5thJune Horta, Faial 38:31.959N 028:37.525W
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Thu 6 Jun 2013 10:13
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"5th June -
Horta, Faial"
We have spent the last couple of days, sheltering from the wind and rain and doing the necessary tasks of washing, shopping, visiting the Internet cafe, talking to fellow 'yachties', filling gas bottles and fixing the foresail, which had become exceptionally loose. The foresail was slightly difficult as we knew that one of the four screws which needed to be removed in order to make the adjustments to the bottle screw was impossible to remove simply using a screwdriver. The forestay was so slack that lowering the sail was difficult as each of the ends of the aluminium sections of the foil were not lying square to each other as the weight of the sail hanging from the forestay distorted what should have been a straight line into a curve. With the sail stuck half up and half down, more urgent tugs up and down on the halyard and simultaneous firmer tugs on the sail were necessary until we eventually managed to get it down. The chandlers arranged for the local Rigger to call by to see if he could remove the screw. With his young strength and with the aid of Noel's impact screwdriver he managed to undo it! The other three screws were not such a problem as one had sheared off previously and the other two had shaken loose! This lovely young man would not take any payment for his 30 minutes work and simple said in excellent English, "It comes from my heart". He then talked to Noel at some length about how he should adjust it and what he should be careful off. As he has a problem with one of his eyes, it was lovely that Noel was able to reciprocate his generosity by discussing his problem and offering advice. The forestay is now tight and we are just waiting for the wind to drop so that we can hoist the sail again. As I have still not seen a whale during our Atlantic adventure, we treated ourselves to a Whale Watching trip today. The weather conditions were ideal with blue sky, calm seas and not much wind. Our vessel was a small catamaran and the crew of marine biologists worked hard to find the mammals which stay around the Azores, they believe it is because the ocean is very deep even close into the islands which drop steeply to the ocean floor, unlike Britain which is on a shallow plateau. As we set off we were told that the lookouts from the shore were not able to report any sightings today but that we would head out to an area where they were frequently found. The views of the island were fantastic, we were covering the coast we had approached in the dark when we arrived. Before long dolphins were spotted and we slowed down while they joined us to play around the boat. I have never seen so many of these lovely creatures. They were Common Dolphins and our guide estimated that there were about 400-500 of them. Everywhere we looked they were jumping either singly or in pairs or large groups. The water was so clear that you could watch them beside the boat at some depth before they jumped out, this didn't make photographing them any easier so I didn't try and just enjoyed watching them. We saw flocks of Cory's Shearwaters, they also liked to follow us and circle around the boat whilst skimming over the waves. There is a breeding colony of Roseate Terns on the island and we spotted several as they noisily called whilst hunting for their fish. As there had been no sightings of whales a hydra-phone was deployed so that the whales calling could be heard on headphones. Every 15 minutes the skipper would slow down the boat and listen on the headphones, only to shake his head as he could only hear the dolphins. Both Noel and I were privileged to be able to listen to the lovely squeaks of the dolphins, it was beautiful. By mid afternoon not a whale had been sighted by us, but radio communications indicated that they were around the other side of the island. We set off at 17 knots and joined two other groups if whale watchers in large ribs. Eventually a male Sperm Whale was spotted and we slowly followed him for about 10 minutes as he lazily blew his spout before gently disappearing from the surface without even showing us his fluke! He was huge! We then headed off a short distance to another sighting which ended in the same way, he just gently submerged. It was an amazing day, we had circumnavigated the whole island, about 40 miles and finally found the whales just 10 miles from where we had started! |