Fiesta update
Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Sun 1 Jul 2007 04:13
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Position N39 27' W 26
03' or about 90miles South & 750miles West of Porto
At last we managed to
breakaway from the festivities and are now sailing again. Originally we had
planned to stay only a couple of days in Angra on Terciera but for the first 3
days we had Northerly winds and all the sailing wisdom says "do not leave
if you can't go North" We hung about for three days and then there was a large
low pressure system passing to the north, the one that is attacking Britain just
now, so we had to wait until that passed. However it was not too erroneous to
stay as the day after we arrived the annual town Fiesta started, with a parade
through the town and some live music. We thought that would be the end of it but
it carried on every night of the week with a different theme for the parade and
different types of music at several venues. Bear in mind that it was all done by
the local villages and that the whole population of the island is around 60,000,
we were tremendously impressed with the amount of work put into the whole
thing. At the beginning of August the whole thing starts again in the
second largest town of Praia. We don't know how they manage, we were knackered
just watching as it generally didn't finish till well after midnight. We are all
a bit relieved to be sailing again to get a rest.
We have five boats
all heading north who are keeping in radio contact and we have spotted a further
two going the same way. We left Angra within a couple of hours of each other but
on the first night watch, we are very much alone on the ocean as there are no
lights visible. Well you think you are alone but just as it was getting dark a
pod of Dolphins came past and were frolicking in the waves around Sarah-Grace,
leaping right out of the water, so I'd like to think that they came past in
order to welcome us back to sea!
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