned out we may have problems fitting into the harbor at Restinga and there was no way to get a rental car there, when our main purpose for the visit was to explore the island. So we thought about going to La Palma, where we had already been twice. It is indeed worth more visits, as it is a really beautiful island, and this time we would have sailed to the west side to Tazacorte, rather than the main town of Santa Cruz. From there it would also be 45 miles shorter to the Azores.

But then, looking at forecasts we noticed the opportunity to leave soon, with seemingly decent wind all the way, rather than too much wind at the beginning and none towards the end. And so we decide to leave on Saturday, July 23 directly from Valle Gran Rey. The course would lead us to the south tip of La Plama and then slowly away from the island on a Northwesterly heading. A total of 968 miles to the westernmost island of the Azores - Flores.

Tenerife to Gomera

While on land the southern part of Tenerife may look a bit dull, the view from its Southeast end is one of the nicest, with dark craters in the foreground and highland and Pico Teide in the hazy back.

Leaving marina San Miguel, there is still wind bending around the south of the island, but not for long, when during the summer trade wind period one quickly ends up in the shade of the big mountains. This generally means motoring for most of the way to Gomera. But certainly not all the way, since what has been missing will be served in concentrated form about 5 miles from Gomera. The unaware may get caught by surprise, but we had watched this phenomena twice before and were prepared.

Unfortunately this doesn't stop in San Sebastian and so one has to settle with a rather wind swept marina there, falling not much short of Cape Town. It means no sun canvas allowed and plenty of dirt blown over the boats from the streets of the otherwise rather nice little town.

It is the place where already Columbus left for his his journey to the West Indies and one can still see that it was quite a good anchorage and good place to stock up one last time. The windy corner is really more in the norther part of the bay, where now the marina is. Previously anchoring was more towards the south, where we also anchored with Aventura in 1972, before crossing the ocean.

Now this would be right in the harbor entrance off the south end of a huge breakwater, where today high speed ferries enter and leave several times a day.

Every island here is very different from the other and Gomera is no exception. We toured the island again for three days via rental car, and again find it rather special. Forests in the mountains, green valleys between rough cliffs, and a few nice little villages. In size it is not so big and so one can see most places in a few days.

Tomorrow, Monday July 18, we plan to leave San Sebastian and sail to the western side of the island, where we had always found a nice anchorage just off Valle Gran Rey.

The first picture is at the Southwest end of Tenerife, all others are somewhere around Gomera.t

GRAN CANARIA & TENERIFE

Left Marina Rubicon on Lanzarote very early in the morning and had an uneventful ride to Las Palmas where we arrived around 7 pm. Friendly received we were allowed to stay at the convenient reception dock for the night.
Next moved to the big pontoon right across, no fingers and dirty mooring lines to hassle with, but certainly vast marina id rather low priced at €13 a day for a boat our size. Consequently it is very popular with people waiting here for longer. There is also a number of chandleries along the marina front, with a pricing seemingly aimed at yachts that have no other choice, certainly no bargains compared to mainland Europe. So, no shopping for the boat, except of a new antenna for the EPIRB, the having crumbled into pieces in the sunlight.

The town of Las Palmas is really a big busy town, with chaotic traffic and certainly not pretty. The harbor very busy, with freighters coming and going all the time. Something one wouldn't expect on an island of relatively small size. Not many tourists either and the economy appears to be trade based.

We rented a car, originally for three days, but despite confirmation via e-mail, we found the city office, where we were supposed to pick up the car, closed on Sunday. So we ended up touring the island on just two days.

The contrast to Las Palmas, just a bit up in the mountains, couldn't be bigger. What a beautiful landscape, exciting roads and no civilization. Not even a bar or restaurant to have a coffee.

See pictures.

After five days moved on to the south of Tenerife rounding Gran Canaria around the north side, then aiming for the middle of Tenerife and as the wind accelerates bearing off towards the south.
Worked pretty much as planned only that we turned south quite late, worried that the wind would pick up even more.

We have now been five days at the windy south end of Tenerife, in the Marina of San Miguel. This time no car, as we had many previous opportunities to explore the island.
Next stop is planned to be San Sebastian on Gomera.

First three pictures: Gran Canaria
Picture four: The Northwest corner of Gran Canaria
Picture 5 & 6: Around the marina of San Miguel - Tenerife