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June 20 to June 28, 2005: Azores June 20, 2005 (Monday) Juergen was so eager to check in that he woke up early, took a shower to look decent for the immigration officials... while I was so tired that I heard none of the commotion and was wondering how he could run to check in unwashed... He did not, but I did not know that then. Once we moved Impromptu to her present location, we began enjoying our arrival with breakfast and then lots of walking around on land... For the past 2 1/2 days we have been enjoying meeting other sailors from Europe and the US, eating great food in a very beautiful restaurant overlooking the harbor and another island "Pico". We have been to the post office a number of times, buying stamps for the innumerous post cards, making phone calls to family and friends. We have also spent quite some time in the repair shop (Midatlantic Yacht Service) in order to get our battery situation straightened out. This morning, as I have been checking e-mails and updating our website - finally - Juergen spent time with MYS and found that a carpenter will come tomorrow to enlarge our battery box to accommodate new batteries (the ones we have on the boat right now seem to be smaller than any Juergen has been able to find both in the US but also here - so where did Hallberg-Rassy find the ones we have??? We would really like to know. Yet, it sounds like there is hope after all.... June 22, 2005 (Wednesday) We will update the website one more time before we depart for England - and then from England again. We hope to rent a car to drive around the island once our batteries are dealt with. We also hope to sail to another island of the Azores, Terceira, but that will be on our way to England. So you will hear / read from us before... We hope you are all ok. THANK you very much for all the e-mails you have sent (I believe to have answered all of them by now). June 23, 2005 (Thursday) Robert, the carpenter, is on our boat, together with Juergen. They already took three batteries out - sitting in the cockpit now waiting to be picked up. Robert, from East Germany and for 9 years here in Horta, is cutting the battery box to enlarge it sufficiently for the new batteries. I sure hope it all works eventually. We may still need a new regulator. We'll see. Alison and Chuck (last name?) visited with us last night. After cheese, crackers and wine (non-alcoholic beer for Chuck) we sat down below for a large plate of freshest salad (how wonderful after almost three weeks of no lettuce) and clam chowder. We watched the movie "Around Cape Horn" thereafter. We all had a great time as we sat till around 2330. Our Irish neighbors did not party last night, but they talked in the cockpit for a very long time. I could not sleep. Early in the morning, the wind finally died down - but then it just shifted to Northerly and brought very light rain. The entire island is covered by heavy black clouds. Pico across from Faial is not visible at all - a little eerie. Tonight, we are invited on Tony Waldeck's boat "Adrienne May" for drinks and then we will go to dinner in our favorite restaurant overlooking the harbor and Pico. Click on foto to expand!
a holiday on Faial - the first day of summer... We went to a festival up in the mountains, a tiny village with lots of people and parked cars. The music was so bad that we, together with Tony and Alison, Chuck and Zoey, escaped for a beer at one of the road stands. We rather quickly decided that taking a cab back into Horta for a decent dinner was more desirable... Click on foto to expand!
We also painted our obligatory good-luck charm to ensure that we would have more luck on our way to England. June 25, 2005 (Saturday) We rented a car from 1600 on for 24 hours. This gave us time to drive around the island (Tony accompanied us) and to have dinner at "Nick's Hideaway". Click on foto to expand!
June 26, 2005 (Sunday) Waltraut's birthday. Of course, we called to wish her well... Then we visited the local super market and were quite impressed by its selection of pretty much everything, making reprovisioning quite easy. After this duty had been fulfilled we got into our little "Opel Corsa". Juergen drove up an incredibly steep and winding "road", an overstatement for this stretch of unpaved path, all the way to the crater. Click on foto to expand!
Of course, the larger pictures look a lot more impressive than these but to ensure that up and downloading does not take for ever, we decided to keep them small. We have been noticing how clean the island is, no rubbish anywhere, garbage is being picked up daily, at least once, waste baskets are everywhere... truly a pleasure to walk around. June 27, 2005 (Monday) We are still in Horta, but the batteries are installed, the battery box finished (not as well as Juergen would have liked it to be... but then, what are our choices?). In the evening, we noticed that - using the generator (not the engine), the 12-volt batteries don't get charged but are rather discharged while the 24-volt batteries charge up beautifully. So, another thing Juergen needs to get help on. He also will need to call HR (Hallberg-Rassy) as the electronics man could not find our regulator (and is questioning whether we even have one...) June 28, 2005 (Tuesday) Juergen is on the boat waiting for the electronics repair man and to hear from HR, tried to call them this morning. Our contact was not available when Juergen called. I have been sitting at City Hall, checking almost another 100 e-mails to both our accounts and responding to all those from friends and family. This will be the last update of the website before our departure for Falmouth (hoped for tomorrow morning). We will have a last dinner with our newly made friends Tony and Alison and Chuck before we get going again. The repair will keep us from visiting the island of Terceira, which we regret in some ways. On the other hand, I cannot wait to get to England and to be done with the major ocean voyages... We will update the website out of England again after today. I am again sitting at City Hall of Horta, on the entrance steps, but plugged in while handling the e-mails and the website. I hope the pictures and our brief descriptions give you an idea as to life as it presents itself today. I am feeling a lot better and am my old self again. Of course, I am apprehensive about the next ocean voyage, but it is supposed to be shorter and, hopefully, kinder to me. Also, I have new seasickness pills and will go to buy some ginger (more than one person recommended that I buy that). Thanks to all of you who seem to be genuinely interested in our progress and who have been writing so many kind things to us. It is overwhelming at times. We really appreciate it. I have been saving all your messages and hope to put them together, once we are home for the winter. Enjoy your summer! June 28, 2005 (Tuesday - 2nd message) Juergen has cleared us out of customs/immigration and topped off the water tank. We jointly read all the e-mails we had gotten. He is just as happy to know we have such great family and friends as I was when reading the messages. Another HR (45) tied up to us last night while we were out. Since we plan on leaving around 0730 tomorrow morning, we went to the gas dock and rearranged the tie-up so that the HR 45 is now next to Ernst's boat (the Dutch boat owner who is fixing whatever his delivery crew broke on their trip over to Horta and who is waiting for his girlfriend to join him from Horta to the Netherlands...) We needed approx. 730 liters of Diesel (Juergen can tell you exactly what this means in terms of usage, usage per hour, per mile, miles per liter, etc. I will not bore you with such details though, what we thought was interesting is that Hallberg-Rassy indicates the usage higher than we actually experienced. We had a last dinner with Tony and Alison and Chuck and of course, Zoey, their dog. We all had a good time before saying good-bye. Alison and Chuck were leaving for Terceira early the next morning, we for England. Tony stayed in Horta, waiting for his sail issue to be dealt with and for his crew to continue on to Gibraltar and Perpignon from there.
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