All posts by : Matt

Wednesday September 3, 2014

It looks as if our time here in Horta is finally winding down to an end. Tomorrow we’ll be setting sail again after enjoying four wonderful weeks on land in what has been by far one of the most beautiful islands/countries we’ve ever visited.

To get you up to date on what is finally pushing us out of here, it turns out we will not be getting the aluminum boat in Rhode Island so there is no longer any reason to have to be constantly connected to the internet. The current owner came back stating that the price will not be lowered any further to make up for the corrosion to the stern tube and although we spent a few days hemming and hawing on if we still want to purchase it with the added costs to have this area welded, we decided it’s not for us and we’re walking away. So it looks like Europe is still on the table for us at the moment, although we’ve now just wasted two weeks and one perfect weather window to try and get ourselves to Gibraltar. Fall weather patterns are quickly settling in and it seems like we can’t go three days in the forecast without 30 knot winds popping up somewhere. Not ideal for a 1,200 mile passage that will probably take us about two weeks to complete.

Because something really nasty is showing at the beginning of next week but we would like to gain any miles we can, we’ll be making a 150 nm jump over to the island of Sao Miguel, the capital of the Azores and one of the furthest east lying islands. In a way I’m kind of happy that things are working out for us and giving us an opportunity to see more than just one of the seven islands here. We had been talking about making a move over to Terceria for awhile, it’s supposed to be beautiful and have a still known anchorage, which we would love, but our guidebook tells us we can only check out of the Azores from Flores, Faial, or Sao Miguel, and we didn’t want to have to force in yet another island just to check out should a preferable window come up to get us the rest of the way to the Med.

I’ve been reading up on Sao Miguel and Ponta Delgada, the port we’ll be visiting, for the past few days and it looks like it should have a lot to offer us. Including a McDonald’s. Don’t hate me..we haven’t had it in three months now. I’d say that’s pretty good for us. Besides Sea Week or our day with the scooter, there haven’t been many big exciting things happening here in Horta, just lots of small perfect parts to the day that never made it in the blog. Sometimes wandering the streets just to get lost, or taking Georgie to the park to find out the only place she wanted to be was back on the boat. To give you a little insight on what we’ve been up to the past few weeks, here’s some random shots of the town that is truly worth crossing an ocean for. Let’s hope Europe will be just as spectacular.

Monday September 1, 2014

Being stuck here is finally starting to get to me. I feel like I’m losing whole days to the internet as we sit on the boat and do nothing else, maybe popping over to the Continente for fresh rolls or Coke every few days, but sometimes that’s all the excitement we’re getting. Whole days are lost to tooling around on the internet just because it’s there. We keep saying that we’re going to get up and do something, one of these days, but by the time we’ve had our morning coffee and fully woken up it’s already time for lunch and our plans, if any have been made, get pushed back to the next day.

I partially blame this on the fact that we have no idea when we’re going to get out of here so it always feels like there will be a tomorrow to push those plans back to. The weather to get out of here isn’t quite agreeing with us, and even if it was, the prospect that we have to be within 24 hours of an internet signal had been holding us back for quite some time too. Not that we’re that reliant on the internet that we can’t get away from it, but with the back and forth of trying to buy this boat in Rhode Island, we need to be in a place where we can quickly take care of business when it’s ready to move forward.

The latest news update on this is that once a disclosure agreement was released from the owner we found out there was corrosion to the stern tube. Not necessarily a deal breaker in itself, I mean this is a fantastic boat so there’s not much that’s going to dissuade us from getting it….except the added cost of now fixing this corrosion. We’re already at the top of our limit trying to buy it and the added cost of fixing it might just tip it over the edge. We’re trying to work with the owner to bring down the cost because of this issue, and we’re waiting to hear back.

Which leaves us…still sitting at the dock. This is making me very very bored. I’ve begun taking walks every few days, even just different routes to the grocery store (getting myself completely lost and having to turn around and start back at the beginning) just so I can try to see something a little different. One one of these little walks last week I found a beautiful park at the top of a hill that overlooks the bay and Pico. This morning when I woke up I couldn’t stand to face another day of only staring at my computer screen and pretty much told Matt we were going on a picnic that afternoon. No vote optional, it was going to happen. Luckily for me he’s pretty chill when I make plans for us, especially if they’re free, and was just as excited to get off the boat as I was.

I have to say, as long as we’re stuck here anyway, this isn’t a bad way to while away the time.