Updated wall art on Horta’s harbor wall – Pico’s Volcano in the background.

We finally left Horta and sailed overnight to Ponta Delgada on San Miguel. Not much wind so we motored through the night (thought we might end up motoring more in this 150 mile trip than we did in the 2700 mile trip from Antigua!

Arrived at the new marina in Ponta Delgada where we were assigned slip 45 – described as an easy slip. A friendly guy, hoped off his boat to locate the slip and then helped to tie us up – but the slip was far from easy – really narrow and shared with a big red French boat.

A rather wet Billy sorting out a cobweb – with little sympathy from Laurie!

Just to make matters more interesting, the wind was suddenly blowing a hoolie and we had to reverse in and tie to the windward side… All was going very well (on the second attempt) but when I went to pull hard on a spring line to keep the stern off the dock, it turned out to not be attached to the boat at either end – so I went flying into the drink! There’s a first! I had to get out quick as we had still not secured the boat.

In our haste, we ended up with a real cobweb of lines which took about 30 minutes to re-tie once things had settled down…

After a shower of the hot, intended variety, we were contemplating well earned cocktails when Phil on Minnie B unexpectedly showed up and invited us for drinks and to accompany them to dinner – who could refuse. We had a great evening with Phil, Norma, Des, Alma and Gary from another Irish boat in the marina!

That thing about making plans in the sand at low tide… well, here we go again… In the last few days we’ve found out that Laurie can apply for Portuguese citizenship because her grandmother was born in the Azores. So, we’ve spent the morning finding out what’s required – and the only catch appears to be that she needs to speak Portuguese… So… we might be staying around here while she takes lessons and immerses herself before taking some certification test. Scotland is looking a little doubtful… we’ll see…