What happens when you chase high pressure systems instead of lows? Â You find yourself drifting at an average of 3 knots, but….., 29 days later you find yourself on land after an extremely comfortable passage. Â That’s right, we’ve made it to the Azores!! Â All is ok. Â 3400 nm. Â 38.31 n 28.37 w
Wednesday August 6, 2014
When I woke up this morning there were only 45 miles separating us from Horta. A very dangerous distance because it gives you just enough hope that you will in fact be there before the sun goes down, but also allows you enough leeway to completely eff it up and leave yourself at sea for another night. We had 10 hours of daylight left and would have to average 4.5 knots to make it in time. Not normally hard, but the king of ‘I won’t turn on the engine, what’s another few days out here’ has seemed to move on board sometime since the Bahamas.
Luckily for me the winds have shifted behind us and built up enough, near 20 knots, that we were just holding that 4.5 average when I came up on watch. Through my whole four hours I watched the spedometer like a hawk, and even a momentary dip down to 4.3 would result in a sharp intake of breath. I was not going to lose landfall tonight.
Just as I was beginning to go crazy near the end of my shift since the winds were now almost completely downwind of us which was causing the headsail to flop around a bit (and drop into the low 4s..gasp!), Matt woke up from his sleep shift and I quickly ordered that we raise the spinnaker pole to get our speed back. That did the trick and we were comfortably coasting at 5 knots.
All afternoon I kept my eyes glued to the horizon in front of us for any sign of land or life. Directly across from the island we’re landing at, Faial, is another island, Pico, with a volcanic peak of 2350m high. It’s said that on a clear day you can spot it from 50 M away. This unfortunately, was not a clear day. After thousands of miles of nothing but sun and clear skies, our welcome back to terra firma was presented with low lying clouds and mist ahead of us. I had been burning holes into my eyeballs staring into the reflected light, trying to be the first one to yell ‘Land ho!’ while Matt napped below, but I couldn’t make anything out through the haze.
It wasn’t until hours later when I had given up and begun my showering routine to make myself presentable to people again after a month at sea that Matt was able to pick out a shadow through the clouds. After lots of pointing and references I was able to see it too, honestly a little disappointed that this barely visible outline was my welcome back to humanity. It was land though, and we were quickly approaching it with just enough time to eek in before sunset. Although I think it’s high time we finally update our clocks to the proper time zone, a full two hours ahead of what they’re currently reading.
If anyone was even going to be there to check us in at the now revised hour of 8:30, I wanted to make sure I looked very nice and hopefully distract them from the fact that I was handing over veterinary papers for our cat, just in case we didn’t have all the right ones. Plus I was just excited to have any reason to wear something different than the pajamas I’ve been living in for the past four weeks. Now came the very important decision of what to wear for my first night in Europe. Khakis and a cable knit sweater? My llama skirt from Peru?…there were just so many choices! I had finally settled on a pair of skinny jeans, a tank and a cardigan, but Matt stared with disappointed eyes. “I thought you were going to wear a dress?†he asked. “Have you looked around?â€, I replied, “It’s cold out hereâ€. I guess a drop down into the low to mid 70’s now makes freezing weather for us, and it was more than my Caribbean geared attire could handle.
Finally I changed into a somewhat nautical themed sweater dress and applied some eyeliner before joining Matt out on deck again to watch that shadow on the horizon grow larger. We were finally getting to the point now where we could make out features on land and spot little houses and villages on the hilltop. The nearly setting sun was throwing rosy glows off the clouds, and even though I had imagined coming in to the crystal clear images splayed throughout our guidebooks, the view of Faial as we sailed in was indelible. It was just as beautiful as I could ever have imagined, and I stood there slack jawed until I remembered that we actually had to begin taking steps to get ourselves in the harbor.
Bringing down the spinnaker pole, we rolled in the genoa and coasted along with just the main for a little bit, until we were well into the channel between the two islands. As the engine was turned on and sputtered to life, we brought down the main and began running dock lines and hanging fenders. I swear, Matt and I can sail a whole ocean together and not have any arguments or communication issues until we’re landing. As I was trying to run the dock line at the bow it kept getting tangled in the wrachet straps for the dinghy, and since it wasn’t being done in a timely matter, a very impatient and agitated person was yelling at me from the cockpit until I became so flustered that I couldn’t touch anything and went to switch places instead. Since it was the only boat related spat we’d had since coming into Bermuda though, I think I’ll still consider our overall travel a success.
Getting all the lines squared away we pulled up to the reception desk and music blasted from the main road. Unbeknownst to us, we arrived in the middle of Semana do Mar, or Sea Week. Horta’s biggest yearly event. Having read about it in our guidebook we knew that it was at the beginning of August, but we thought it only spanned one weekend and that we had already missed it. But from the sights and sounds on shore, it was still in full swing, lasting ten days instead of 3, and we could not wait to get out and partake.
Before we could go party though, ourselves and the boat needed to be checked in to Portugal. Having called many times on the radio prior to arriving and getting no response, I went to scour the office of the marina but could find no sign of life there either. Getting ourselves tied up to the fuel dock at 8:05, it looks as if we had just missed them. Our passports wouldn’t be stamped until tomorrow, allowing us one more day in a Schengen country. Darn.
We used up our last remaining hour of daylight talking to other sailors that had just come in within the past two days, many of them not faring as well as us. While we had taken a more southerly route and became trapped in the stillness of high pressure systems, most others took the northerly trade wind route and got a little bashed up along the way. We talked with one boat that had their autopilot crap out their second day out, meaning the crew of 4 had to hand steer the whole way. And to make matters worse, the halyard for their headsail broke not too long after, meaning they completed the rest of the journey with just the mainsail. Stories like that make me extremely happy we took the route we did, even if it means it took us twice as long to get there. Time we have. Money for fixing boat issues…not so much. Or at least, not that we’d be wiling to part with.
Bidding adieu to our new friends as our stomachs growled with the recognition that it had been about 8 hours since we’d last eaten, we pulled some Euros out of an ATM and went to join the throngs of people milling in the streets. One small section of park was set up with a stage playing what I’m guessing was traditional Portuguese music, and small food stands were set up all around it. Our noses guided us toward a mini doughnut stand where we happily handed over a few Euro for our first taste of fried sweet goodness in months. Continuing up the road we wandered into a tent filled with other food stands and restaurants.
Getting an eye full of this one stand that was selling huge sandwiches filled with sausage or presunto, we were sold. As Matt grabbed his sausage filled baguette and I asked for my presunto to be slathered in a creamy cheese, we ordered a few cans of Coke and went to sit with our new treasures on a wall overlooking the harbor.
Taking everything in as we enjoyed the food and the sights, I turned to Matt after about ten minutes and asked, “Does it feel strange to you to be sitting here, finally on land after 30 days, surrounded by people, and drinking a can of Coke? Do you feel as excited as you thought you would to be back on land after so long? Like this is what’s been missing from your life?â€
He thought about it a second and observed, “No, not really. This is definitely nice, but it just feel like ‘Today we were at sea, now we’re on land’, easy transition, not as big of a deal as I thought it would be.†I pondered on it for a second, kind of surprised to hear myself say, “Yeah me too.†Smirking he looked over at me and asked, “So then you think you could go back out to sea for another month?†Laughing I looked back and him and replied with a resounding “Absolutely not!â€.
Monday August 4, 2014
Another windless day! Â And just when we were getting so close! Â We’re just under 200 miles from Horta now, so I have to assume that we’ll actually be getting there sometime this week. Â I’m having my heart set on Wednesday, but I have learned long long ago that getting your hopes up for a specific arrival date or time can be a very dangerous thing. Â I’ll just say that if the winds swing around to the south and fill in like they’re supposed to, then just over 48 hours from now I should be sitting in a bar with a cold and well deserved beer in my hand. Â In the meantime though, I have to get back to talking Georgie off a ledge. Â I’m pretty sure she’s had it with this sailing crap and is about to abandon ship.
Georgie was getting ready to jump. Â I had to talk her down.
At this point we’re just getting stubborn. Â ‘Will..not..use..engine.’
A Zen moment for Georgie. Â ‘I will never see land for the rest of my life. Â I have to accept this’.
The finish line is almost in sight, only 211 nm left. Hoping to make landfall on the 6th, just need winds to move S All is ok. 3161 nm. 35.54 n 31.33 w.
Thursday July 31, 2014
I’m not going to lie, it’s starting to get really hard (and boring, probably for all of us) for me to come up with something to put for every single day of this crossing. Â So until we make landfall, I’m only going to put down things that are worth putting down. Â And then hopefully, just hopefully, I can start getting pictures and stories up of what I’m assuming is amazingly beautiful Horta.
On that note though, something happened that I thought was kind of cool and noteworthy. Â Today we crossed a spot on the globe where we had the exact same coordinates for latitude and longitude. Â I wonder how often that happens for people? Â I obviously haven’t done a lot of research on the subject, but it seems like a lot of areas covered by land (or at least the United States) are higher than 80 degrees West, meaning there is no matching latitude. Â So to find numbers close enough to match pretty much means you’re going to be over water. Â Maybe something random I can add to my bucket list? Â Seems like a cool enough accomplishment.
Oh, and if you can tell from the photo, we’ve now passed the stationary gale (which has all dissipated now) and we can begin heading north and directly toward Horta again!
Friday August 1, 2014
There’s just something about me and night shifts and strange lights. Don’t get me wrong, that fireball I spied just a few days outside of Bermuda was probably a once in a lifetime sight that I’ll never forget and may be worth crossing the Atlantic for itself (mayb-be), but the past few nights seem to be surprising me with questionable lights amidst the dark. Yesterday morning around 2 am I was popping my head up on deck between relaxing with my podcast on the comfortable settee below to see what looked like a flashlight beam oh so briefly shine on our American flag flapping at the stern. There is nothing on the boat that could have illuminated it at that angle so brightly unless Matt decided to sneak up behind me with an actual flashlight, unnoticed by me, while I still stood on the steps. Very unlikely. As my heart quickly jumped into my throat I thought it was another boat trying to identify us, but after frantically searching the horizon and then turning to the radar, we were the only thing out there. Alien encounter? Apparently once they realized we were American it was enough to make them leave us alone.
Which brings me to this morning’s odd light. More astrological than extraterrestrial, but still startling nonetheless. It was moments into my 12-4 am shift when I was just climbing up the steps to do a cursory glance before my more in depth check that would be coming up in ten minutes (what can I say?, I like to stick to my schedule), the sky directly in front of us suddenly lit up as if the deck light had been thrown on. In the split second it took my mind to register that this shouldn’t be happening I saw a very bright greenish-white sphere fall from the sky leaving a bright trail behind it. My first thought was ‘Oh my god, it’s a flare!!’. Although from what I’ve been told, flares are red or orange and nothing else. But this was close! As in, someone must be lighting off fireworks next to our boat close. Surely it couldn’t be a meteor?
Quite startled and still not fully registering what had just happened in the two seconds it took to happen I let out an audible and nervous “Ummm….†as Matt was still settling himself into bed. Asking what was the matter I told him that I’d just seen a very bright light that looked flare-like just ahead of us, and as he raced to untangle himself from the sheets he had just slipped under, I added “But it was greenish-whiteâ€, knowing that his first thought would be that someone in a life raft was trying to alert us to their existence. By now my head was finally wrapping itself around the fact that it probably was a meteor. Just a very, very close meteor, and that there was no need to worry. Not taking any chances though, he dove into full rescue mode, not wanting to risk the possibility of missing someone out there trying to signal us. Asking me question after question of exactly where I’d seen the light, how close it was, and what kind of shape it took, he set about trying to figure out our drift and trajectory while trying to find out when and how close we’d come to the source of the light After ten minutes of more horizon scans, scrutinizing the radar, and follow up questions such as ‘If it were you, how long would you wait to set off a second flare?’, I assured him that, as amazing and unlikely as it was, I think we were just incredibly close to a meteor that happen to be falling in this vast ocean that we’re traveling. He finally relented and went back to bed as I promised to stay up there for a while longer, keeping an eye out for any more lights or loud signaling noises.
In non-astrological news, we’re continuing our path directly north as we ride the east winds before they shift east in the next day or two and force us to turn directly east instead. So close and yet so far away. I keep focusing on the miles remaining as the crow flies, wishing we could take that same direct path, trying to count down our arrival based on those numbers, but instead preparing myself for yet another day or possibly two at sea on top of my predictions because we’re forced to travel at 90 degree angles instead. The pressure is still steadily rising, now at 1022, 10 mb higher than we were 48 hours ago, and I guess I should just be grateful for having any wind at all as we make our way into yet another high pressure system.
In more exciting news, I saw another sailboat today. What??!! I honestly didn’t think that would happen until we were within 20 miles of Faial. For some reason this sight makes me extremely giddy. We’re not alone out here, the only thing under 400 ft and carrying cargo. Part of me wants to call them up on the VHF just to say hi and find out where they’re going. Possibly get a little encouragement from someone out here that’s just as crazy as us. Another voice to say, ‘Yup, we’re right there with you’. Except, knowing our luck, they’d come back with, ‘You’ve been out how long??!! We just left the states two weeks ago. You must be traveling extremely slow’. Yup, that’s a much more likely scenario. Maybe they won’t get a call after all.
Starting 2 become skin & bones out here, where’s a McDonald’s sail-thru when u need 1? All is ok. 2859 nm. 33.08 n 34.27 w. (no worries, we have food)
Monday July 28, 2014
I have no idea how I would handle living in the real world again, because my time management is completely out the window. Even for the simplest things. For example, making dinner. This has been my task ever since Matt and I got married and moved into our new house to start our new life together. In the beginning the food was regrettably abysmal and not well thought out (Oh, you mean you wanted a side with your meat?), but over the years we lived in that house they had improved. And at the end, I knew how to clock each item I was cooking so that everything would finish at the same time and just as Matt was walking in the door from work.
You’d think that with all this spare time on my hands for the past two years I would have mastered the timing issue. I guess I could liken that part to the rising and falling tides. Sometimes I am a genius of cooking where my rice absorbs the last of the water at the same moment my chicken is just cooked and spiced enough, while warm and slightly crispy tortillas are sitting and waiting under a covered plate. Other times I forget that I need to cook rice until my chicken is already almost done, and where the hell are my tortillas, did I forget to buy them?!
The past few days have very much been the latter scenario. I begin preparing dinner way too late, forget to cook certain ingredients, or forget to check that we have certain items before we start. And there is no making a quick Publix run out here. Last night as I stood over the stove at 7:30, thirty minutes before I was supposed to be in bed, and I realized the mahi I had cooking on the stove had been sitting in the fridge, never having been frozen, for about thirteen days now and was definitely no longer safe to eat. Searching through the fridge for new meats that could be quickly cooked up I realized that all of those were safely tucked in the freezer. I threw my hands up and went for the pantry. A can of soup it was going to be.
*On a sad note, our little bird friend did not make it through the night. Â Matt made sure to give him/her a nice little funeral at sea during his shift this morning.
 Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much of my afternoon messing around on deck instead?
Tuesday July 29, 2014
So 40 days at sea is how long it takes for one to lose their mind. Or maybe it’s 22, since I guess I can’t count that stint on the way from Miami to Bermuda since we did have that sweet little interlude of rest in there. And maybe I’m not loosing my mind, maybe it’s just not functioning to it’s highest ability lately. I don’t know why or how it has not happened once until this point, but multiple times over the past few nights I’ve been comfortably sleeping in my bunk during my allotted time and all of a sudden my eyes will fly open. I’ll look over and see Matt on the settee across from me, usually reading his Kindle, and maybe it’s because he’s in the cabin with me instead of out in the cockpit, but the first thing that springs to my mind is, ‘You idiot, you’re supposed to be on watch!’. And this isn’t directed at Matt since he’s seeking the comfort of a warm and cozy seat instead of being forced out into the elements of the cockpit, but is instead directed at myself. I then fly out of my bunk, search for my glasses on the nav station, and begin bounding up the steps on the companionway to look around and make sure no boats are showing on AIS, or worse, in person.
In my feverish haste to get back to my duties, Matt will just kind of stare at me with a puzzled look on face and ask, “What the heck are you doing?â€. In my embarrassment that I was ‘sleeping on the job’, I nonchalantly reply, “Um…you know…just doing one of my checks…â€, to which he’ll laugh and reply, “Yeah, but you’re not on shiftâ€. Then it will all come back to me that, yes, this is in fact my time for rest, and I slink back into my bunk until the same thing happens 90 minutes later.
Wednesday July 30, 2014
We may have made many, many miles south and out of our way to avoid that stationary gale that has been sitting directly in the path between us and Horta, but I guess we haven’t gotten quite far enough out of the way to not feel any effects from it. Things haven’t gotten incredibly bad, but there has been a noticeable increase in wind and waves in the past day or two. We’re averaging 5 knots of speed now, which is great, but my body is trying to get used to this new rocking back and forth motion that normally accompanies sailing but we’ve been lucky enough to barely experience on this crossing.
I should still consider myself lucky that I can move about the boat at all, considering that basically every passage we’ve made before this one has left me nailed down to the cockpit, incapable of doing much more than making it back and forth between my bunk for sleep shifts. So today as we got back to feeling the motion of the ocean, those past memories barely registered with me and I thought, ‘This would be a perfect time to make bread!’. Long story short, I was able to actually complete this task, but it was done with lots of difficulty and lots of grabbing on to different surfaces to keep myself from tumbling around. I’m just surprised I was able to do all of this without getting sick, which is nice because it means that my body might finally be adjusting to the sea, but I think I may have lots of new bruises to show for my efforts.
After pulling my freshly baked bread out of the oven and finally going back to resting on the settee, it suddenly hit me why my legs have been so sore the past few days even though I don’t remember doing anything besides sitting on my butt. It’s been all that time I’ve spent bracing myself in the galley while I cooked or did dishes. Right foot back; flex; wait. Step together; rotate; left leg to the side; brace. I’ve been getting a first class workout and haven’t even realized it.
Still moving south to dodge stationary low. More miles now added to the trip, yay. All is ok. 2527 nm. 33.47 n 41.00 w.
Friday July 25, 2014
In my boredom of my morning shifts alone I’ve taken to mimicking the cat, repeating every move she makes just to see her reaction. If she moves her head to the side, I move my head to the side. If she makes a large and exaggerated yawn, I make a large and exaggerated yawn. If she starts licking herself clean….well, I just rub my nose along my arm and pretend I’m doing it too.
Oh my, I might be starting to lose it. But people do that right? Mimic their cats? Even the ones that aren’t going mad from solitary confinement. Oh wait, most cat people are solitary. Nevermind. 
Saturday July 26, 2014
Today to relieve my boredom I’ve taken to reading PDF’d posts from a few of my favorite bloggers, who coincidentally happen not to be sailors. Because God help me, please let me forget for just one moment that I’m on a boat. Losing myself in the travels and musing of The Everywhereist and Mr. & Mrs. Globetrot, I fantasized about all the places we’ll be visiting. Â I spent a good hour today staring at Yuriy and Julia’s images of Turkey, making lists of areas I’d like to visit that they’d already seen, and most importantly, listing the all the food there I’d like to try. Â Plus, just generally getting lost in the beauty of their amazing photos. Â Oh Europe, we’ll reach you some day. Â I’m sure of it. 
Sunday July 27, 2014
In every other blog I’ve read about someone crossing an ocean, each one of them at some point has had a feathery friend take refuge on their boat, and for weeks now I’ve been wondering if it would ever happen to us. I mean, there’s only so many places one can rest out here, our boat has to look pretty appealing to anything flying along, right? But for days out of Bermuda we watched long tailed tropical birds swoop by, eyeing lifelines and solar panels, but never actually touching down on them. There’s even been a bird that we’ve seen come out and do laps around our boat for hours every night that we assumed had to be hiding on Serendipity during the day, but we could never find it’s spot.
Then this evening during dinner, we finally had a taker. A little song bird it looked like, but a far cry from all the sea birds that are normally flying overhead. It took up residence on the lifeline on the starboard stern quarter, and Matt held Georgie back as she noticed our new guest too. For a few minutes we all stared at this temporary visitor, wondering what it would do next. Was he just going to catch his breath and be off again or was he looking for a place to hunker down for the night? Trying to get a closer look I inched myself over to the starboard side while our new friend made no startled motions to get away. Maybe I could pull a Slapdash and get it to rest on top of my head?
I was so excited at the prospect of having a bird aboard to play with, that I was just about to turn to Matt and tell him about stories I’ve heard of birds like this that don’t know to be afraid of humans or pets because they’ve never encountered them before. I was just about to tell him about the cases of other cruisers that have set up birds, nestled in lines or small blankets, as extra travel companions for days. Before I could get any of this out though, he made a grave mistake and let Georgie out of his arms so she could investigate the situation.
His assumption, before I could correct him otherwise, is that if Georgie got too close this bird would sense the danger and fly off. But after having just read through Maiden Voyage a second time, I distinctly remembered a chapter where she found her cockpit a mess of feathers after her cat found it’s own flying companion. It wasn’t even a half a second before Georgie was on the other side of the boat, exactly where our new friend was sitting. Both of us looked off to the sky to see where the bird had gone, it took us a moment to realize that Georgie was already headed back to the companionway with the bird in her mouth!
While I grabbed on to her to keep her from going any further, Matt pried her mouth open to get the bird out. It was quite a feat though as she was not ready to let her prize go. When he finally wrangled her mouth open and the bird fell out, I rushed her down below deck so she couldn’t go at it a second time. Inspecting our injured friend we couldn’t find any wounds puncturing the skin, although we assumed there might be some internal damage. The bird wasn’t flapping around although it was still breathing, so at least we knew it wasn’t dead. Maybe suffering from shock though. Taking one of our 5 gallon buckets we made a tissue bed and set the bird inside to see if it will make it through the night. Georgie went back onto her (shortened) leash to make sure she couldn’t make any visits to the infirmary. 
 Look at that face.  No remorse.
Be careful of what you wish for, eh? Just spent the past 2 days running from too much wind. All is ok. 2365 nm. 34.38 n 43.46 w.
