Trip Update - 22nd May 2009 Horta, Azores
Position: 38:32:00N 28:37:50W
Well, our plans have changed several
times since the last blog, but I am actually here in the Lots of things have happened in the
last couple of weeks. The delivery
of Nutmeg from I had booked my flights out here for
Sunday night last week, but on Sunday morning, I got an email from David (the
delivery skipper)’s wife to say that they weren’t due to arrive until
Tuesday. Coupled with this late
arrival, I checked the weather and could see that they weren’t going to be able
to leave for the So I went out for a cycle with Will
on Sunday morning to clear my head and make a decision. In the process I got thoroughly soaked
and arrived home like a drowned rat, shivering with the cold. Millie asked me how my cycle was and I
said that we’d had a few punctures, and she responded “what – rum punches?”
Clearly we have some way to go to re-integrate our children into
I made the decision that I couldn’t
go ahead and fly out. It was a
Sunday and I couldn’t phone work to ask for an extension, and it would be risky
to fly out anyway and just hope work would be OK if I was late back. Now is probably not the right time to
give work a reason to sack me! So I
cancelled my flights. David then rang on Monday to say he
had arrived early! So it was a
pretty frustrated Ollie who explained that he now wasn’t coming out. I decided to cycle away my frustration
and headed off to ride the This was ridiculous. Everything was going wrong. So, having talked it through with my
ever-supportive (and lovely) wife, I decided that I had taken a correct decision
on Sunday, but I now needed to push the situation on a bit. So I got in touch with work and asked
them how they would feel if I stayed away for another two weeks. They were happy – I don’t think I was
going to drop straight into a chargeable role so it would save them money if I
wasn’t on the payroll for a bit longer – and so I got in touch with David
Hunnable to check he hadn’t left yet, and he hadn’t. Hurrah! It was all back
on! In the meantime, we spent a lovely
day up in leafy A hundred pounds of greasy new bike
bits later and my bike was ready to roll, so I set off with a backpack full of
Snickers bars and had a great cycle in the sun to The I arrived on the I got a taxi to the marina and
walked round until I found Nutmeg.
I met David, and found that John, his crew, had left that morning, so
David and I will be double-handing back to the Nutmeg in Horta
Marina There were lots of familiar boats
around the marina, and it feels funny to re-immerse myself in this cruising life
and community again. I feel like a
bit of a fraud in having flown here rather than sailed, but the main thing is
that I am here and we are about to set off on another serious ocean passage,
1200 miles back to England. David
took me for lunch up to the infamous Peter’s Bar, where all sailors who have
arrived into the I bumped into Jim & Jo off
Starblazer, who arrived around the same time as Nutmeg, and then as I was
walking into town, Wanderer IV arrived, straight from We are full of fuel and water and
food, and are planning to leave at 0900 tomorrow morning. The forecast looks quite good, with
strong Westerlies to the north of us and no nasty lows heading our way. So it is as good as it’s ever going to
be and I suspect a whole flotilla of yachts will leave tomorrow.
I’ll do my best to send out a daily
blog from the passage to the A view of Pico from Horta
Marina |