Month: June 2014

When the sea explodes in front of you you get a bit concerned about whatever it is you are about to get into. In this case, slowed to very slow motion, an extraordinary scene meets us as we sail head on into a fast flowing ‘river’ of dolphin. Flashback to Portugal with the upload of the Dolphin Highway filmed first thing one morning with over a mile of dolphins at least 10 across heading north west. View in HD720.

We have waited for over a week for the volcano on Pico to show itself and suddenly, very briefly, there it was at about 6pm last night. Rising to over 6,000ft you can typically sight the base, the top, or base and top together but rarely the whole cone as cloud cover obscures a layer.

Scooting around Faial including several kilometers on compacted volcanic sand – we hired a couple of 125’s and got lost in the hills. The B/W images show the eruption in 1958 which created a new island which bubbled up from the sea in 3 days alongside the colour photos of the now renovated lighthouse. Underground is a very well presented and comprehensive volcano museum. The last picture shows the 2km wide volcanic crater on the centre of Faial, Caldeiro.

Need a dentist……to snack on!   Our neighbour visited last night and part of the discussion centred on the tuna that he had caught which, as he brought it onboard, was then taken by a shark. Do you want to see the photo’s? Of course we said. Little did we know that he had actually caught a soon to be Great White and pulled it onboard – well to be more accurate his crew pulled it onboard & it wasn’t quite what he wanted. But what a photo.

What a great sailing centre Horta is. Even though the weather is a bit on the damp side it feels great to be here after months in the tropics. No mosquitos, no security issues, service with a smile, great food, amazing greenery and a fantastic enthusiasm for sailors/visitors. Few cars.    

Stand still for long enough and you get painted….(spot the Mafia stake-out)

We had to tighten the clew on the main and add a second tie as the existing one was showing signs of wear.