Heading for The Azores
33:26.18N 63:40.75W 1720 nm to go Wednesday 1st June
2011 Sorry for leaving you with a ‘cliff
hanger’ about our ‘exciting change plan’. Unfortunately
we were a bit premature with the blog posting and the exciting change of
plan hasn’t happened. After much deliberation we have finally
set sail for The Azores which are 1800nm east of Bermuda. Mary has wanted to go to the US for some time and had
finally persuaded Alan that we should sail to Halifax in Nova Scotia Canada,
only 750nm away with favourable winds, where we assumed we could get US visas
and then sail down to Newport Rhode Island where we had arranged to ship Stella
back to the UK. It is supposedly a stunning bit of coast and we have been
busy talking to lots of people heading that way, planning our route, copying borrowed
charts and books, learning all about the gulf stream and generally getting
quite excited about it. If you arrive by yacht (as opposed to an airline) in the USA
you need a B1/B2 visitors visa for the US. Unfortunately we didn’t
know this until we started to talk to other yachters with the same problem or
we could have got them before we left the UK. We know other people who
had got visas in Barbados, Trinidad and Dominican Republic so assumed all we
needed was a US embassy, of which Canada has many. None of the islands we
have been to in the Caribbean have had embassies and as we were so busy with
visitors we haven’t had time to go to those which do. Having then spent
3 very frustrating days filling in the US immigration departments online visa
application forms over a very unreliable internet connection, when we submitted
the forms we found a statement at the end of the page saying that we
couldn’t apply for visas in Canada as we are non residents. But you
could only find this out once you had submitted the application forms. We then spent another day trawling the websites to try and
get more information and then resorted to spending a fortune on Mary’s
mobile to call the US visa service (they want your credit card number just
to talk to them!). As expected the person on the phone who we
eventually got to talk to after about 5 mins of recorded messages telling us to
look at the website was useless and knew less about the US visa system than we
did! He was not able to confirm if we would be able to apply for a visa
in Halifax. At the end of this very annoying process it was unclear if
we would be able to get a US visa in Halifax or not. The official US
websites contained contradictory information, with one clear statement saying
it wasn’t possible and then others implying it was. Because we
didn’t want to be in any doubt and didn’t want our (expensive) trip
north to become a wild goose chase for visas we’ve decided to cut our
losses and stick to our original plan of going to the Azores. We and many
of our fellow cruisers have spent so much time trying to unravel the US visa
process it is ridiculous. Fortunately the weather forecast has improved significantly
for the trip to the Azores and rather than strong head winds we are back to
light winds. So yesterday after a busy day provisioning up for an
extra week and getting Stella ready, at 6pm Bermuda time (2100h GMT) we left
Bermuda for the Azores. It’s difficult to say exactly when we will
arrive as it depends on how much wind we get. It’s about 1800nm in
a straight line, but we’ll probably head north initially to try and get
better wind. We have approx 500ltr of fuel which gives us a range of
about 800 – 900nm, so we can motor half way. Based on an average
speed of 5kts, it should take us 15 to 16 days. On the positive side there will be plenty of exploring to be
done in the Azores and hopefully we can feel very satisfied that we have ‘completed
the circle’ when we sail back into Lymington. This is the traditional trade route home and should see nice
westerly winds to blow us along. But as has been the case all year the weather
is still not normal and as the Azores high is too far north and not established
in a stable fashion. The forecast has been showing strong easterly winds
for some time. Some of our friends left for The Azores a couple of weeks
ago and have been emailing us daily with reports of tough conditions in strong
head winds and cold!!! although they have now arrived safely. The forecast
has however now improved slightly and the anchorage in Bermuda, which was
getting very busy with boats waiting for the wind, has emptied in the last
couple of days as everyone has started to leave. So right now we are 80 nm NE of Bermuda with 1720 miles to
go to Horta. We’ll try and post daily updates to the blog so you
can follow our slow progress east. As always do send us emails to let us
know you are reading it as it gets very lonely out here! |