So, in the end we couldn’t dock in Gibraltar – no space, or perhaps we were not Super-yachty enough! So we initially anchored outside La Linea’s Alcaidesa Marina, then decided that rowing the dinghy in each day would be a pain – so took a slip, which we stayed in for a little over a week!

Exploring Gibraltar from here was easy – a 30 minute easy bike ride – including getting stamped in and out of Spain each time. Interesting that one of the first things you do is cycle across the runway of Gibraltar airport!

Our first trip in, Laurie noticed everyone wearing red and white – turned out to be Gibraltar Day and the place was humming! It was very nice being in among it all – and we managed to find an Irish pub that offered excellent Guinness and great people watching!

Gibraltar Day celebrations

The second day we went in, we went with a plan of getting to the top of the rock – and ended up pedaling and pushing our bikes up the bloody thing! We didn’t actually make to the tippity top – it was very hot and frankly not the most interesting ride – so figured we take the easy route at some point – a taxi or the cable car!

While up the rock we did stop to see the Siege Tunnels – built in the late 1700’s to defend against a Spanish invasion – the siege lasted over 3 years. The tunnels were dug into the rock and at various points they knocked holes through and pointed massive cannons down at the advancing armies. It was never taken.

We also saw a snippet of the WWII tunnels  which apparently stretch over 30 miles in a massive network and house a hospital, a couple of breweries, a distillery and stuff like that – all important stuff to keep the forces happy!

We had a nice rendezvous with OCC boat Eliana – Ian and Lyn – who we’d previously seen almost exactly a year ago in the Spanish Rias, but due to Covid couldn’t socialize – so it was nice to catch up to them properly this time.

We’d originally come to Gibraltar to re-set our VAT clock – which we later determined we didn’t need to do since we have a VAT exemption in the UK which we obtained in 2013. Since we were in Portugal on Brexit day, that should translate to being VAT paid in Europe… It continues to be a source of discussion between us – as all the rules are so difficult to understand following the UK’s exit. We did manage to fill up with Diesel in Gibraltar – so can document that we were there should anyone challenge us – though we’re not sure that qualifies either! At least the Diesel was (reasonably) cheap (78 pence/litre) and we’re now full!

We set off back towards Portugal following Eliana through the Straights. We were heading towards Cadiz, but planned an intermediate stop along the way at Barbate, but since the wind was holding, we went a little further to a small bay – Puerto do Conil which looked like it would be suitable. No it wasn’t! Even with very light winds and barely a foot of swell, we rocked and rolled all night long!

The following morning we headed towards Cadiz, expecting to motor the whole way but in fact we sailed all the way, at times going wing on wing with the spinnaker! First look at Cadiz is very favorable – looking forward to exploring it!

 

We left Horta on August 26th – Abigail’s 30th birthday. (Ouch!) We had pleasant winds and were able to sail a beam reach with Genoa, which we changed to the Code zero when the wind dropped a little, and then to the spinnaker when the wind started coming from behind. We were racing a boat headed our way and doing very nicely thank you…

A call to Abigail (in Dallas) while the spinnaker was flying was not a good idea… things got a little out of hand (hour glass twisted around baby-stay) and we had to pull the whole thing down and in the process managed to rip the sail.

Up went the code zero again. A few hours later we’re making great progress as the wind was building again and then suddenly -BANG- and the Code zero was in the water – the halyard had broken – chaffed through.

This wasn’t good – no light wind headsails on a passage forecast to be primarily light winds. Fortunately, we have a second (and third) halyard available – so once we’d recovered our composure we were able to re-launch the code zero.

We ended up motoring – a lot – and so decided to make an effort to repair the spinnaker with sail tape – which proved to be successful. The going was still slow and much engine use, so about five days into the passage on a lovely windless day, we decided to just sit there – and we went for a swim! I was quite surprised that I didn’t get vertigo in the 6,000ft deep water – and Laurie was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t get a manicure from a passing shark!

That afternoon, after reading our books, the wind came up to a whopping 4 knots, so we decided to see if our spinnaker repairs would hold and launched it. It was lovely to sail along – albeit doing only 1 – 2 knots rather than listen to the engine, and fortunately the main didn’t slat too much.

Unfortunately, the wind had taken us quite a way north, and since the passage was longer than expected and the wind’s approaching Gibraltar were expected to be very light, we decided to make a stop in Portugal – initially anchoring in Sagres for a night and then moved on to Lagos where we anchored in the bay.

With the longer than anticipated passage, our beer stocks were dangerously low so we decided come ashore and re-provision. Since we had checked out of Portugal (Schengen) and expected to arrive in Gibraltar, that meant we had to check back in – what a palava!

We stayed on the mooring for two delightful nights, but unfortunately the third was awful. Wind was now onshore and very quickly a swell developed and rocked us incessantly. We had to attempt to sleep in the main salon – I even used the lee cloths – and even then, sleep was elusive.

In  the morning, we decided that we should go into the marina (wind to Gibraltar was against us), but we had a problem – our dinghy was tethered behind us – with it’s engine on and we were worried about making the entrance into Lagos with the surf that had built up. We decided that we would weigh anchor and move away from the shore to what appeared to be somewhat less rolling conditions and then attempt to bring the dinghy aboard.

Less rolly, yes – but still very rolly indeed. Getting the engine off was challenging with the boat yawing dramatically – so with the engine attached to the boat’s hoist system it would gain and lose about 4ft altitude with every roll – bringing me with it! Needless to say, the side of the boat got hit a couple of times, so Laurie has some more gelcoat dings to repair this winter!

Getting the dinghy aboard was another major challenge. We managed to bring the dinghy over the starboard lifelines using a halyard, but setting it back down again on the deck was problematic as the boat rolled side to side. Our usual methodology is that Laurie controls the halyard on the winch while I man-handle the dinghy into place… At one point the dinghy flung me over the lifelines as we rolled to starboard and I had just one foot on the boat – I was considering letting go and taking a swim when the boat rolled to Port and I was airlifted back on deck! Finally I yelled for Laurie to just drop the bloody thing – which she did. It ended up on deck with me sprawled underneath it!

The next thing from Laurie was “This is enough! We’re getting rid of this %$#@*& dinghy!” “Hallelujah!” was my reply!

With dinghy now secured in place, we entered Lagos – the swell was significant, but not nearly as bad as we feared (so no reason to have brought the dinghy aboard!) and the marina allocated us a berth for a couple of nights.

We are members of the ‘Lagos Navigators’ Facebook page and Laurie suggested that we advertise the dinghy on it… We sold the dinghy and engine within 30 minutes of posting the ad!

We’d been discussing dinghy’s all summer. Our dinghy – a 2.5M Aluminium rib is very good – but it’s heavy to manipulate on deck – and as it turns out, somewhat dangerous in adverse conditions! We also have a fully inflatable Achilles dinghy which we bought in 2016 when we went through 5 dinghy’s in one year. We kept the Achilles and even tried it out recently with both a small petrol outboard and also an electric one. We’ve decided on the electric one – now it’s just a matter of finding one and getting it shipped to us in under 2 months!

We once again checked out of Europe and completed our passage to Gibraltar with a very nice overnight sail interspersed with some motoring as the wind died at night. We arrived the following afternoon having found out that we could not land in Gibraltar as there were no berths available and no anchoring is allowed – so once again we’re back in Europe – La Linea Spain, just across the boarder to Gibraltar which we’re cycling to most days…

 

 

It’s time to update the blog again – we’ve long since arrived in Horta, departed, arrived again and since departed – and are now in Gibraltar!

We’ve now been in Horta, Faial three times – 2013, 2018 and 2021. It must be true ‘cos it says so on our harbour wall painting which I dutifully updated again this visit. We repeated a walk around the caldeira – but it didn’t live up to the memories of 2018 – when we did it in spectacular weather – this visit was a bit cloudy and cool – and we forgot to bring glasses for the wine! 🙁

One reason we were in Horta was to pick up our replacement anchor light – which is coming from the US, but being shipped to Peter Cafe Sport (PCS) (the mid-Atlantic meeting point for all sailors). Unfortunately, CTT have done me in again and the package didn’t arrive until we were in Gibraltar some 10 weeks after being shipped! Jose at PCS has agreed to forward the package to our winter berth in Lagos – hopefully it’ll be waiting there for us when we arrive.

We also had a go at fixing our long range SSB radio. I can hear fine, but I’m not able to transmit. Marco from Mid Atlantic Yacht Services came aboard – he’s a real expert in these things – and after a bit tinkering around found that the radio was working – but only on digital channels – the microphone or analog amplifier was apparently defective. The good news about this is that it allows me to obtain digital weather forecasts while at sea – and since we would be doing a 1000+ mile passage to Gib, I certainly wanted that ability. Marco was unable to do much else but promised to research the manuals, so we arranged to have him back to the boat a week or so later for further investigation.

With a week in hand we left Horta and sailed over the Graciosa – the only Azores island we’d not yet visited. Our friends Stefan and Anne from Mokendeist were in the unfinished marina and offered to assist us in tying up to the mole. The marina was constructed in 2018, but they ran out of funding so it’s basically a protected basin with no slips. There’s enough space to anchor about 5 or 6 boats in there, but the holding is awful – rocks on the bottom and over the course of a few days we watched as several boats re-anchored multiple times. We felt sorry for a Brazilian boat and had them tie up alongside Toodle-oo!

Graciosa is lovely – what a gem – and the main town of Santa Cruz just a 20 minute walk away was delightful and I now hold it as my favorite town in the Azores. Because it’s slightly off the beaten track, it’s small and has limited docking facilities, Graciosa doesn’t get much tourist traffic. No doubt Covid contributed to the problem too – but it all makes it a very relaxing place to visit. Having tried and failed to rent a car or join a tour,  we took a great half day taxi tour around the island with Stefan and Anne – plenty of time to take in the island’s hot-spots. Our driver Severo spoke perfect English having spent time in both the USA and Canada and was very knowledgeable about the island’s history.

Our only difficulty in Graciosa was that tie up to the mole, we ended up getting tons of very nasty abrasive grit blown onto the boat – which took us 5 hours of diligent cleaning to clear up.

Reluctantly, we left Graciosa to return to Horta for our SSB repairs and take advantage of Marco before he left on holiday. Unfortunately, MAYS had decided that they couldn’t help us further, so the return was somewhat wasted – though I really like Horta and enjoyed the extra few days we were there.