We have now moved over to Terceira – a 15 hour sail away from Horta and the harbor’s mural of yacht insignia.

We departed at 4:00pm, managing to squeeze our way out from the harbor wall that we’d been attached to without incident (phew!) for an overnight sail with Stephanie, Joe and Matthew aboard.

We sailed out between Faial and Pico, but as soon as we got into the main channel between Sao Jorge and Pico, the wind died – until the end of Sao Jorge. We passed a very interesting village on Sao Jorge – completely isolated by high cliffs – right on the water with a single steep winding road down to it.

It was an uneventful (boring) trip – with 12 hours of motoring involved and so we arrived the following morning at Praia da Vitoria, only to find the marina jammed full – so set the anchor in the large protected harbor in 8M with 40M scope. After a lengthy (and inaccurate) check-in with harbormaster and immigration and a welcome shower, Laurie, Steph, Joe and Matthew headed for Angra do Heroismo while I stayed aboard for some sleep. This was Steph’s last day with us and the following morning they took a taxi to the airport and left Laurie and I alone for the first time in what felt like ages.

It’s been an interesting time since we moved aboard in May until now. Some things are much more complex than we had anticipated, other things are easier. We certainly are learning to take one day at a time and have made numerous changes to our plans as we adapt to the various situations.

We have been participating in an Ocean Cruising Club cruise – which I was rather fearful might turn into a stuffy event – but it’s been very nice, allowing us to have a reason to introduce ourselves to boats that otherwise we might not have – and we’ve very quickly developed some interesting friendships.

With the Azores being islands in three groups, OCC members have come and gone as they’ve seen fit and we’ve met them – or not – in other islands. We keep in touch using our radios on a morning ‘Net’ and from time to time there’s an event (like the barbecue with rude Kiwi above!) that tends to bring the majority of the group together. With all the other cruisers so much more experienced than us, we’ve found a wealth of information available – and serious technical help for some of the deficiencies around Toodle-oo! Most notably the rather poor performance of our long range radio (SSB), but also I’ve received great help with weather prediction and routing plans. Our plan had been to spend a few days in Terceira and then head for the south west coast of England – but that might be evaporating now as a high is sitting between the Azores and England – making for very light winds – and we certainly don’t relish the thought of motoring the whole bloody way! We’re therefore “stuck” here for a bit – but we’ll make the most of it. Not sure if we’ll stay here or perhaps make an effort to go to Graciosa, the one island we missed from our plan altogether. Then perhaps we’ll head for Ireland and head to the Lake District from there. Who knows – watch this space!

So we’re into our 10th day now. The engine is humming in my right ear as I type this – we’re motoring and have been since about 10:00pm last night. There’s a concept – 10:00pm… Eastern time or UTC (Universal Time) or Azorean time? Fortunately, Azorean is the same as UTC… Laurie has moved onto Azorean time, I’m still on the East coast – which is what explains why I had Indian Curry for breakfast this morning!
It’s been an interesting few days since I last reported. We received an excellent forecast from our weather router Herb – for three solid days of 20 – 25kt winds abaft the beam and enjoyed the first immensely. It was a day for biology: In the morning I discovered a dead squid on top of the coachroof! We then had sighting of a solitary whale and with an excellent book we have aboard, we are pretty confident that we have identified it correctly as a Cuvier’s Beaked Whale – an unusual species. We saw flying fish off in the distance and various birds – mostly Shearwaters and a few Petrels. We were then joined by a pod of a dozen dolphins – looked like pairs of mothers/calves with dads swimming alone. Difficult to identify – we went from Striped Dolphins to Cylmene Dolphins with the second pod of 20 or more that joined us – to finally Spotted Dolphins (much more common) when the third group arrived and I briefly identified spots that I’d not previously seen. (Presumably each group were of similar make-up over the 2 – 3 hour period we were watching them.) The last group was difficult to watch well as we were amid a sail-change – stronger weather was in the offing.
We were looking forward to the second day of a forecast that Herb had given us the previous day, but the winds were climbing already to the high end of his predicted range. When we reviewed the forecast with Herb on the evening SSB Net, he decides that yes the winds will be solidly in the 30-35kt range (!) tonight and the following day – it was about to get hectic. The winds were as he foretold. Also the seas were up and I estimate that while the majority of waves were around 15ft, there was a couple of swells compounding – such that we often had waves in the 25ft range. How can you tell? Difficult – but standing on deck with my eyes parallel with the solar panels that are mounted at about 15 – 18ft off the sea, it was pretty clear that the tops of the waves (from the bottom of the trough) was a solid 25ft… Fortunately, we were running with the wind and the wave trains, so every time a monster wave would approach us, the stern would simply ride up it – and then fall off the backside as the wave traversed through. (Unfortunately the one exception to this occurred when Laurie was hand steering while I was on the SSB attempting to talk with Herb – she got dumped on by a following wave – the only one that has so far managed to soak the cockpit. Adding insult to injury, we were unable to contact Herb that night due to poor propagation.) We were well positioned for these big winds and seas – being able to run with them with just a portion of our jib out and 350ft warp (rope with a short piece of anchor chain at the end) being towed out the back. This was our first use of a warp – it did really well at keeping the boat pointed in the right direction – rather than riding up a wave to port or starboard – followed by the inevitable wobbly fall-off. We managed the boat like this for 24 hours.
Sleep was tough to come by and we were in touchy recovery mode all the following day – when the winds had abated and the seas were calming – and we were once again sailing in good conditions and making sail changes galore.
Last night the winds died away such that we motor sailed for a good stretch and then finally brought in the genoa and let the engine do its thing. It’s been doing its thing since about 10:00pm…
Challenges:
Charging the batteries is becoming a little touchy. Without the wind generator we are down some anyway – and the engine alternator/charging system is only putting out a fraction of what it should. However, yesterday a new problem appeared – there’s apparently some suspect wiring in the generator circuits – I was unable for a long time to get the AC running. Tried this and that and in the end did nothing and the problem just went away. Needs looking at – probably by someone that understands arcs and sparks! We can’t lose our last method of charging!
Our ship’s compass and all the electronics are out of synch. We knew this going into this passage – and the problem is manageable since our position is reported independently by GPS and how we get there doesn’t really matter – just join the dots to get there. Would be nice to understand headings a little more clearly however. All this requires is some calibration routines – that require riding around in circles in a flat calm sea…
Our Monitor Wind Vane ‘Gail’ has been great – as long as we’re heading into weather. When running she’s useless. We therefore have to use the autopilot – exacerbating the energy issue – plus we are nervous that Otto may suddenly quit on us… Need some changes to the control lines on Gail once we get in.

Progress:
We’re doing great – just 400 miles left to Flores…

Friday June 7. It’s day 6. It’s uncomfortable typing this as the desk is at a 20 degree angle and I’m trying to hold on – which is both a bad thing and a good thing. It’s not convenient, but it means we’re sailing – and since I have the computer out, it means the seas are relatively calm. Marvellous!

We left Boston early on Sunday morning on a really nice morning and managed to sail our whole way out of the harbor and on past Cape Cod – though the really nice morning turned into a boisterous sail that was set to stay for a couple of days as we made our way south east towards the gulf stream. Once there, plan is to move in and out of the stream according to weather conditions (in when it’s nice, out when it’s not) in order to take advantage of the positive current when we can.

The seas were nasty – not very high – probably only 4 ft. with occasional bigger waves, but they were closely spaced giving a really choppy ride. Dramamine managed to keep my seasickness at bay (just) and even the hard bellied Laurie had to take the occasional helping pill. By the end of day two, we were both questioning what the hell we were doing miles from land on a bucking bronco that we were forced to stay on for the next two weeks. Laurie’s demeanor was further afflicted on day two by rain and the constantly wet boat – not easy to keep a clean home when every surface is wet or damp.

We were following Commander’s Weather routing – and Dave there had explained to me that the initial days would have good wind – and even when his forecast email arrived and it was there in black and white that we’d see winds in the 20 – 30 knot range and seas building to 9 ft., it didn’t dawn on me that those would be challenging conditions. We’ll reef, the boat will manage it – heck it’s been through worse than that… (I’d forgotten how much I hated the worse than that…). Consequently, on day two when we managed to reach Canadian Maritime Forecaster Herb Hilgenberg who operates a voluntary service for idiot yachties like us and he suggested heading North East, we jumped at the reasoning and immediately began to feel the relief of not pounding into those rotten waves. He was however predicting that the following day we’d see near gale conditions – but with the boat running off, at least she should be able to manage considerably better than if we were still pounding into those  waves…

Day 3 ended up being a really good sailing day with winds from the south west as we headed east north east. We never did see the gale – which had Herb totally baffled when we called in later that day.

It was on day three that I noticed that the wind generator – who had been providing a beautiful 20 – 30A input to the batteries constantly, looked to have suffered some damage. I can only imagine that a bird or a flying fish took a wrong turn through the blades and got chopped into three pieces! Two of the blades are seriously damaged, the third is also affected – I don’t dare run the machine now for fear of a blade letting go and killing one of us! Serious dent in our battery charging regimen…

The day was misty, continuing the wet boat syndrome but with the nice progress and lower seas, plus the knowledge that we were pressing on well ahead of schedule, sprits were up. As evening approached the wind disappeared and what there was came from aft, making sailing very challenging. Making matters worse, Gail, our monitor windvane (mechanical automated steering mechanism) is incapable of holding a course to closer than +/- 20 degrees – which in a downwind sailing configuration is ripe for an accidental gybe with consequent damage possibilities. This left us with an option of running the hydraulic auto pilot (Otto) – but he’s a great consumer of energy and noisy to boot. We ended up opting to run the engine overnight and aim directly for our next waypoint, due east  – and get some rest.

Having motored noisily all through the night, we took the decision to depart from Herb’s latest advice and headed south east instead of east on Day 4 – in an attempt to sail. By heading south east, we could utilize Gale on a heading that she can maintain (reach) – therefore eliminating both the noisy engine – which was now not charging batteries either – and the power hungry Otto. The day ended up being a great day for us.  Sunny and dry. The boat dried out quickly. Sprits soared!

In the evening, once again the winds lightened and for a second time in two nights, we found ourselves missing a gorgeous sunset as we battled various sail combinations all to no avail – ending up running the engine overnight.

We ended up running right through the Gulf Stream without even noticing it! Instead of being this nice straight stream of positive current, the bloody thing meanders this way and that – and unfortunately on Day 5 we managed to go this way when we should have gone that – and in the ended experienced a counter current for more than 24 hours while looking for a good current. The gulf Stream isn’t particularly visible – no road signs tell you where it is and while I thought we’d know by temperature, we’ve so far found that to be a rather elusive method… The saving grace of day five – it was a wonderful sunny day albeit without wind. We motored most of the day (with tunes blasting out from the new cockpit speakers while we sat on the cabin top) and into the night. (How much fuel do we have???) We did however enjoy a very nice sunset with the entire ocean to ourselves. We also managed to get our laundry done and dried in the beautiful sunshine!

The afternoon’s chat with Herb was somewhat curtailed due to poor propagation. His basic instruction, go South East to avoid gale force winds to the north. OK Herb, you da boss! And the engine drones on.

Day six and here we are. Sailing East South  East, with the winds slowly backing to the west allowing us to go further and further south – following Herbs advice – and the noise is wonderful – just rushing water.

We managed to pick up some emails this morning in better propagation than we’ve had for a couple of days, but by the time we’d written responses, the propagation had evaporated again. Rats!

Challenges to date:

We’d been concerned about our watch system – especially regarding night watches. However, it all seems to have worked out quite well. Laurie has been a wonderful support – making sure I get enough sleep to take on the evil serpent watch (11pm – 4am) – so I sleep before and after the watch. Granted the first few days we were tired, but as things have progressed and we’ve gained a rhythm, both of us seem to be getting sufficient sleep.

Our concerns about charging of batteries is being managed by a somewhat reluctant engine alternator putting out some power and the generator that we use to develop power for the watermaker – which so far has added about 60 gallons! Showers aplenty! (Cousin Charles, eat your heart out!!)

The jury is out on the new safety harness regimen – which puts a harness on each jack line, on each side of the mast and two in the cockpit. The idea being you pick up the relevant harness as you roam over the boat – therefore never being un-harnessed at any time. It works, and we like that we never bring a harness inside the boat to ding the woodwork, but it’s complex and sometime so bloody frustrating that we abandon everything! Still working on this.

Laurie has been preparing her usual maritime dinners – Pasta and sausage, Beef Stew, Corned beef and cabbage, fresh bread, etc. It’s been great – though with some of the lumpy ride, difficult to really appreciate most days.

Alcohol: 1st drink for either of us (me) was on day 4. Day 5 saw us both enjoy a beer at lunchtime and a glass of red in the evening. We’re both getting thinner!

Life is good aboard Toodle-oo!