The AZORES

Island of Flores, Azores

Looking over the harbour, Rapau is against the wall 3rd boat from the left.

The Azores is a group of 9 islands belonging to Portugal spread over about 300 miles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

When we arrived in Flores on a misty foggy morning with Pete and Dan we tied up along the wall of the stone jetty. This was a little jerky but the next morning we were told we had to move as a tug was coming in.


The anchorage at Flores

We went out into the anchorage which was really too deep for the scope of chain we have, but we managed to find a shallower spot closer in to the shore. Unbeknown to us it was an area of rocks which reaching up to 6m from the 10m seabed and the anchor became lodged.

Anchor lodged between 2 boulders

Donning my diving gear I found that it was lodged between two large boulders and try as I may, even tying lines to it etc I could'nt budge it. With a heavy heart we prepared for me to undo the shackle from the chain and abandon a £300 anchor! While crying into our cup of tea (cos I was freezing in this colder water) the wind changed direction, the boat moved round and we tried pulling from a different direction on the line I had tied on, and hey presto it came clear!!

We decided to hire a car as it was cheap and the island is said to have wonderful scenery. Flores means the island of flowers and it was certainly very pretty (well what we saw). The day we booked the car there was a low mist over all of the high ground!

Lovely flower lines roads of Flores

Our hire car in the clear weather of the coast

From the window of our hirer car when we reached the higher ground!




The roads are lined with hydrangas, very pretty

We also went for a nice walk another day and probably saw more than we did with the car!!

Pretty walk

Resting during our walk

We stayed 5 days and left for the 30 hour trip to the island of Horta in the Azores chain.

Horta, (Island of Faial), Azores

Arriving in Horta

The 30 hour sail to Horta became a 30 hour motor as there was no wind. We had a lot of dolphins visit us and had never seen so many of them on one trip.

Some of the many dolphins

Looking over Horta

We did a bus tour around the island which was very green and reminicent of the English countryside (can't say how much Keith enjoyed it as he had the reminents of a hangover from the night before in which we got tied up with the mad singlehanded Dutchman from the boat next to us!)

Rapau from the top of the mad Dutchmans mast (I went up his mast to check his rig etc)

The island of Pico and its volcano which is the highest land in all of Portugal (the Azores is Portugease) is more often than not covered in cloud. But one evening the cloud was half way up and sun was shinning on the top, it was an amazing sight as it glowed red.

Pico at sunset

We visited the old whaling museum which only stopped processing the whales in 1974. Quite sad to see the pictures of these magnifcant creatures being dragged ashore up the ramps.

The whaling museum

Many many yachts visit Horta as a stopping point across the Atlantic, it is supposed to be unlucky if you don't leave your yachts name on the jetty or wall of the marina (You have to go in the marina in Horta as not allowed to anchor). As we had no paint and neither of us are very arty we put our Rapau T-shirt on the jetty and covered it with epoxy so it was sealed to the floor.

The graffiti over all of the jetty, a tradition amongst sailors who visit Horta

The teashirt graffiti we left on the jetty

Angra do Heroismo (Island of Terceira), Azores
We left Faial at 4.20am one morning to try to reach the island of Terceira (still in the Azores group) before night fall. Pico looked great in the morning glow and there were some fascinating water features flowing from the rocks of Sao Jorge as we sailed past towards Terceira.

Pico in the morning

Passing Sao Jorge

Angra do Heroismo, Terceira

Angra Do Heroismo is a world heritage site for architecture, and the buildings were stunning, it was lovely to walk around the place. Much more going on than in the previous 2 islands.

One of the highlights was going to the bull run which is a traditional pass time here. The bull runs down the street with loads of stupid men and youths taunting it and running away. We found a spot on an elavated step in front of a row of terrace houses with a railing in front. We were a bit unsure of the postion as other places had full boards in front of the people, but were we were the bull could get at us between the railings......we just hoped he did'nt fancy us!

The fellars in red were the showmen who taunted the bull and dodged it mostly

The there were mad tourists who tried to get closer video.......

The tourist lost his trainer getting away, the bull looks fed up!

So he walks towards us in disgust.......Scary.........

Then another mad man catches his attention........

But he came to grief!!....(he got up and walked away though).

We also went to a bull run in a field we we were safely behind a wall. Not quite so exciting as the street one, but still glad we were not in the bulls-eye!!!

We are leaving tomorrow for northern France which will take us around 12-13 days depending on the weather. More news then.