São Miguel

In the end, the passage from Harlingen to the first island went very smoothly and was pretty much uneventful. Once again we could stand our watches inside, and there was remarkably little shipping after we turned SSW off Brest and crossed the traffic separation scheme there. For some reason there wasn’t a single ship we had to avoid, or that had to alter course for us.

The only thing that made us break a sweat was the new “Code Zero”. That’s an extra-large headsail that is set flying. It has an anti-torsion cable which, together with a furler, is supposed to let us furl the sail without any trouble. The first time we did it a bit sloppily, and the second time there was just a bit too much wind. Both times we ended up dropping the sail by easing the halyard and (with some effort) hauling it down onto the deck. All of this, of course, while properly clipped on. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was hard work, because that sail is quite a big brute. So, more practice needed, with a different furling technique.

Anyway, that was it as far as problems go, apart from the fact that the Watt&Sea hydrogenerator and the Kabola heater (for the hot water) had stopped working.

Last Saturday at 8 in the morning we arrived in Ponta Delgada, the capital of São Miguel, which is the largest island of the Azores. It’s a beautiful old town with mostly original houses. The surrounding countryside is spectacular and very, very green.

Since it was going to rain a lot on Sunday, we took it easy on Saturday and went out for some nice meals (twice), and on Sunday we did a bit of tinkering. I had mounted the propeller of the Watt&Sea incorrectly, so we can count ourselves lucky it hadn’t fallen off. Easy to fix. On top of that, it turned out the manufacturer had released a new software version in the meantime that lets us tune the unit better to the Merrimac’s lithium batteries. So we’ll do that upgrade today or tomorrow, now that we’ve managed to get hold of a USB Mini cable. Peter turned out to have a past as an employee of an oil burner manufacturer. He had a good laugh at how tiny the Kabola burner was, but he recognised everything. Unfortunately, even Peter couldn’t get the Kabola running for good.

Monday was the first day of our Peugeot 208 rental. A fantastic little car – nothing creaks or squeaks, and it pulled up the mountains just fine even at low revs. Luckily Monday was fairly sunny with little cloud. A perfect day to head out to the old volcano “Sete Cidades”. It offers a spectacular view over the crater. The two lakes in the crater used to be just that little bit more special: one used to be green and the other blue. Now they were both greenish.

We wound our way up to the crater rim via a string of miradouro viewpoints (mira = look, ouro = gold). At touristy spots like these there are of course other tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it crowded. Over the course of the day, though, you do start recognising the various rental cars doing a similar tour. At one of those viewpoints we got talking to a German/Argentinian couple, Christoph and Virginia. It turned out they had also come here on a sailing boat, in their case from the Caribbean. After a delicious lunch of fresh albacore tuna, washed down with a bottle of “Frei Gigante” (a lovely white wine from Pico), it was back to the boat, where we carried on with the jobs – mostly the Kabola again. Later on our new friends came round for a drink. They brought a beautiful mackerel – they’d been given two by their neighbour, who had caught a few fish.

Tuesday’s weather was a bit worse, but it started off reasonably well. After breakfast we drove north, where I wanted to show Peter and Gerard “Gorreana”, the only tea plantation in Europe. A few things had changed since 2015 – there’s a new café under construction – but the machines are still ancient (100+ years). They were even working in the factory: tea was being sifted, bags and teabags filled, and boxes folded and packed. Naturally we stocked up on plenty of tea! Then a long drive along the beautiful east coast back to the boat, and more work on the Kabola. Peter did a fantastic job of the German/Portuguese mackerel in the oven, so we ate on board again. After dinner we took a look at the electric scooter to figure out why it wouldn’t charge (properly) any more. An hour later it was lying on the table in lots of little pieces. Conclusion: battery dead from lack of charging…

On Wednesday Gerard wasn’t feeling too well, so after waiting a while to see how he got on, Peter and I drove to the southeast on our own. In the “Furnas” crater there are several places where the hot interior of the earth comes rather close to the surface. A little wound in Mother Earth, if you like. There are places where it bubbles, places where it smells of sulphur, and places where hot water flows out. Really special to see (again)! On the way back we stopped at Decathlon to buy a new scooter.

Today, Thursday, I dropped Peter off at the airport at five in the morning; our German Neue Freunde could conveniently come along too, since they were on the same flight. It was great fun having Peter on board – he’s good at shooting the breeze, cooking, drinking beer and sailing.

Now it’s just the two of us again. Gerard is staying on a little longer to help sail the boat to the next island. Preferably Horta, but earlier this week it was still very busy there with boats coming in from the Caribbean. Hopefully that will ease off a bit now so we can go there. Otherwise it’ll be São Jorge or Terceira.