Horta
27 May 2009 | Horta
Andrew
We spied Horta at 0752 on the morning of the 26th, a small wedge of solidity on the horizon. There was none of the euphoria you associate with landfalls after many days at sea, 21 in our case. I suppose that all comes from the days when sailors were literally years out of sight of land, weren't necessarily expecting to see it and greeted it as a much needed source of fresh water, fresh food and fresh women. Now with GPS the only emotion you're likely to get is indignation if on the 25th at 0752 at 076 degrees your land doesn't appear as expected.
So as we approached we weren't dancing on the decks and opening the rum, we were occupied in much the same way as throughout the passage, one reading, one cooking, one eating and one looking for his glasses.
And now we're here, a pretty place of extraordinarily helpful people, ridiculously inexpensive, looking like it's well worth a much longer stay and exploration. But sadly for various reasons we must move on. We've had a really long sleep and now it's down to preparing the boat for the next 1000 miles to Portugal, probably leaving Friday, while Tom has to fly back to the UK.
We haven't yet decided whether we're going to continue with the blog all the way to Portimao; we'll probably post the answer to that on the blog itself, so keep checking in.
Meanwhile, of the passage just completed I'd like to say that no skipper could have asked for a friendlier, more companionable, more helpful crew. Although just about the biggest challenge on passages like this is social rather than nautical, and the chances of four highly individual people cooped up together for three weeks in sometimes quite stressful situations all getting on is pretty remote, I can honestly say that there's been barely a single irritable word, even glance, exchanged. Thank you so much Aisling, Sarge and Sargie.
Thanks again to Daniel for a huge amount of help with this blog. And finally, for all you fans of Laurel and Hardy, for readers of last year's blog and particularly for the 2008 crew of Janey, Gerald and Daniel, I have a confession. When we reported we had a rope round our rudder it was indeed from discarded fishing gear and was completely unavoidable. What we didn't report several days later was a second incident involving rope and the rudder. This was quickly dealt with by the Sargisons and a boat hook - but yes, it was the towed generator - and yes, I was at the wheel.
Doh!