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! 🙁
We woz ere!
Street decoration in Horta
Toodle-oo! anchored in Horta
Pastoral Faial
Horta Harbour
Cloudy Caldeira
Who forgot the glasses?
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!
Unfinished Santa Cruz Marina
Stefan and Anne from Mokendeist
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.
Crochet lace around all the tree trunks in Santa Cruz
Taxi guide – Severo
Bottom of a volcano
Whale Rock
Master chef at work
A day at the beach
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.