Puerto Rico to Azores, Across the Atlantic (18861 nm)

I point my bum in your general direction, with apologies to Monty Python fans


Having flown home for two weddings and no funerals (plus two more weddings to come in July) I return to the boat where Jens has been boatsitting for 10 days waiting for Nick and I to arrive.
The wedding reception of Kylie and Kenny had been at the Royal Irish YachtClub in Dun Laoghaire  so there was a nautical connection and the Wedding of David and Valerie was in the Inshowen peninsula near Malin Head - the coast at Ireland's end. So my thoughts are still of the sea.  After the wedding, Shirley and I visited the head while a Force 10 blew through.



The seas were magnificent and I got to wonder how Shadowmere would survive a testing storm. She (and I) had not been truly tested - or at least she had been tested somewhat and not found wanting. A strong boat, stronger than me. I was returning to Puerto Rico to cross the Atlantic from West to East - much more of a challenge than from East to West where the trade winds blow steady and sure. The crossing to come had much more chance of very strong weather. Still, it is in the nature of men (and adolescents) to test themselves though I had realized (only very recently) that I was not actually invulnerable and resolved to avoid "exciting" and try for "unexciting" in my adventures. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Shirley and I retired to a Bar, close to where the Millenium Falcon had been filmed in the making of the recent Star Wars film, over a hot port I reviewed my passage options while the Atlantic Storm raged outside. We walked to the car as the wind plucked at us. "Shit it's windy" I thought.

Nick and I returned to the tropics and the storms raging further North seemed remote. Jens picked us up in a hire car from the airport as there is essentially no public transport in Puerto Rico, no matter how poor you are, you still have a car. We got to the Palmas del Mar marina near the bottom of the righthand coast of PR (East) and Nick and Jens provisioned the boat while I got the boat ready. The mince (ground beef) and sausages allowed good passage food for the 8 days it would take to get North from Puerto Rico to reach Bermuda.  Four days of Chilli con carne and 3 days of Sausage Casserole. what's not to like! - I did adulterate the saucepan with American baked beans and other goodies as the levels in the pan went down. Easy cooking with rice, pasta and potatoes. (not all at the same time)

I begin my Chilli with frying mince, liberally coated with Cumin, add a teaspoon and a half of chilli, a heaped tablespoon of drinking chocolate powder. Add two coarsely chopped onions and a lot of garlic. After a bit, fire in a couple of tins of chilli (or black) beans, a tin, sometimes two of chopped tomatoes, fill the saucepan to the top with beer and stock. when it boils, put it in "Mr D" my slow cooker that needs no power (bit like a hay box) and you have a meal that keeps hot for 12 hours (longer if Mr D's outer pot still held its vacuum - its a but like a vacuum flask shaped like a saucepan).

The Sausage Casserole recipe is even simpler. Fry sausages (pork is best but others are ok) in Mr D's inner saucepan (a wonderful thing - the base is half an inch thick cast iron/copper) remove sausages and add loads of chopped garlic and stacks of paprika, preferably smoked (4 teaspoons) with maybe a bit more oil depending how much came out of the sausages. Turn heat off and don't get the paprika mix too frothy, do not burn the garlic!. After a minute add loads of chopped onions (two), stir and heat for a couple of minutes. Now add root vegetables - cubes of raw potato and carrots. At home I would use parsnips as well as, or instead of, the spuds but it seems that the UK is parsnip rich, the rest of the world parsnip sparse. I have used turnips and swedes <sic> ( the vegetable, not the person) Stir vigorously to coat the root vegetables. Add stock and a tin of tomatoes. When boiling add the browned sausages back in  - cut into smaller pieces if you like. If you forget, rename the dish sausage surprise - the surprise being there are no sausages. Add green herbs (two tablespoons).  Boil for ten minutes and then into the outer Mr D for an hour or as long as you like. The pot loses between 2 and 4 degrees an hour and once you get below 60-65 you run the risk of bacteria multiplying so take it out of the outer pot of Mr D whilst still more than hand hot. Cool and refrigerate as soon as possible.

We also shipped 96 tins of beer and 30 bars of chocolate -a treat a day! We should have put more aboard in PR as things in Bermuda were outrageously expensive I had reckoned on 8 days to Bermuda and 18 from Bermuda to the Azores. The 18 days was hard to plan - we took 15 in the end but there had been the possibility of wallowing about in a calm for a week near the Azores with no fuel left. We arrived in the Azores with 18 hours of fuel in the tanks - Shadowmere carries 240 Litres in her bottom tank and 140 Litres in jerry cans (there is also a top tank that holds 220 Litres but I don't use it - it needs an inspection hatch cut in it and emptied and steamcleaned.

We elected to leave Palmas Del Mar at 8am, motoring into a brisk headwind. We were only doing 1.8 knots and I decided something was wrong so we returned to harbour where I dived on the propellor and scraped the barnacles off it. This was after staying still in harbour for 4 weeks. The tropical soup in the harbour is good at growing things and the hull was heavily weeded too. I recall diving in my knickers and a dive mask in Strangford lough to examine Christine and Clifford's propeller on their Elan 33 after it had sat on it's mooring for 8 weeks and we had seen 0.8 knot under power - barnacles 1/4 inch thick at 100% coverage. I only had about 75% coverage but obviously it was enough to drastically slow us down.

Next day we motorsailed at 5 knots, up the East coast of Puerto to an island just south of the Marina del Rey.  We anchored and scraped the hull clean - large inch thick carpets of weed came off easily with 2 inch paint scrapers - remember to carry a couple of these. It is difficult to do this with a snorkel so I used up the last of our diving air while Jens and Nick snorkelled and cleaned as best they could. We got most of it off and motored at 6.5 knots (2000 rpm) to the marina for the night and to clear out.

I had phoned the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) when I arrived in PR on the 29th April as my 12 month cruising permit had ran out that day. They cost 25$ but the boat is supposed to leave for 15 days before renewal and it is supposed to leave before the permit runs out. The Americans are very literal in their adherence to bureaucratic rules and I was a bit worried about this. However a kind man  - let's call him M to protect him. Said "Nay bother - just call in and check out" - my plan was to leave on the 1st and on the 2nd I took a 15$ taxi from the marina to the CBP post where a lady looked suspiciously at my paperwork. She was hot and bothered and very pregnant but still at work in a hot office. Eventually stamped my papers when I mentioned that "M" had told me it was ok and just to call in... thank you M and thanks to the hot office - too hot for complex paperwork I suspect. Phew.

We depart PR and head due North, 4 good days of fast sailing on a pleasant reach and four days of little wind.  Jens is prone to seasickness and he lives in the cockpit, I give him a rubber coated picnic rug and a wee-wee bottle and he survives.

We motor when the light winds arrive but I calculate I still need some sailing to avoid running our fuel too low. At 200 miles to go we have 80 miles of motoring left in our tanks and jerry cans so we take a day or so sailing at 2 to 3 knots and just make it to St George's harbour with 4 hours of motoring left. 8 days for 850 miles is ok I suppose.

En route we notice plastic bottles floating in the water every few hundred yards, thousands and thousands of them. Our disgust is somewhat dissipated when we discover they are actually Portuguese Men of War Jellyfish - these are about 6 to 8 inches in length and we learn later that their tentacles can be 30m long. Yes, over a hundred feet! Their sting only kills small children and the infirm as a rule but probably not worth checking that assertion.




Maybe the blue ones are boys and the pink ones girls...

Porpoises feature most days but play games with the cameramen and we resist photographing patches of sea which had held the beasts a split second earlier. No Flying fish which I find surprising, we are further north than my East to West crossing so perhaps that is why. Sargassum weed is also present at the beginning which makes for difficult fishing. No bites.  And we are reminded that we are near the Sargasso Sea of deadly calms and we go through the Bermuda Triangle. As an engineer I ponder how a massive release of bubbles from rotting weed on the seabed coming to the surface, reducing buoyancy instantly, and dropping Shadowmere 10 feet underwater would be a bad thing... Although I see no evidence of this; the rational and irrational mind fight each other for a while. In the end we survive and coast into Bermuda at 3 knots boat speed.



Bermuda is a pleasant place but very expensive, lots of gardens, original buildings and some nice churches.


Large lagoon for yachts




Bad boys

It has had hurricanes but there is obviously sufficient money to rebuild as was - note the story of the unfinished church below, this was politics rather than money though. The island is green (i.e it has rain) and cruise ships call at the main town, we choose to stay in St Georges rather than Hamilton as it is closer to a gap in the reef that surrounds Bermuda and will make for an easy exit. Also time is pressing as Nick has to get back to work.







Nice beaches, shame about the cruise ships


A slow property being developed


Always good to see skiffs


The day we intended to leave Bermuda for the Azores had a front blowing so we delayed a day and departed into 3 days of light winds that had us motoring for 2 of the days and trying to sail on the third. This helped Jens acclimatize and I am pleased to report he didn't boke once on this leg. Boking or not, he takes his watch like a true trooper, good crew Jens!

We ended up leaving at the same time as ARC Europe - this is a collection of 33 boats who have various things arranged for them. Much smaller that the main ARC that leaves from the Canaries to the Caribbean at the end of November each year - that can be just under 300 boats - some do the ARC+ which leaves a smidgen earlier, stops in the Cape Verde Islands and catches up with the main ARC in the Caribbean ( Rodney's Bay Marina, St Lucia this year I think)
I am not a fan of Rallies, once you delegate planning to someone else you might relax too much. Best to be responsible for your own destiny.

However the social aspect of these rallies is good, we snuck in to a meal hosted by the St George's yacht club, on advice by a helpful barmaid's advice the night before. The boats were split over the weather routing, I had already worked out this was tricky. Conventional wisdom is to leave Bermuda, travel due North until 38 to 40 degrees North where you are guaranteed wind the whole way East from there until near the Azores. Turning right sooner reduces risk of stronger weather and increases risk of calms. Above 40 degrees there is a risk of ice in early summer.  The main source of information for these decisions is a 600 page book by Jimmy Cornell entitles "World Cruising Routes" and the raw source data are the pilot charts of the North Atlantic, you can buy the UK Hydrographic ones or download the US ones free. There are 12 sets of charts with historical data giving percentages of wind from each direction, chance of gales and even "predicted" wave heights and temperature data. "Predicted" is the wrong word as the charts are only historical and even if you are not a believer in global warming you can see that weather is much more unpredictable and different than from some or many years ago. Caveat Emptor.

Alternatively some yachts motor for 1800 miles in a straight line, right through the Azores high, I discount this option.  Two sensible possibilities with the problem of deciding when to turn right. Normally either 38 or 36 degrees.

This year the Azores high was small and all over the place and I knew I had to be careful. I have an old Furuno Weatherfax that prints onto thermal paper and also Alan Doyle had lent me his Garmin InReach - a satellite communicator that does text messages (but not voice). Equipped with an SOS button that makes humans text you for a reassuring two way dialogue in an emergency this was much better than the EPRIRBs we also carried (two of).  The InReach allowed me to send a position report to loved ones which I did at noon UTC every day.  You can also get a text based weather forecast (at 50p a time) for one particular spot in the ocean - not that useful if you are moving!

The SSB radio was still not transmitting properly (shame on me as an Electronics Engineer and a radio ham) but I was able to receive net messages from the nearby ARC boats).

Most cruising boats download binary files that give a grid of wind and weather. These GRIB files are the raw data for all weather forecasts and can be downloaded for up to 15 days ahead, though only 3 or 4 days ahead is accurate they will show major disturbances a week or two in advance. The gribs I got in Bermuda showed such a disturbance travelling from the East coast of the States and then heading along the 38th and 39th parallel. This had started life as Sub tropical depression Andrea, reminding me that the hurricane rule of "June too soon, remember November" was only a guideline. my weatherfax eventually showed this as very sustained and extensive winds of 45 knots, which probably meant gusts of 55+. I was keen to avoid this. So heading to 38 degrees North was a mistake.

Some ARC boats did seem to go this high, I suspect they had racing crew on board, I hope they had racing crew on board. Why head to places where boat damage and hurt people where likely? just to get a fast passage, what's the rush?

I used the 15 day gribs downloaded before we left Bermuda to plan a route and worked out what lat/long I should be at each day. I plotted this in a table as our initial plan. It suggested heading north and branching right a bit to get up to 60 West and 35 North and then Eastwards until 50 degrees West and then up to 38 degrees at the Azores - much lower than the books suggest. However the up to date weather charts I printed from the weatherfax showed rapid changing pressure maps that differed from my out of date gribs, so by 4 days in I changed my plan to sail an 'S' shaped route to minimise the incidence of 40 knot winds and also calms.  We stayed down at 33-34N for the first 600 miles of Eastward travel, curved up to stay on 35N for a bit and then headed up. This worked well, even if I did have to study 12 foot printouts of weather charts every couple of days. I used American transmissions from Boston coast guard. Thank you Boston.

This is an out of date plot, the low was further south - B is Bermuda and A is Azores! Half a wind arrow barb is 5 knots. a full barb is 10 knots.

 In the end we had an initial period of 3 days of light winds a couple of days of 28-30 knots broad reach (odd 40+ gust - God bless Shadowmere's pedigree, we barely noticed) and then some more light winds (5 knot boat speed, just) and finally the last three days of brisk beam to fine reach to get up to the latitude of Azores. During the light winds whilst motorsailing I notice the sternseal is leaking water requiring pumping the bilges every 6 hours. We are sinking. Well, we pump for 5 minutes but there is the risk that the leak could turn into catastrophic failure.  The gland does not leak if the propeller is not turning or at least not yet. I am keen to get this fixed. I review my emergency plan for this scenario which involves cable tying an old bicycle inner tube round and round the shaft seal, sliding jubilee clips up and stopping the water. Not a pleasant thought when the nearest land is 1000 miles away, well actually the nearest land is 2 miles away but I'd prefer not to go in that direction.

The rubber stern seal is a sore point, the boat used to have a lovely brass or bronze stuffing box type of stern gland/stern seal. These traditional items have a square section cord stuffing, a foot of stuffing laden with grease that goes around and round the shaft inside the fitting, a hollow nut screws down on this and you do this up finger tight, lock it and check you get a drip every 10 seconds when the engine is running. There is a gland that goes to a beautiful grease tube with a screw down piston. You give this greaser a turn every 5 hours of the engine running, check there are still drips and that the fitting is not too hot. This arrangement lasts for scores of years provided you replace the stuffing every now and again and look after it. Good engineering even if considered old fashioned, but most people don't like the drips, although that is why you have bilge pumps.  The mechanic that fitted the engine replaced this with a so called maintenance free rubber stern seal. Maintenance free! Ha, yes but you need to replace the entire fitting every 5 years. Mine lasted 4 years, although I suppose my mileage was high (the new replacement is quoted as 500 hours running) So instead of replacing stuffing, which I could do in the water (most boats don't allow this easily, Shadowmere was easy as the stern tube is very long and probably full of grease) I have to now lift the boat out. <sigh> at least I didn't sink.

As compensation for the worry of the stern seal some whales come and visit.  We had hoped to see these on our way to the Caribbean and I had a brief encounter with one at night mid Atlantic - close enough to smell its breath (hint - fishy) and make out the outline of a 20 foot by 6-8 foot across black something. This time we see a much bigger creature. 3 or 4 smaller whales and one big one. We can't get very close and they are not curious about us.






Glad we weren't that close to this big one.

These are magnificent creatures. Porpoises and Turtles fill me with happy thoughts and make me smile. The sharks of the Bahamas make me uneasy with a primeval fear that makes hair rise, coldness in my stomach and a metallic taste in my mouth. Whales fill me with awe and wonderment at their size and their uncaring ignoring of insignificant man. We are a very small part of this planet.

15 days is a reasonable passage time for an old man.  We landed at the first island in the Azores group - Flores, most boats go 100 miles more to get to Faial, it's main port is called Horta, famous as a yachting destination for cross Atlantic boats. Flores is much less visited, and once you reach Horta, you are unlikely to cruise back, so I was keen to see it.

The Azores is a group of nine islands, the layout as 2-5-2. I.e there is a pair of Islands to the West, Flores and Corvo then a cluster of 5 islands in the middle (100+ miles away) , Faial, Pico, Sao Jorge, Graciosa and Terceira and finally a pair of islands to the bottom right 85 miles (South East) called Sao Miguel and Sao Maria. The main island is Sao Miguel and Ryanair fly to there from London, as well as TAP Portugal from Lisbon. There are international flights to Terceira and Faial too. Terceira (where I end up) has TAP Portugal and Ryanair flights to Lisbon (and Lisbon to Dublin with TAP and Ryanair). In practice there are many interisland flights, there are interisland ferries but they don't run that often, the flores ferries only run in July!. The Portuguese government (or the Azorean Government?) have some really sensible rules; if you arrive from Lisbon on a TAP Portugal flight you can have an interisland flight free - so the islands that don't have an international airport (six out of the nine) are not disadvantaged. Nick was able to use this to fly from Flores, to Horta and on to Lisbon.

There are other sensible rules where if you have residential status then any other interisland flights are capped - the government gives you a refund if you pay too much for a flight. And the marinas are one third of the normal rate as well. To get residential status a yachtsman just has to stay on the islands for 183 days. The checking of this used to be lax (i.e you could  leave the boat and nip home) but you now need to actually live on the islands, this would not be onerous as it is a lovely place, albeit with a winter that means usually lifting yachts out. A lot of summer marina places are untenable in swell in the winter, there are a few liveaboard berths but not many.

 One of our 15 sunsets
 Jens holding her steady

Nick steering with one hand

 The two crew, happy speed merchants


Number two genny, 30 knots of wind, 6.1 knots boat speed (just visible on the VHF screen)


AIS was invaluable, we avoided crashing.

This ship is finding rough weather!

So, we arrive at Flores, the tiny harbour of Lajaes, actually the island has a population of 3,500 and only two towns of note.

The island of Flores, like many of the Azores is shrouded in mist, this is very common. We can't see the top 80% of the island due to the moist airflow. We see a map later of the shipwrecks of boats that probably didn't see the island at all until it was too late. Good diving!


Misty


Every circle is a dive!

I do like scrimshaw - the Azores has a lot of it of course, a museum in Horta which we missed but we saw these in Flores


The one above is scrimshaw, cotton and bronze!



The harbour is in the background, small and tight

We hire a taxi to take us to the airport and a car to drive around the island (it doesn't take long!) the island has some Volcanoes with sunken Flooded Calderas and is characterised by the waterfalls that go over the edge of the rocks.  The rocks in the Azores are a mere 4.5 million years old (the canaries are 120 Million) so they are very young, geologically speaking.



The rest of the island has lovely villages and scenery, famous also for its flowers.




We do like the old buildings, very quaint style. And the churches all have a very typical style of twin square towers capped with a spire each. We see this on the other islands too. The azores has a ricj history of providing cheese and dairy products, there are a number of vineyards but none on Flores as far as I know.




And soon Nick must leave, work beckons. Jens too must leave soon but agrees to stay until Faial and in fact Terceira as air travel is slightly handier for him. We depart for an overnight run to Horta, on the island of Faial, not much wind and an easy passage.

We stay long enough to walk the town, have a drink at Peter's Sports bar (with a few score of other yachties) and paint Shadowmere on the "wall" at Horta Marina, actually, all the walls are full, and all the piers, I find a nook on the pier near where we are rafted three boats out. By waiting at Flores we let the other ARC boats move on from Horta to Terceira - a good plan as spaces are limited.





I do see Hecla's name but am unsure if it is Donaghadee's own... (Ken?)
And then an early departure to Terceira, passing Pica which has the highest volcano in the Azores, shrouded as usual by the usual mist. And sailing between Sao Jorge and Pico and then on to Terceira. We bypass the main town of Angra as the second port/marina at Praia is much closer to the airport. I phone them and they say there is room, and telephone the security man when we arrive, I do but he doesn't answer and we have a tricky wee manoeuvre to get docked. The marina is off one end of the beach and the buoys delimiting the swimming seem to come with twenty feet of the first pontoon. We scrape around it in 9 feet of water, I hear later that a catamaran once did pick the buoys up.  We phone a taxi and arrange an 8 am pickup for Jens. Later that day Shirley arrives and we have a pleasant week puttering about, a few days in Praia and then we sail around to Angra to the marina and to arrange getting lifted out to replace the sterngland, realign the engine and to antifoul and polish the hull and topsides. A thank you to Shadowmere for 20,000 miles of faithful adventuring.

 Praia's outer harbour - by the way, Shirley says the crew is now much more glamorous!
The inner harbour, note the tight corner

I will do a further blog about the Azores, Shirley and I are back here at present for a 3 week holiday in August after which we will lift out the old girl again for the winter (the boat, not Shirley)

Next April/May/June here should be good. Though we are putting Shadowmere up for sale, we sort of hope she doesn't sell (immediately).