Bobby Murdoch

Horta with Mount Pico in the background.
It's a blustery Monday morning here in Horta, the main town on the Island of Faial in the Azores Archipelago, this is quite a famous place due to it being the first landfall for yachts coming from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, and as this is the time of year that most boats do this passage due to the onset of the hurricane season in the caribbean at the beginning of june, its Hoachin!! ( meaning a tad busy for the non Scots), there are boats and crews from all over the world here, heaps of French and Scandinavians and as always quite a few British boats, there is even another Australian boat from Melbourne. There is no room at the Inn in the Marina so I am anchored out in the Harbour behind the breakwater which is probably a better place to be, in the Marina they are rafted up 3 - 4 boats abeam against the walls of the inner breakwater, so if you want to leave it's a massive pain in the arse!

Confidence at anchor in Horta.
And talking about leaving, I am playing at patience with the gods of the wind as I look for a half decent window to make the passage North to Falmouth, I already have a hankering for Scrumpy, Pasties and clotted cream so hopefully I shall get away soon, as it stands, the weather is looking good for setting sail on Wednesday, no hurry though, the weather forecast often changes overnight so we shall see and we will wait if there looks to be any nasties lurking out there.
I have been in the Azores for about two weeks now, this is my second Island, I made my landfall at Ponta Delgada on the Island of Sao Miguel, which is the largest Island of the chain, arriving early in the morning my first impression was that it looked and smelt like the Mull of Galloway, or indeed like many places in the west of Scotland, which is no surprise really considering they have much the same weather, wet!! After a few days away from land your sense of smell always seems stronger when you approach the land again, so the smell approaching the Azores was of Wet Grass and Cows. It took me seven days to sail across and it was fairly uneventful, which we like, uneventful passages is what we are looking for, lots of dolphins and a few whales thrown in for good measure, the dolphins were coming round the boat at night which was amazing as all you can hear is the "puff" noise as they breathe when they surface, you cant see the dolphins but you can see the bioluminescence in the ocean that they disturb so it lights up as they swim round and under the boat, it's pretty magical stuff!!

Welcome party of very well fed Dolphins :-)
When I was coming into the Marina, a chap came across to catch a line for me, turns out he is another Scot(from Giffnock) who lives in Australia and is trying to sail home to Scotland for his 50th Birthday on a Beautiful big steel Ketch called Steek Sapphire, what are the chances eh!? I hope he makes it, doing better than me, haha! I'm nearly 52 and I'm not there yet.

Sao Miguel Island, much greenness.
I hired a scooter and got myself around the Island a bit and ran up and down some hills, you know, like you do, beautiful place, very green of course as it pishes doon a lot just like home.
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More Azores greenness.
I was in Ponta Delgado for the biggest festival of the year, religious of course, the Catholic Church seem to have the monopoly of the party circuit here, I was there for the Festival of Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres, in which the local people make paths from flowers and pine twigs through the streets, the local bands and the faithful march through the streets(not treading on the flower paths) followed by the high heed yins of the church, (who walk on the flower paths) they then wheel a wooden carving of the Jesus out and the boys take him on a wee tour of the town before taking him back to the church. What a day it was.(hehe) Poor old Jesus though, only one day out a year.

Flower Paths.

and again.

The boss men messing up the paths, all been grazing on a good paddock by the looks of it. :-)

Jesus off for a wee tour of the town.

Local Jesus Groupies ;-)
After all that excitement ;-), I had an overnight sail to get up here to Faial, good wee island for running, lots of trails and quiet roads, and it is probably the only chance I'll have to visit as when I cross the Atlantic in a few years, I'll be crossing way further south.

Horta anchorage when I first arrived, there are four times the number of boats in it now.
The other traditional thing to do when in Horta is paint a mural for your boat on the harbour walls, every inch is covered, legal graffiti!!

Harbour Boat Murals.

My Effort, yes, not much of an artist I know!
Had a lucky escape on my second night here, on a wet and windy evening, I was just about to turn in for the night when I heard a lot of shouting close by, I stuck my head up and there was another boat right beside me, turns out they had been trying to anchor, perhaps a little to close and had caught their anchor up with my anchor chain, they almost started to drag me but I managed to get them alongside and got a bit of slack to free their anchor, "thank goodness" I said, or words to that effect, no harm done except a bent strut on my solar panel which I could fix no problem so no harm done, and those guys were all ok which was the main thing, just goes to show what can happen with a simple operation when you have some cold, wet and tired sailors and you throw a bit of weather into the mix, could happen to anybody but all's well that ends well, although it took me a wee while to get to sleep afterwards I can tell you.

Luckily the only damage left by my nigh time close encounter.
So now we wait, with much patience, haha! I'm pretty shite at patience, but it's all looking good, fingers crossed the next time I talk to you I'll be stuffing myself with a cornish pastie and washing it down with some cider.
Onwards and upwards in a North Westerly-ish direction we go.........

Busiest bin in Horta, thirsty sailors, the carry out shop here must make a fortune!!!!