Transatlantic west to east. Part 4.

April 26, day 22.

On my watch, the lights of Faial were already visible. Cruise ship passed buy, haven’t seen them for ages. And no expected traffic or fishermen.

At the end of my watch the wind calmed down, I woke up Skip and we dropped the sails. 11 nm to go. I was going to sleep for a couple of hours till the sunrise, but we finally had a connection and stuck on the internet 🙂

And then it was The Sunrise. To starboard it was the peak of Pico island, peeking out of the cloud highlighted by the rising sun, to the left – green slopes of Faial. The waves were breaking at the cape, and the marina was waiting for us around the corner. Watercolor skies, seagulls… If one could imagine the fairy tale, that was a fairy tale sunrise. One of the most beautiful in my life!

Approaching the marina we felt the smell of the land. Flowers and grass, very green smell, green as the island itself. We called marina by VHF and they answered! People!))) It is so exciting – land! Moored alongside to the gaff schooner, the French crew took our lines, engine off, full stop. Could be, but no.

Still moving, checked in to the country, connected water and electricity ran to the supermarket and bought all we need (we were so happy to see European prices!), managed to deliver all this to the boat, then sigh of relief – now we can have a breakfast. What time is it now we don’t know, we still leave with the boat time. Opened a couple of bottles and rostisserie chicken, hello Azores, Hello, Portugal, it was long ago when I’ve seen you last time. I am drinking your Vinho Verde and feeling your air, hello! I missed you.

After breakfast (or lunch?) I took The Hot Shower. Was going to do some laundry as well, but all the washing machines were occupied. Then we went to the town to find a lid for the water tank. Didn’t find, of course. After that, I left the guys and went to walk and look for the souvenirs. Didn’t find any, but found a lot of free wifi, Portuguese architecture and cigarettes. Found clock tower, set the local time on the devices. Sat on the waterfront watching a grey cloud growing. Then went to the boat and came there just in time – it started to Blow.

The wind changed to Northern and it became very cold. Adding non-sleeping night, I was freezing and had a headache. The Carribean spoiled me – I don’t want to be where it is +17 and cold wind, take me back to +30! And then it started to rain 🙁 The guys were celebrating the arrival in the cockpit, and I hided inside, wrapped in the blanket, uploading the video about our adventures on Youtube. Late in the evening I decided, that tomorrow we are going to continue sailing, and I don’t want to miss the social life of Faial. So I took a pill, put on the outfit of a Japanese teenager (its when you try to mix all warm stuff you have any fancy way and get checkered shorts with thermal pants, sweater with lace and oilskin coat) and went out.

Earlier I spied with my little eye some sailing-related place, so headed that way. It turned out to be one of the most famous sailing bars in the world, Peter’s Cafe Sport. And everybody inside was dressed up like Japanese teenagers 🙂 Because even in the Ocean it was warmer than here and now! And everybody came from hot Caribs. Met an engineer from Cape Town, and when the bar closed and we went to find some food but found another bar and our French neighbors. By the way, the schooner that we docked alongside to is 102 years old and she is a usual participant of Tall Ships Regatta! Then the second bar closed and I realized that it’s time to go home because in the morning we were going to go out. But of course it is impossible to go home immediately 🙂 From the other hand, I had a tour below deck of the schooner and made new friends 🙂

April 27, day 23.

The guys woke me up at 7 even though I told them that we will not go out at 9. And of course, we didn’t. The guy from the gas station appeared only at 1 pm, and our turn was at 3, so we departed at 4. Could sleep more! From the other hand the wind calmed down a little bit and the sun appeared, which was very nice 🙂

While waiting for the guy from the gas station we went out for breakfast. And to the fishing shop as well. There we discussed fishing on Atlantic crossing with the crews from the other boats – only one boat caught a small tuna.

Ah, by the way, the bowthruster doesn’t work anymore! But we managed to cast off without it.

Cooking the dinner we realized that we cannot find freshly bought potatoes. As well as one box of wine. Seems like they ran away together.

We rounded Pico and motored along its coastline – wind shadow. Found a local radio with Portuguese music. The peak of Pico was a spectacular view in the sunset light. Then we got some wind, and I went to sleep – my watch is the sunrise one.

April 28, day 24.

In the night, when we went out of the Pico wind shadow, it started to roll a bit. And to blow a bit, up to 28 kn. Waves short, up to 4 m, on the beam. Half a night I was trying not to fall from the bunk. Had not much sleep. The sunrise was grey, cloudy skies. The wind calmed down to 20 kn. Apparent wind angle 60. Looks familiar… But before it was warmer 🙂

After my watch, I drank some coffee with guys and went to sleep. To Alex’s cabin, not to fall out of bed anymore. My cabin is on the port side, and on the port tack and with this waves is impossible to sleep. And in the aft cabin, I felt asleep immediately, with the sound of autopilot working.

In the afternoon we reached the main Azorean island, San Miguel. Hided behind it from the waves, hoping that while we will be sailing along the island it will calm down. The Azores are so beautiful!

Having an opportunity to connect to the internet, looked at the forecast again. Not the best one, let’s say. Ok, the main thing is to get to Gibraltar, then it will be easier.

Saw hyperactive dolphins, they were showing us impressive jumps.

I miss my warm cat-hat. I didn’t think I would need it at the end of April. Skip shared his one with me – oh that’s better! Doesn’t have cat ears, but I will survive that.

April 29, day 25.

On Skip’s watch, I was sleeping in his cabin, on Sergey’s – in his. Finally had enough sleep and warm sleeping bags!

Morning. The wind is very light. We are crawling. Skip spotted something looking like fender in the water, we stop to pick it up. Turned out to be a fishing buoy from England! The rope was covered with barnacles, looked beautiful. Put barnacles to the bucket with the little crabs that were living among them. Now we have an aquarium 🙂 As i googled later, they were goose barnacles, very expensive, by the way! Next time I will know.

The wind veered a lot, Now we are heading to Biscay. And the waves are from the bow and stopping us. Decided to tack. Ok, now we are heading to Madeira! but anyway it is closer to our rhumb line, and the direction of the waves is more comfortable.

Stewed cabbage with the real (!) sausages, oranges, wine and cheese. Like a holiday!

The evening was overcast with some rain. No fish. But we are flying 7 knots! More to Madeira direction. But anyway. Went for a nap to my cabin, while we are on a starboard tack.

While I was sleeping, the guys saw a whale (and didn’t wake me up, said, that was only for a couple of seconds). And the wind backed and became stronger, we even reefed the sails a bit. Now we are on the rhumb line reaching.

The black clouds are lightened up with the Moon, it is raining, the Ocean is dark-grey, the wind is hauling in the shrouds – this kind of night feels stormy, but actually it is not, 30 knots of true wind on the gusts on the stern. The pressure has dropped, but not fast. Tomorrow on the forecast the wind should change direction and start to blow on the bow or there will be no wind at all. This is the case when I choose no wind 🙂 But this low is not bad. The next one in a couple of days should be worse.

On my watch was reading Markes. Have to stop reading and start translating my notes to English. In the morning there was a ship overtaking. Passed 5 miles away. The visibility was low, so I haven’t seen it, but smelled the exhaust.

April 30. Day 26.

Woke up with righteous anger because of the flapping sails. Oh, come on, guys! Went out to the drizzle, trimmed everything. Good morning.

Today I’m om the galley duty (voluntarily). Wanted to make some pancakes. Meanwhile, the guys were investigating where does the sound of water come from. They disassembled half of the boat, got rid of 10 buckets of water that came through the shrouds mounts to the bilge partitions that are not connected with the main partition that has a pump. Oh, those Bavaria designers!

Half of the crabs died because of the rain (or maybe because we were trying to feed them with cheese). Skip let the rest of them go. Ok, no aquarium anymore. And no fish.

The wind started to blow on the bow. Shit. Heading towards Biscay again. Spent half a day struggling, then gave up and turned on the engine. Motorsailing “tacking” plus or minus 15 degrees from the rhumb line. The pressure is rising, we’ve even seen the sun, but according to the forecast, it is not for long.

Seen a dolphin. Only one, but quite active. And a turtle! She was going southwest, calm as a  turtle.

Made tuna pasta for dinner. Favorite sailor’s food – ready in 20 minutes.

The guys were watching something not interesting for me, I was finishing Makes, and so the day passed. My watch is a sunrise one this time.  It was such a good idea to make a flexible watch system!

May 1. Day 27.

The sunrise was beautiful and red. Beauty is good, color – not really.

It’s a labor day, so no sleep after the morning watch – everybody was working.

Using the calm weather, made a shower and laundry day. Hot water heated by the engine and “crazy egg” type of washing machine powered with invertor.

Besides, we found three buoys. Record! Two fishing and one strange, with antenna and number. Cleaning the Ocean! So the hunting is successful today, and fishing… As usual, nothing.

The light wind on the bow, sun, warm – finally!

Made a “spring salad” with fresh vegetables and not very fresh mayo 🙂 And a soup that meant to be a bit different than what we’ve got at the end. Tasty anyway!

Watched “Pulp fiction” and then everybody went to sleep and I stayed awake – my turn.

The huge red Moon jumped out of the Ocean almost the same place as the Sun in the morning.

May 2. Day 28.

In the morning the wind came. Beam reach, 15-20 knots. and we are flying! The pressure is dropping, expecting some nasty weather. For now, it’s sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy.

The waves are rising, when you try to walk you walk like a cosmonaut, so we prefer to lay down and read.

Celebrated the midpoint of the passage. And record – 142 nm in 24 hours.

The radar stopped beeping. But showing the objects. Checked the settings, reset – doesn’t work anyway. At the same time switched off the depth sounder alarm, because with these waves it was beeping all the time.

And in the afternoon the nasty weather came. Good that still beam reach, but 30 kn. Shouldn’t be more.

In the evening the wind veered and calmed down, the pressure started to rise. On my watch, it was already 12-15 and long waves. But we are heading somewhere to Casablanca now. And it’s drizzling sometimes, so the watch was very sleepy.

May 3. Day 29.

Skip caught a squid during his watch. To say true, the squid came himself. 10 cm long. Poor thing!

Motorsailing since morning. The waves are small but random. The morning was sunny, but the afternoon became overcast. In the evening the wind finally backed and we got the opportunity to sail almost the rhumb line.

Opened the floorboards and got rid of water again. Probably it comes from the shrouds.

We are starting to feel the mainland. It’s getting warmer. Less than 400 miles to Gibraltar.

My watch is the sunrise one, so I’m off to sleep.

May 4. Day 30.

On Skip’s watch, there were three vessels. One passed far away, the second one was a sailboat, passed quite close, and the third one was weird. We were seeing its starboard so it was parallel to us, but it was not overtaking us, it seemed moving sideward. Just in case we started the engine and passed it astern. Probably it was drifting.

The waves are around 4 meters and quite short, wind 20-30 kn. Not the best weather. The boat is rolling and it’s wet. There was no visible sunrise, but shortly after the golden ray of light touched the water, telling us “more to port, guys”.We know, we know but have no possibility to go more to port.

In the golden rays, the dolphins appeared. They were following us, grey on in the grey ocean with the grey skies and golden light. Beautiful!

And then I finally went to sleep, after a busy night with wake-ups during my off-watch, and I was sleeping till lunch!

The pressure dropped 3mbar in 3 hours, but then stopped.

Waves are 4-5 m, impressive. We are still walking like cosmonauts. There were some vessels passing by while I was sleeping. 300 miles to Gibraltar. There was a weird one moving very slowly towards us. We altered the course to pass it astern, just in case. From now on we are having our radar working 24 hours a day. It would be better to have AIS, more info.

Despite the rolling and grey weather I’ve cooked a pizza. Soon we will run out of the normal food and instant noodles that we use in the night. Come on, firm land, we are already close!

My watch is the first one. The clouds are disappearing, the waves are calming down and the wind dropped to 15 kn. The skies are starry, but the moon rises only at midnight. No ships around. I play a bit with the sails, but mostly was reading novels by Hemingway.

May 5. Day 31.

I was woken up in the night – the autopilot went off again. We set the last spare pin, will have to make more spares when we come to the land cause nobody wants to steer manually 1500 more miles in the Mediterranean. Also, there was some nasty noise in the steering system area, we’ve tightened up all the connections and it reduced the sound, but we still heard it.

While Skip was fixing the autopilot and I was on the helm, saw the dolphins. Glowing backs and fins, asking “Curious, what are you doing there?”

The morning started with the ship going straight to us and don answering the radio. We had to give him the way.

Beautiful; day! Sometimes calm is good for a change. Like now, when the skies are blue, and we can feel the warmth of the continent and wear t-shirts! Less than 200 miles to Gibraltar, around 80 miles to the nearest land – Portugal.

The ships are passing every 3 or 4 hours. Mostly quite far, but one was following us, but at the end turned out to be a polite one and altered the course before I called.

The dolphins came again and were jumping high.

We are using all the opportunities the calm weather gives to us. Getting rid of the water from under the floors. Adding some diesel from the jerricans to the fuel tank. Changing some lines. Taking a shower at last! Tuna pasta for dinner.

Saw a small turtle. And some two or three pilot whales. They showed us their fins and headed west.

Entering the shelter of the Portuguese coast, and the ocean breathing is calming down. The forecast for tomorrow – some fresh breeze of unknown direction – Skip occasionally deleted the weather messages! Anyway, we have to be at the Strait Monday morning not to beat into the wind passing it.

Night shift. The wind is just enough to make the boat smoothly sail into the starry night. The red half-eaten moon raised from the horizon.

There were two ships on Sergey’s shift, one on mine and one ghost – there was a trace on the radar 2 miles behind us, that was running to us fast, and then, when only one mile left, it went the opposite direction and then disappeared. We haven’t seen anything around. Had the same the day before. Decided that it was a curious submarine.

At the end of the shift the wind veered and we started the engine. Looks like we’ll have an against-the-wind day. Shite.

May 6, day 32.

Gibraltar, so close and so far. In the morning the wind got stronger and reached 35 kn at noon. The waves – whoa! 130 miles to the Strait, but even motorsailing we can go to Casablanca or to the Portuguese coast. We’ve chosen Europe and were right: in the afternoon the wind veered and we were going almost to Cadiz.

Anyway, it’s warm! Even the wind is strong but warm! T-shirt, I missed you! (But the foul weather coat on the top because it’s wet).

Received the fresh forecast. Tomorrow the same, no way to enter the Strait. Ok, we can go to Cadiz, anchor there to wait and then go to Gibraltar with the changing wind.

A lot of ships around. Average of 6 at the same time on the radar. To the date, there was only one not polite and not answering the radio. By the way, I’ve noticed, that the smaller the ship the ruder it is.

It was rolly till the evening when the wind calmed down to 15-20 kn, and waves height decreased. In the morning they promise stronger wind again, but we will be hidden by the coast. The day after tomorrow should be a suitable wind. Out till the morning shift.

 May 7, day 33.

And then it was the sunrise, and huge red sun was climbing the skies and spilling the golden light on the titanium sea. The waves calmed down. Everything promised rain. Especially the forecast 🙂

In the morning light I saw something that looked like the hill, but when we came closer there was nothing. A cloud maybe?

At some point, Skip woke up and we watched a navy training with some helicopters. The ships passed in a mile

Finally, we anchored in Puerto Sherry and went to the land for some fresh food and cigarettes. It was not easy because of the famous Spanish siesta everywhere, but an Ukranian (!) woman saved us by showing the way to the supermarket. On the way back I’ve picked come flowers. Because we are finally on the land! And so we celebrated the crossing of Atlantic.

We left Puerto Sherry at the sunset. Gibraltar Strait in the morning. The shifts are shorter tonight – 2h40m instead of 4h, to have all hands on deck while passing the Strait.

Transatlantic west to east. Part 1.

Transatlantic west to east. Part 2.

Transatlantic west to east. Part 3.