Treceira, passage prep and our passage to England - Well nearly - we made it to Portugal

Adriana anchored off Praia da Vitória beach

Yay we are off - after just a slight delay, 3 days after we checked out of the country we finally decided to bite the bullet and go.
We are expecting to be around 10 days at sea so a lot of thought has to go into what meals we will need pre made, and what food we will be able to cook underway, we have to have a good number of prepped stuff so that if it’s too rough we can just defrost and reheat, this of course takes time as cooking on a boat in such a small space is never very easy. 

Fresh food doesn’t seem to last very long and now that we are in cooler climates our fridge even on the lowest (warmest) setting seems to freeze everything, so juggling the space is important too.

How many eggs will we use, will we feel like strong tasting curries or garlicky hummus or will we prefer bland comfort food like toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches, we prepped a little bit of everything and even bought a plain old square white loaf of bread, finally finding bread more like home not the sweet kind the Americans eat.

Our provisioning had been a source of amusement to everyone, each day Craig wheeled the red granny trolley up the paved streets, up the big hill and returned with a carton of Superboc the cheap local beer or a half dozen bottles of red wine, taking advantage of the supermarket weekly specials.  Stocking up preparing for our time in the UK.

We had gone through our first lot of fruit and veggies while waiting on the right conditions to depart.  And most of our snacks I might add☺

We had a few chores to do, dropping off our propane gas for a refill at the marina, that was easy, but replacing the diesel we had used getting here, was hard work.

I think pre Covid it wouldn’t have been so hard but no one is giving lifts to strangers anymore, so it was another big walk uphill pushing the large heavy wheelbarrow type trolley borrowed from the marina. 

It seemed to become 10 times harder to push once the two jerry cans were filled up and Craig did that trip twice.

We were planning to leave on Friday July16th but there was a low weather pattern forming around the Azores and it was forecast to hit us on the Saturday so we though we would sit tight and head off on the Monday.  

Plus “it’s bad luck to leave on a Friday” we were advised by Scott and Debbie our fellow Aussies on sailing yacht Expedition, that gave us an excuse to have a few more laughs and some beers before we said goodbye.

Craig took our paperwork to the marina and checked us out on Sunday morning but the bad weather didn’t really hit until late Sunday night through until Monday afternoon it was a real storm with sustained winds of 20-25 knots and gusts over 30, with rain and choppy seas it was a doozy.  

Deciding we were not going to go anywhere and technically we are not allowed back on land, late Sunday night we lifted the motor off the dingy to secure it on its stand on the rails, and hoisted the dingy up on the davits, deciding not to stow it on deck like last time, fingers crossed it’s not the wrong decision, it could be flooded with water and bend the davits if we are in storm conditions, we do take the plug out when we hoist it just in case.

We were literally stuck onboard from when we checked out, Scott and Deb swung past and offered to buy us one last roast chicken and a bag of bread rolls. 

With change from €10 we are sad to be leaving these beautiful, inexpensive islands.

There were hydrangeas everywhere on this island too, I didn’t find out until later it was illegal to pick the flowers, oops I have a beautiful bunch of dried hydrangeas as a souvenir from our time there.

On our crossing from Horta to Terceira we had a problem unfurling the main sail, we have in-mast furling so the sail is rolled up vertically inside the mast and we unroll it by pulling a rope one way for out and the opposite for in.

This is the rope that had snapped on our way to Horta, Craig spliced and replaced it ...  so we don’t know if the rope snapping caused the sail to jam or the sail jamming caused the rope to snap.

One very still late afternoon we had Adam and Khiara over to help us have a good look to see if we could discover the problem, the whole sail was caught up inside the mast, we could only let it out a short way then it would stick.

What a team with Craig up the mast and Adam manually winding the sail in and out, I was on the electric winch to give it extra tension and Khiara was communicating Craigs instructions.

We unrolled, and refurled the sail in and out many times it was quite a process, it got jammed again and again.

Craig came down and picked up a torch so he could see inside the mechanism at the top, he couldn’t find anything, eventually, hoping that we had tightened the roll in the mast enough by our manual manipulation and that had been the only problem we called it a day and enjoyed a sundowner.

Where we are there are no services that can help us with our sail, fingers crossed that we have fixed it enough for it to work on passage at least to get us there,  then we can deal with it.

Finally we leave the beautiful Azores, I think these islands are very special to every sailor who visits as it’s such a huge journey to get to them  plus not many other tourists find their way there although there is so much to do and see, lots of hiking and diving quite a fabulous destination off the beaten track.

We have done 10 miles Craig says about an hour and a half into our passage “Only 1490 nautical miles to go”

Leaving the island of Terceira looking back we could get an idea of how big the island actually is, sort of kicking ourselves we didn’t hire a car and see the whole island especially the volcano craters and caves in the centre.  

But at the time we were happy with what we had seen, we have walked and explored a huge area around Praia da Vitória taking a different route each day on our daily walks, and we had caught the bus to Angra do Heroísmo  the Ancient capital twice and had a good explore around that city.  

The 45 minute bus ride to Angra gave us a great scenic view of the countryside.  

Adam and Khiara made a YouTube episode of our visit there you can have a look 

Episode 140 features Pico, Adam and Khiara climbed the mountain after seeing their footage I’m so happy we didn’t attempt it.

Episode 141 highlights

 Angra do Heroísmo if you blink you’ll miss us but we were there too. 

Living for 44 days in a country gives you a great feel for the place and it’s people.

Governed by mainland Portugal the Azorians have a quiet relaxed lifestyle, they are lovely welcoming and friendly.

Just a few photos from our time in Treceira 

There is some magnificent architecture, and the house painters must be kept busy 

The old town square, you can just picture life a 100 years ago 

The streets are all paved even in the suburbs but some more fancy than others 

You get by, most signage is self explanatory 

Debby and Scott from sv Expedition, we spend many an afternoon sipping €1.20 beers and wine, the white wine had a slight fizz but was quite pleasant 

We are talking 1641, so much history 

Another sunset onboard 

There is a constant cover of low clouds over all the islands, it made the days seem cooler than they actually were 

Coffee and Portuguese tarts were an everyday treat

So this is similar to the street Craig had to wheel the trolly up, it doesn’t look very steep but the  top half is quite a hike especially pushing a big heavy metal trolley

Myself Scott and Norm
We met norm through Scott and Deb he’s in his 80's and still cruising on his 60ft yacht although he was in a bit of a pickle when he arrived in Treceira his hydraulics had failed, he hadn't been able to furl in his sail and it had shredded, first job was to get the hydraulic fixed luckily it was only a hose Scott and Deb were able to take it to a local workshop and get it repaired and fortunately he had a spare sail.

First day on passage (I didn’t plan to do a daily update) 

Wednesday 21st July 2021.

I was hoping this was going to be a straight forward passage and honestly when things are going well it’s really rather monotonous.

Lifting the anchor around 9am we had had a bit of a slow start, the night before Craig had announced “Nope doesn’t look like we will be leaving tomorrow” “there is a big low going to hit England at the same time we will be arriving” looks like we are here at least until the 25th.

So instead of getting up and getting ready we had lazed around for a bit, but upon checking the windy app we could see that the forecast had changed and if we didn’t get too high the potential was there to miss the storm.

We unfurled the sails and were on our way heeled over as we left the huge sheltered bay behind, what are we doing it’s been free to anchor here, we had free wifi and the food and beers were cheap.

We are heading to the Uk where we will only get 50 cents of Aussie dollar to £1 English pound and the bottled beer certainly won’t be €1.

But we are very excited I have relatives to visit in Scotland and we will get to visit a few friends along the way.  Dublin is big on our list as is sailing through Loch Lomond, visiting lots of castles, cruising up to The Orkney Islands (I have relatives there too) our end destination being Norway for next Summer. 

Our first day was choppy, fast and sunny, good sailing conditions. 

Day two was choppy fast but getting overcast and grey and by day four it was cold wet, damp choppy, rolly and strong winds.

Heave too, hove too I’m not sure how pronounce it but that’s what we had to do.

Before we left Praia the weather forecast had shown a developing storm coming down the western side of the English coast that would greet us as we arrived in the UK.  We had talked about holding off departure for another day or two but on downloading the weather the next couple of times the storm seemed to have dissipated and we decided to leave, however 4 days in and the storm has reappeared ..... our choice was to keep going into it, remember we are looking at weather 10 days into the future, heave to and allow some time to pass so we miss the storm or change course and head to Portugal.  

Portugal had been our original destination, we were going to haul the boat out and fly to Scotland but with Covid we didn’t want to risk being locked down in a different country from our home/ boat, that plus meeting two lots of cruisers who said “Don’t go to the Mediterranean, go to the UK and Norway next Summer, you’ll love it” had swayed our decision.

And now our hearts were set on Scotland for the Winter and Christmas with my Auntie June and Uncle David so our best bet was to stall, just sit still in the water for a day or two, so we did.

Craig swung Adriana’s bow into the wind and we reduced the sails to a minimum, adjusted the direction we were facing again so we weren’t getting rocked too badly by the swell and we spent almost 15 hours  drifting in the 1 knot of current.  It was rather nice not to be heeled over we had a big tidy up, washed our faces and had a lovely restful day.  With Bacon and eggs w baked beans on toast for lunch and a pumpkin and broccoli pasta for dinner we recharged our batteries ready for the next leg of our crossing.

Constantly downloading the updated weather, Craig had a worried frown on his face, we took off again sailing to towards Falmouth.

We are in big choppy seas, it’s occasionally foggy, it’s grey damp and getting colder. 

“You know what” says Craig “I don’t think we can do this” “This bad  weather that I’ve been watching has come back, it’s forecasted to be sustained 30 knots which won’t be fun, but it is doable, it’s the predicted 4 meter waves that will hit us as we reach the English Channel, that’s the worry”.  

“It’s a huge storm front and it’s going to last for days so really there is no hanging out at sea until it passes, who knows what will hit us out here,  I really don’t like what I see”.

Weighing up our options we had no choice but to turn around.

I’m devastated, in fact we both are, there was so much to look forward to, so much to see and people to catch up with, I think I cried quietly to myself for most of the day and into the next, gutted is a good way to describe how I felt.

But I must admit the conditions improved as soon as we made the decision and turned Adriana around, back the way we came, the sun poked its head through the clouds and as we are now going downwind it’s a much pleasanter sail still big seas but not nearly as rough.

The fact that our radar had stopped working was another deciding factor, we were not heading into fog without radar.

The further we backtracked the nicer the conditions became.

No flying fish, no Portuguese man of war, no dolphins, no whales, no other yachts, the rare bird and the occasional ship showing on AIS it’s really lonely out here.

We had traveled 700 nm to nowhere, 5 days and nights at sea and now we are following our track back the way we came.

For a little while we thought we would have to head to Sao Maguel Island back in the Azores due to weather hitting Portugal, we sailed another 2 days not knowing where we were going, finally making the decision to head to Cascais a small town close the the capital Lisbon.

I jumped back online and took a screenshot of our tracking page, you can see where we hove to and drifted sideways, then kept going and then where we turned around.  You can also see there is another low system similar to what we were facing about to hit the UK. 12.08.21

Our friends Earl and Diane on Dunracing recommended the bay as a great place to make landfall a big bay and a train ride away from Lisbon the capital.  

Dunracing have just crossed through the Panama Canal and Craig was in touch via Iridium go, at least we had a recommended anchorage to head for.

It took a few days but as the clouds cleared and the sky became bluer and the temperature rose, seeing the sunshine lifted our spirits and we are happy with our decision.

This has been a long passage a few wind changes but not much, some big choppy uncomfortable days, a bit of drizzling rain but overall quite monotonous. (Once we had turned around)

We’ve read books had an iPad sudoku challenge, ate and ate, there’s nothing like boredom eating to pass the time and we love snacking during watches “to keep ourselves awake”.

When your awake half the night half of your day is spent sleeping.  

We have had to turn on the generator a few times to help top up the batteries, the wind generator is fantastic but without the solar to back it up our power would get low in the morning after running the chartplotter and instruments all night.  Plus running the engine gives us beautiful hot water again.

Spending so much time onboard I can see all the dirt and mouldy spots inside but it’s been too rough to do anything about it, quite depressing really, I’m not a big fan of spending time doing housework.

Craig had made a huge lasagna and chicken & vegetable soup so days where it was impossible to do anything more than just reheat we were well fed.  

We haven’t even attempted fishing this passage it’s been too rough plus who knows the size of the fish are out here, but mostly I think our experience with the swordfish/marlin has scarred us for life, it was so huge and so beautiful, I’m glad it got away.

As we approached Portugal the ocean changed from deep swimming pool almost navy blue to a luminous green colour as we got closer to land and we did encounter a pod of dolphins rather big ones they were circling behind us, in our wake they didn’t even seem to see us.

One thing we were not expecting was the tanker superhighway - 6 mapped out lanes for ships to traverse up and down the coastline we had to cross just like crossing a road Craig described it as being like “playing frogger” on the chartplotter.

Adriana had to be steered through the mass of ships bearing down the separation zone, we counted about 15 in the 25 nautical mile range going in the one direction.  

We ran parallel for a bit to see if there was a break in traffic but no it’s a constant stream, Our timing had to be spot on, I’ve never seen Craig so nervous.  

Who would ever go out here without AIS, imagine at night if they couldn’t see you.

One semi lit, unoccupied looking cruise ship very kindly changed his course to accommodate us crossing in front of him.  With the engine running full throttle we were going as fast as we could but there was a strong current against us leaving us doing 3.9 to 4.5 knots instead of our usual 6 knots. It was a very pensive few hours.

We crossed the highway just as dawn broke, the seas were huge only calming down as we approached closer to land and the wind picked up hitting 25 knots as we pulled into the anchorage.  

So very relived to be able to drop the anchor in a nice sheltered bay out of the big swells and strong winds and oh my how pretty does it look.

Turns out the storm we turned away from ended up being a named storm, Storm Evert and it caused havoc along the English coastline with boats having to be rescued 

“Storm Evert battered the country last week, with gusts of winds close to 70mph in some places and close to 60mph in parts of Sussex. The storm pushed away east of England into the North Sea on Friday night, taking gale force winds with it.”

We certainly dodged a bullet there !!

Cascais is a beach town and after 10 days at sea the smell of sunscreen from people already on the beach was the most dominant smell.

August being Europes peak holiday season it’s quite confronting seeing so many people in one place, we have been in low populated islands for so long now, Cascais looks like a huge built up city but it’s so exciting to be somewhere new and different again.

We took a day to clean up and catch up on sleep, we arrived on Friday 31st but then didn’t actually go ashore to check in until the Monday, now we really are in the Schengen zone, we were in it in The Azores but didn’t have to worry as we were going to the UK, we now have 42 days left after 42 in the Azores and 6 so far here.

We are allowed 90 days in any country then we have to leave for 180 days, I’m not quite sure how we are going to juggle this but we have started doing our research and we will fly to the UK probably for Christmas but for now it’s time to go and explore Portugal.