Sail Flores to Horta 22 July 2012

The Grib Files indicated that Sunday 22 July would be an excellent day to leave Flores for the middle Azores group of islands. We would have prefered to stay a few days more on Flores but strong winds from the NE and rain were forecast for later in the week and we did not want to be stuck on the boat in a NE swell.

 As we were not sure we whether we would make landfall on Faial or Pico, we left the harbour at 0830hrs which would give us time to arrive in daylight at either island

 Leaving a cloud covered Flores behind

 

 Had 2 reefs in Mainsail and 1 reef in Genny to start with in a SW 4 to 5 - gusting 20 knots

 Thanks to a tip from our friends Dawn & Chris on M/V Arabella, Jeannette was able to navigate from her bed via the Navionics electronic charts (50 GBP for the whole of Europe excluding UK and Denmark) on her IPad - the inbuilt IPad GPS being able to still pick up our position signal through the Aluminium deck - amazing.

 The red arrow shows Dutch Link's position and the black line is the course to Faial - distance to go, bearing and SOG automatically displayed

 A wonderful day - calmish seas, blue skies and enough wind in the right direction allowing us to sail on a beam reach - the fastest point of sailing

 Decided early on not to go to Pico as the weather was unlikely to be good enough for the hike to the top of the 2351 meter spectacular peak in the coming week. This meant that we had to reduce speed so as not to arrive in Horta on Faial in the night. So furled in most of the Genny to keep speed down to around 5 knots.

 Enjoying a lovely sunset

 Tried to capture the moon low in the sky

 After a very pleasant starry night, dawn starts to break as we approach Faial

 The defunct Lighthouse silhouhetted with the new peninsular, Punta dos Capelinhos, which appeared in 1956. This volcanic eruption severely reduced the angle of visibilty to the lighthouse - since then, although some charts show it as a working light, it is no longer in use.
(see Blog June 2010 for our visit to the lighthouse  - Link :-
http://dutchlink.blogspot.pt/2010/06/faial-azores-9-to-13-june-2010.html )

 Approaching the headland on Punta do Castello Branco with its three distinct fixed red lights - not shown on the chart.

 Looking back at Punta do Castello Branco once day has broken

 The south coast of Faial close to Horta

 Monte de Guia to the right

 Rounding Monte de Guia

 Approaching Horta

 the outer breakwater of Horta

Horta marina - photo taken from Monte de Guia - Dutch Link is moored aganist the outer marina mole just before the bend

 Chartlet of Horta Harbour - photo of picture in Anne Hammick's latest Atlantic Islands Pilot Book

 Moored in Horta Marina on Faial at 0830hrs Monday 23 July 2012.Distance covered 134 nMiles in 24 hrs, average speed 5.6 knts, motored 2.6 hrs (mainly along south coast of Faial where we lost the wind).

Copy and paste below link to our blog on previous visit to Faila in June 2010

http://dutchlink.blogspot.pt/2010/06/faial-azores-9-to-13-june-2010.html

Sail Santa Maria to Flores, Azores, 4 to 7 July 2012

Grib files indicated that 4 July would be a good day to leave Santa Maria (the most SEerly Azores Island) for the 320 nmile sail to Flores (the most NWerly island).
The huge Azores high looked as though it was going to stay for several days to the NW of Flores giving us light ENE to NE winds

So at 11.15hrs we motored to the fuel dock in the Vila do Porto marina and at 11.35hrs we left the marina

By 1215hrs we were out of the lee of Santa Maria and were sailing with full Main and Genny at 40 degrees to the apparent wind in a NNE 2 to 3 BFt wind.

Last views of Santa Maria

Sailing into the sunset

The wind became more easterly as predicted allowing us to sail free-er. However, as we expected the wind to return more northerly before we reached Flores, we decided to take advantage of the more easterly wind and sail north of Sao Jorge and Faial, giving us a better angle to the wind as we approached Flores - instead of sticking to the rhumb line which would have taken us just south of these islands.

Around midnight on the 5th July we were to the west of Terceira and north of Sao Jorge so we freed off and set a course for Flores

Leaving Terceira behind us

With light ENE winds, progress was slow but very pleasant with hardly any chop. Jeannette decided to do some sewing - modifying Mikes trousers.

For a while we were almost running - so poled out the Genny

Sun about to rise on 7th July

Corvo, the tiny island north of Flores comes into view

and Flores , our objective.

This time the wind was not quite as originally predicted - it stayed ENE longer than initially forecast so our dogleg to the north of Sao Jorge was not strictly necessary - still it resulted in a very pleasant sail.

During the trip, we were intrigued to find that the GPS receiver on the IPad was powerful enough to be able to track our progress even though the IPad was in the saloon (with an aluminium deck above it - amazing

As we approached Flores, a pod of 5 dolphins decided to play for about half an hour just in front of our bow - always an uplifting sight - we never tire of it

We took some video of their antics

- please click below to view video clip

Flores getting closer

and closer

Jeannette relaxing on deck

Almost there

The entrance to the Porto das Lajes on the SE corner of Flores

At 1315hrs 7 July, Dutch Link safely moored in Porto das Lajes.

Total distance 339nmiles, in 3 days 1.75 hours, Average speed 4.6 knots, motored 7 hours

This was our third attempt to visit Flores - the first time was when we crossed over the Atlantic from Bermuda in 2010 - at that time there was a huge nasty frontal system which went through Flores forcing us south - we made landfall in Sao Miguel. We attempted to sail back back gave up when we reached Faial as the wind disappeared . Last year we had plans to make another attempt but enjoyed Terceira so much that we never got any further west.
Thus, having finally made it here, and bearing in mind Flores has a higher chance of bad weather than any of the Azores islands, we plan to stay for 2 to three weeks here, weather permitting.