Blog 27th July
Susan Ayu
Peter Costalas
Wed 27 Jul 2011 12:10
Bernie’s Blog - Day 4 – Wednesday 27th July 2011 Leg Five: Azores to This blog covers Sunday evening, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. You left us on Sunday sailing between the islands of Pico and São Jorge on our way to Tercieira. We saw dolphins and Shearwater birds but no whales or fish. En route we were served Indonesian Chicken Curry by Christine – our resident Master Chef.. Wonderful. We arrived safely at Angra Heroismo at 2230; had a cup of tea or beer and to bed. A good first day’s ‘shake down’ cruise to re-familiarize us all with Susan Ayu. Monday Chrstine and Andy walked the lovely town of Darrell and I walked to the very large Continente supermarket on the outskirts of Angra and did the final purchase of fresh meats and salads. Earlier we had visited the local municipal market and although the produce looked good we went for the safe option of the supermarket. We have limited space to store fresh so pre-packed is best for us when there are five hungry mouths to feed. Peter spent the forenoon serving the fuel system. We three then went ashore for a snack lunch in a Portuguese ‘fast food’ restaurant where they not only got the order wrong but it took one hour to arrive. C’est la vie. Monday evening we went ashore for supper to a local hotel restaurant overlooking the marina and beach – Hotel Beira do Mar – where the local soup is served in scooped out large bread roll. It was then back to the boat via an outdoor café in a beautiful setting for an ice-cream and coffee. When we arrived back at the yacht a Swiss gentleman was there to invite us to his yacht named ‘Single Malt’ for a wee dram. He and his wife, in their mid-70s, had spent 13 years sailing around the world. We had two drams with this very interesting couple …and then back to Susan Ayu for an early night! On Tuesday we fully fuelled (plus140 litres in cans) and watered to prepare for the 1220 nautical miles to Sailing at midday on Tuesday we set course up the eastern side of Terciara and viewed some incredible volcanic formations. Supper, again by Christine, was fresh pork chops in a paprika and chillied pepper sauce with new potatoes. Scrumptious. We are now eating the delicious lemon drizzle sponge for afternoon tea; and during night watches the Welsh Cakes. We are grateful, respectively to our supporters, to Jackie in Cascais and Di in Crapstone. Soon after supper we saw our first pod of whales blowing about 500 yards from us. The whale box is now ‘ticked’. Dolphins are an everyday occurrence. We still await our first fish. Overnight Darrell spotted the orbiting space station. Today, Wednesday, we have no wind and a calm sea so we are still motoring. |