Arc 2010 - Azores
Gins.pt
Sun 13 Jun 2010 14:27
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I could not join the group to explore the island
Pico, where the best wine on the island group is produced.
I had to wait for the service technician
to tension the belt on the alternator. He came on Wednesday at noon
and soon stated that
the alternator support was broken.The welding was very bad and broke away.
He could
not remove the shaft
on which the alternator holder was welded as the screws were too long and we
would
need to lift the whole motor to take the screws out. He wanted to do the welding
without removing the shaft
which I refused. The
support was modified and attached with the 3 screws to the shaft. The work
was finished
on Saturday evening
Jelka and Piet arrived late afternoon on
Saturday and joined me at the ARC grill dinner, to be introduced as my
crew on the way to
Ponta Delgado. On Sunday morning we left at 5:30 and arrived after 11
hours to marina in
Angra on the island
Terceira. The berth was very rolly all the time We were attached in 5
points and each one
of them had two
ropes to the pier. GIN'S was still moving in all directions. The walk in
Angra with a guide was
interesting.Many houses on the main streets are
renovated and the town looks clean.
In the evening we had a reception in the hotel
sponsored by the Tourist board.
On Tuesday afternoon we left for Ponta Delgado. We
had good winds arriving early in the morning. We did
customs, immigration, police , marina
registration paper work and filled the fuel tanks. In the afternoon Piet
helped me trobleshoot the electric winch. We
thought we repaired it but it failed again before the departure.
Thursday was again the national holiday in
Portugal. We took the island tour by bus organized by the ARC,
There are a few interesting towns. .Island has a
lot of hot springs and fumaroles, lakes in the craters of former
volcanoes When we came back Piet and Jelka were
gone back home on Faial and my new crew member Klara
was waiting on the boat. Later also Mark
arrived just in time to join us at the group dinner. Dinner was prepared
by the crews. I made about 30 pancakes with
cranberry jam..
On Friday we went shopping to the farmers market.
We bought a lot of vegetables, fruit and forgot somewhere on
the market two sacks with pineapples and bananas.
We noticed this when we were already 30 miles from the coast.
On the last evening we had another joint dinner
buffet sponsored by the harbour - prepared and served by a hotel
school.
ARC Rally control also announced the results of the
LEG 2 (Bermuda-Azores) After the time corrections with the
handicap
factor and motoring hours GIN'S got the award for
the second place. Thanks also to the Austrian crew who helped me
on this leg. A good improvement over the first leg
where we took the 5th place.
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