We’ll be giving presentations at the Toronto Boat Show Sat. Jan 22nd – Sun. Jan 30th
The “Azores” trip, we had dreamed of, discussed and put off for 20 years, this was to be the year, 2021, we’d finally make it across! After almost 19 months locked down, away from the boat due to the pandemic, we drove out from Ontario to Lewsiporte, Newfoundland, and spent 14 days in quarantine. Finally we could start getting ready for the crossing. There was much to do: a new life raft, autopilot, windvane, and offshore insurance all needed to be purchased. The first aid kit and flares were out of date, we got Crew Over Board tags for our lifejackets, paper charts, sailing directions and digital charts in three different electronic formats. Jayne was also busy sewing our new “watch keepers” dodger extension in between sanding, painting and waxing the boat.

We had enlisted the help of new crewmember Mark to come along to help with the long days of sailing ahead, we’d planned for 10 x 24 hours a day to sail from Fogo, Newfoundland to Horta in the Azores, about 1300 nautical miles away, as a crow flys.

Sun, Whales, birds and sea life surrounded us sailing off the Newfoundland coast past the Offer Wadham Islands, to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. At the Grand Banks we encountered cold, fog, waves and wind shifts, which made for some difficult sailing. Once over the Grand Banks, the Labrador currents 6 degree Celsius water begins warming, entering the gulf stream & Azores current as you near the mid-Atlantic.

As the offshore Atlantic’s depths plunged thousands of feet, dolphins surrounded us and endless night skies of moon and stars kept us company on the long hours of night watches. With daytime temperatures climbing into the high 20’s and the water temperature 22 Celsius we hove to off Faial to await daylight, and then entered Horta’s wonderful “volcanic” harbour, behind Monte de Guia, an extinct caldera.

1350 miles, 11 days and 1 PCR test later our crew of three were in Peter Cafe Sport celebrating the crossing over a cold beverage.

Mark with business to conduct had to fly home, Jayne and I had 90 days on our Portuguese/Azores tourist visas, to explore the 5 Islands that make up the central group of the 9 island Azores archipelago.

[…] on July 14th, reaching Horta in the Azores July 25th, after a fairly easy 11 day crossing (click to open Azores Crossing post). As Canadian citizens we were granted 90 day tourist visas to visit the 9 islands that make up the […]