Atlantic crossing Third leg - Azores to Portugal
23 August 2010 | 37 06.6'N:008 40.5'W, Portugal
John & Mary
The boat held up extremely well during the nearly 2000 mile crossing from Bermuda to the Azores with very minor damage. Other than catching up on sleep and cleaning the boat, we were able to spend our time enjoying the Azores before our final leg to Portugal. However, legend has it that before leaving the town of Horta, if the sea demons are to be kept away, any boat that crossed an ocean arriving in Horta must paint "their" symbol/picture on the harbour wall before departing. Accordingly, we headed off around town to obtain paints and brushes, tools we would need to draw our "lucky" logo. We then spent the next few hours putting our graffiti on the wall. The picture above shows our rather poor attempt, but it was the best we could come up with on short notice. Hopefully it was going to be enough to ward away those sea demons. After exploring the town and feeling that the luck should now be with us, we set off with the rest of the fleet from Horta harbour to the island of Terceira where we moored in the Marina d'Angra. The next day we had a guided tour of the town and then watched the running of the Bulls that evening. Not knowing quite what to expect and feeling a little trapped by the narrow streets, we looked around for an escape route. We also noticed that the only people in the streets were other sailors (who knew no better) or local youths determined to show off their masculinity. Everyone else was perched in windows, on roof tops or high walls. So we decided it was time to move and found a stone wall that we climbed to a garage roof, where the owner heartily welcomed us to join his group. We were then able to watch the event in relative safety as the bulls ran down the streets destroying anything in their path. One person was caught by a bull and had to be rushed to hospital, which we understood from the locals was very common in the event which is run almost weekly in the Azores throughout spring and summer.
The following evening we left the island of Terceira for an overnight sail to Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel for our final stop. From here we took a tour to the hot springs where the Rally organizers had arranged for our dinner to be cooked while buried under ground in the hot springs and then served to us at a local restaurant. Some of the sailors also swam in the hot, muddy waters. Sadly our time in the Azores was coming to an end and after provisioning the boat for the final leg, we headed out to the start line that was set at the mouth of the harbour. After crossing the line and waving good bye to the Rally organizers, we headed easterly in a light northerly wind along the south side of Sao Maguel towards Lagos, Portugal. Being the shortest leg of the trip with normally lighter north westerly winds, we were expecting a relatively easy trip. However our expectation and reality turned out to be rather different. There was a large high pressure system sitting over the Azores extending many hundreds of miles to the north east. Several depressions were stationary over Spain and Portugal causing the area in between to be squeezed creating strong north easterly winds. Therefore, once we had cleared the Island of Sao Meguel the winds increased to 30 knots and then stayed between 20 and 30 knots north easterly nearly all the way to Lagos. For 6 days we headed east into this head wind. With the boat being tossed around by the waves it made for a very uncomfortable trip. Far more uncomfortable then the gale force winds we had experienced on the previous leg. We also found it impossible to cook or get any real sleep. So it was mainly sandwiches that we prepared before leaving, dried food and the occasional cat nap when too tired to let the hull pounding on the waves keep you awake any longer.
After a few days at sea we found that we were not able to hold a direct course to Lagos as the north easterly winds and south flowing currents all pushed us south. Our charted course showed that we were headed for the under sea mountains of Josephine Bank, Gettysburg Sea Mount, and Ormonde Sea Mount. These are areas of the sea where the depths change rapidly from several thousand meters to less than 30 meters. The pilot books and cruising guides for this region warn that the sea in this area can be very treacherous and should be avoided if possible. We continued in this direction for as long as we dared hoping that the wind would back enough to allow us to pass safely to the north. With nothing changing and despite other rally boats headed along the same track we decided that being only double-handed, we would play it safe and tack away. We then headed north for several hours until we felt comfortable enough to tack back to the east. From this position we could head directly towards Lagos.
The only obstacle now in our way would be the shipping lanes around Cape St. Vincent carrying traffic to and from the Mediterranean from Northern Europe. We decided to head a few miles north of the official start of the lanes rather than actually cross them. As we approached the shipping lanes at right angles in darkness, we noticed a huge number of blips on our radar screen with many AIS targets. The first two lanes furthest from shore were for vessels carrying dangerous liquids the vast majority showed up on AIS as Crude Carriers. We watched the vessels passing to and fro in front of us. We were amazed how numerous they were with several running in parallel with only a small gap between them and the next group behind. After watching for some time, we decided that we had found the largest gap we were likely to get and with our speed and course set, we headed between two carriers trying to pass the leading one as close as possible to their stern and then immediately heading up to ensure we cleared the next one. But before we had time to relax, we had to immediately set our speed and course to pass the next lane of carriers this time headed north. We continued as before and crossed successfully but in no time we were then approaching the next set of shipping lanes for non bulk carriers. This looked even more daunting than what we had already experienced. At least the Crude Carriers, although very large, were all traveling at the same speed and were reasonable orderly.
The non bulk carrier lanes were even busier with all different sized vessels traveling at vastly different speeds. These were going to be far more difficult to navigate. We set our speed and our course for the best gap we could find and headed out. With far more vessels to clear, our eyes went from the radar screen to the AIS to direct eyeballing continuously to ensure we were not missing anything. With several vessels now all within one mile of us, we felt very vulnerable. We cleared the south bound traffic lane and then, like before, we immediately encountered the north bound lane. We again set our speed and course for the best gap that we could see and headed across. We crossed several vessels and were about to cross the final ship when we notice it turning to starboard and straight into our path. With a few hundred yards to spare, we turned to starboard to pass behind the ship rather than across its bows. This then put us directly in front of the next ship, and we had to continue weaving between several more ships before we could finally clear the shipping traffic lanes. These shipping lanes would not have been easy to cross in day light and feeling refreshed. And it was even more challenging and exhausting crossing them in the middle of the night, having not slept for several days.
Pleased to be finally clear of the shipping, we headed around Cape St. Vincent and along the Algarve coast in a light northerly wind. The sun was now rising and we could see the sandy beaches and small towns that the Portuguese Algarve is famous for. As we approached Lagos and crossed the finishing line, we dropped the sails and motored up the river to the marina office, welcomed by our friend - Lyall from the ARC Rally team, as well as our friends from Berkeley East, Splendido and Anam Cara who had already arrived. It was hard to believe it but we had now completed our double handed crossing of the Atlantic Ocean - departing the British Virgin Islands on May 6, 2010 and arriving in Lagos the morning of June 18, 2010. (Of course, the first leg departing the US was done last November, 2009, when we left Hampton Virginia for the British Virgin Islands.) We certainly did not break any speed records in the crossing, but the achievement of stepping ashore in Lagos after a successful ocean crossing was an amazing feeling that we are sure to always remember.