“Only one and thrupence for two coffees and two wee Portuguese tarts.” (The edible kind.)

That's what I said in a WhatsApp message to my brother a few weeks ago after we'd battled our way across thousands of miles of the wild North Atlantic Ocean.

“No comprendo” I got back a few minutes later.

“We’re in the Azores” I said. “Wow. When did that happen? I didn't know you were doing that”.

“Try reading the blog bruv!”

Now, my blog posts aren't prolific, but I do try to find a subject that is current or seems relevant in my addled brain, and in so doing, I try to keep our faithful followers relatively up to date.

The challenge is finding something to blog about. I mean, we circumnavigated Gibraltar yesterday. Whoop-de-doo. An enjoyable, longish walk but hardly a page-turner. How about fixing the holding tank? Nope, not for sensitive ears, eyes or especially noses. Waiting on the Furuno guy to turn up with a new radar. Riveting.

And there, spookily, was the link and the inspiration for today's nonsense.

Our long-term, great cruising friends, Trevor and Jan from New Zealand emailed this morning to say “Hey guys, we haven’t heard from you on the blog for a while. Is everything okay?”

Someone does care.

Fittingly, Trevor and Jan were our first visitors aboard the new Time Bandit back in New Caledonia in November of 2018. As Trevor stepped into the cockpit, he spotted our instruments and said, “Furuno, you’ve got the best”. Now, Trevor was a professional fisherman for many a long year and, hearing this from such an authority, I was quite chuffed. Well, we didn't have to fast forward long before I called it the “Trevor Curse”.

No sooner had been left New Cal and arrived in Australia than the radar packed up. That was the first $Boat $Buck to go. Next was the plotter - for its first time. This was followed by the wind instruments and soon thereafter, the plotter for a second time.

So, here we are sitting in the sunshine in Gibraltar, waiting for a new radar to appear optimistically thinking the existing wiring will fit. Our greatest wish, however, is that, as all the instruments will have now been replaced, the Trevor curse will be lifted.

We had meant to get to Bermuda but A) it was a rubbish forecast B) the option was to wait another ten to fourteen days and C) we don’t like motoring, so, once again we changed the plan. It was only an extra three hundred and fifty miles after all.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you’ll know that in our early cruising years we participated in a number of World ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) events; The Classic Malts, where you can combine a cruise around the west coast of Scotland while pickling your liver in some of Scotland’s finest distilleries. The ARC itself, joining upwards of two hundred other yachts and party goers for a passage to the Caribbean and ARC Europe, the rally that gets you back from the sunshine and cocktails of islands to the rain and warm beer somewhere in Europe. Ideal for those who now need to go and visit their dermatologists and / or their liver specialist.

There’s also the World ARC which will whiz you around the world in jig time. Perfect for those who have something to do in their lives other than sailing.

The ARC organisation also has competitors. The big brand name yacht builders have created their own rallies. There’s the Oyster World Rally which gathers together a bunch of, usually, professionally crewed, sixty to eighty foot luxury, deep draft yachts which must really struggle to get into the tight anchorages we know around the world. Then there’s the awfully named GLYWO rally from Grand Large Yachting which brings together Outremers and boats from their other yards.

The common thing is that while the organisers call these events rallies they’re really races in disguise, each boat quietly trying to better the others, kidding on they don’t care if they get beaten into the next port of call. It’s a boat. It’s natural.

Altogether, there’s quite a lot of boats hooning around the oceans these days all keeping an eye on each other’s whereabouts, and it’s all made much easier now with AIS. You can even have a virtual race with boats you can’t even see. Oh loook. There’s another boat. OK. It’s fourteen miles away over the horizon but it’s going the same direction, about our size and doing five point seven knots. They’re fair game. The race is on.

It’s a big barren ocean but when all these boats are usually aiming for the one destination, often just a speck on the chart up ahead and when you get there, it actually is just a speck with a tiny anchorage, it puts quite a lot of pressure on those of us with a racing pedigree to get there first. It also puts a lot of pressure on anchorages and marinas and getting there before these other guys becomes increasingly important. A bit like getting up early to get your towel down on a sun bed.

Ponto Delgada marina. Ponto Delgada marina. Ponto Delgada marina. This is Time Bandit, Time Bandit.

Hi, we’re the catamaran just entering the marina, here for perhaps five days.

No you’re not, they said. We’re full. No room at the inn. The ARC is in town.

Now, we knew they weren’t. We’d been watching their gaggle of AIS signals. They hadn’t even left Horta and still had to visit Terceira before heading on to Ponta Delgada and we, along with everyone else had been timing our visits to stay ahead of the ARC crowd.

Having failed to impress the marina staff with her personal knowledge of the ARC’s whereabouts and plans, from the heights of her high horse Anne threw herself on their mercy saying she was tired, hungry and we needed food and fuel. In the end, they surrendered and we got a berth in the cheap seats but only on the condition we left after five days. No further concessions.

Once we got parked up, we spotted another Outremer, Traverse, and headed across the marina to say hello. We had a chat, met later for coffee and discussed the problems of being in the Mediterranean with only ninety days to play before being chucked out, jailed, banned for life or whatever the penalty is.

Nice people. Race people. In the same make of boat. And they’re leaving just a day behind us.

On the last leg to Horta we had a race against the Rapido 52. Now, we’ve got a match race. Follow it on AIS!

Oh. The pressure.

Sheeesh!

"Would you like to leave a tip?" That innocent looking little sentence appears on every credit card machine and at every check out in the USA whether you've bought a full blown meal or simply an ice cream. Your choice, 20% 25% and in some cases 30% and then of course the little bit at the bottom that says plus tax. By the time you're done, what initially looked like a reasonably priced coffee or a meal has jumped in price by about 30% or more. That was the USA and I can tell you, we are loving the Azores. Two coffees, two bacon and egg rolls and one freshly squeezed orange juice. Yours for €10.50 no tip required.

As for the marina; five nights for our tennis court sized catamaran.... €110, one night in the USA, minimum $155 plus tax. In West Palm Beach, the Marina was $8.50 per foot for us, that's over $400 per night. You can get a pretty nice hotel in New York, Paris or London for less than that. And, you don't need to bring your own bed, towels, linen and shower. Or leave a tip.

Much as we enjoyed the USA it really is fabulous and well worth the effort of 10 days and nights at sea to get back to cobbled streets, culture and some serious history. Of which, I am something of a buff so you can look forward to some interesting and informative anecdotes over the next few months.

Meanwhile, we are off for a coffee and a pastel de nata, the rather scrumptious Portuguese tart. All yours for just €2.

Nine days, eighteen hours, top speed nineteen knots and a tad over one thousand eight hundred miles, all to have a Portuguese custard tart. We arrived in Horta at six this morning cleared in at eight, custard tart by nine. That means the EU 90 days clock is ticking - thanks for nothing Brexiteers; that plan really worked!

The passage went really well on the whole although, if I could be picky, we’d have preferred five to ten knots less wind from a little bit more aft. That way, Anne could have got all the reefs out!

As we approached the island, we could tell by the mass of AIS signals that it was going to be busy.

BUSY!!! We motored into the harbour to find it chock-a-block with cruisers of all shapes and sizes; including our nemesis, the Rapide 52 X, Pico Mole. It might be a little mole but it could shift. They told us they just sat at fifteen to sixteen knots for days on end. Or “daze” on end. The crew must have been battered senseless and as for the noise….

Off to scrounge a look over it later.

And, it was all going so well!

The forecast from Bermuda to the Azores looked pretty good when we left. Our routeing software suggested a ten day passage, romping along hitting twohundred miles a day. And for the first four days, that's pretty much what we did, breezing along in the sunshine, spending time on the wheel playing in the surf, working up our average speed with surfs up to the mid and high teens. Its funny how a bit of sunshine makes everything fine.

Then the cloud rolled in, the wind piped up, the reefs went in and our smooth,rolling, uni-directional seas turned into a foaming crested maelstrom, waves coming from all directions. Our smooth surfing Ocean now more like a meringue cake surface, all short, jagged waves, coming from all directions, their tops dumping their crests on deck.

And so, with shortened sail to slow us down we retreated to the lounge…..sorry, cabin to relax and catch up on some podcasts. Hhmmm. We could finish this one…….Final episode of The Titanic - First Officer Murdoch takes evasive action, attempting to swerve around the iceberg. As Titanic sustains multiple hull breaches, water starts flooding in. As chaos engulfs the engine room, Jimmy McGann and his pals do their best to shut down the engines. And the two wireless operators broadcast their first ever SOS…

TURN THAT OFF!

How about Real Survival Stories? - When a US Navy fighter pilot loses control of his jet it seems his fate is sealed. Even if Kegan Gill can bail himself out of immediate danger, further perils await: debilitating injuries, a desperate fight to stay conscious, and an epic struggle in great white shark territory. Kegan may be a young and inexperienced pilot, at the start of his career. But no amount of training could have prepared him for this…

TURN THAT OFF!

Sinking of the Lusitania? - On 7 May 1915, the British ocean liner, the Lusitania, was sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast, as it sailed from New York to Liverpool.
Thousands of passengers were onboard and 1,200 people died.
TURN THAT OFF!

I think I need to be a bit more selective in my choice of downloads.

Or indeed, hobbies. While we're wrestling to get reefs in, our friend Arthur is campaigning his model yacht. My brother and his pals are enjoying a mini-cruise from Largs to Oban on the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer, the Waverly. Our pals Julian and Lyn did the really sensible thing, stuck their Jeaneau on a ship, headed for New York, bought some appropriate evening attire from the Oxfam shop and did this trip on the Queen Mary.

Still, we’re down to the final six hundred and fifty miles and at this speed, we’ll be there by Saturday. If only in our dreams. There's a big blue, no wind bit showing up ahead. The Azores High.

This is roughly where we are….
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/TimeBandit/

And these are more of our exciting adventures, aka, Good Ideas At The Time.
YouTube: S V Time Bandit

If you've been, or maybe still are a dinghy sailor you will no doubt have experienced the wildly exhilarating fun of spotting a strong gust of wind coming your way and, at just the right moment, easing sheets and bearing away onto a screaming reach. On our dinghies, it was usually Anne doing the screaming right enough.

The downside to having all that fun though was that as the gust faded, you'd be faced with the prospect of hardening in the sheets and flogging back upwind to recover all the ground you’d just whoooo hooo’d your way down.

Well, its now Saturday morning, we’re just two days out and Bermuda is nearly four hundred miles behind us. Three hundred and eighty to be exact, missing the magic two hundred mile days by a fraction.

For every mile, it’s been a Whoooo Hoooo kind of sail. Full main, Code 0 and flying along on a reach, wind just aft the beam. Tempting fate, I'm going to note that amazingly, the GRIB forecast for the coming week is more of the same. Whooo hoooo. None of that bashing upwind nonsense and none of the stress of trying to sail dead downwind, as close to the gybe as you dare, preventer on to stop you getting a serious dunt on the head and struggling all day to keep the headsail filled. Just day after day of skooshing along, averaging about nine knots under clear blue and starlit skies.

It gets a bit sportier in a few days time. Sportier for a few days but, after some serious negotiations, pleadings and finally threats, we’ll just tuck in a reef or two and, oddly, we’ll not go any slower, eliciting another I Told You So moment

The biggest challenge right now is that we left Bermuda having set up our Watt&Sea hydro generator with the nine knot prop and we’re at its limit now. One high speed surf and it sheds its blades like leaves on an autumnal gale blown tree.

Before it gets sporty, we need to change up to the really WHOOOO HOOO sixteen knot prop. This involves having me hung off the back of the boat in my life jacket and harness, back step awash and me up to my pants in the ocean. Anne puts the boat up into the wind to slow us down such that, at just the right moment, the pressure comes off and I can pull up the stupid thing. Anne bears off to full speed while I fiddle about with Allen bolts and switch props, all the while my knobbly knees getting a much needed rinsing. Not to mention the pants. We then need to scrub off the speed again so that I can dangle over the oggin and, at just the right moment, get the stupid thing back in its bracket, in the water and locked down in place.

A few days ago I got so frustrated with this daft design that I sent Watt&Sea a drawing of how it should be built but as yet, no response nor royalties.

Scottish readers and perhaps the Bermuda resident that we met yesterday, who is a Runrig fan, might know the band's song, the Mighty Atlantic. We play this at full blast every time we head out into it's wild and woolly wastes. And this morning is no exception, much to the joy of the exhausted crew of the ARC Europe boat that anchored just behind us in the wee, small hours.
It's about 2000 miles from Bermuda to the Azores and with the looks of the GRIB it's an excellent forecast, fingers crossed.

The thing is, not only to we have to get to Horta and it's limited berthing before the ARC fleet but there's a Rapido 52 trimaran also leaving so, the race is on. "No pressure darling.And no thanks, I don’t think we’ll be needing a reef!”

This is our tracker.

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/TimeBandit/