Monday September 8, 2014
It turns out there wasn’t a whole lot the two of us could do here in Ponta Delgada until we were able to check into the marina this morning. What we found out after arriving on Saturday is that there are locked gates to gain access from the shore to the docks and we were now left without a key to get back in until the marina office opened and was able to give us one. Saturday we still managed to get out and about for a bit after assuming there would be so many people around the docks to let us back in when we were ready to get back to the boat. We were wrong. After standing around for 20 minutes and then spending 15 minutes trying to hunt down a security guard, which we never found, we finally managed to grab the gate when a group of guys were leaving and we had to book toward the entrance from 100 feet away.
Yesterday we tried again when we found out the woman who runs a catamaran tour right across from the gates has a key and will let us in until she leaves her booth at 6 pm. We didn’t want to take too much advantage of her so we only went out once during the day, wandering toward the college campus where they had a flea market going on. While there we talked with a few of the locals that were peddling garage sale like goods, and found out that many more people than we expected spoke English, and have been to the US at one point. We also let ourselves get lost on some of the back roads while trying to get a feel for the town. Up at the top of a hill we found yet another abandoned church that would be perfect to turn into a summer home for the two of us. I’ll admit, the views weren’t quite as good as our dream abandoned-church-home in Horta, and this area has a bit more of an industrial feel to it once you’re outside of the town center.
Another thing I should mention is that as soon as we got into the marina on Saturday and and connected to the wifi, Matt must have seen something that reminded him of the aluminum boat in RI and immediately he was talking about how he thinks we made a big mistake in walking away from it and how he still wanted it. Honestly, this trying to gear myself up for the Med and then switch to gearing up to go back to the states for a new boat and then switching back and forth is getting a little mentally tiring…but again, this would be our forever boat. I told Matt to put in an email to the broker to see if the owner would still accept our original offer and right now we’re waiting to hear back on that. At least we’ll have moved ourselves to an island with a major airport, and if we sit around here long enough, Matt found 2-for-1 flights to Boston on October 5. We’ll have to see how this all plays out. Â In the meantime, on to McDonald’s!
It has been 3 months since our last McDonald’s fix. Â Oh yes, I’m lovin’ it.
I haven’t been to a McDonalds in years. I don’t miss it one bit.