Lat: 38:31.9. N : Long: 028:37.5 W. Monday, 23rd June, 2014 in Horta Marina, Faial.
Sulana's Voyage
Alan and Sue Brook
Sun 6 Jul 2014 21:23
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Lat: 38:31.9. N : Long: 028:37.5 W. Monday,
23rd June, 2014 in Horta Marina, Faial.
After
re-fuelling at their Reception/ Fuel dock, we were delighted with the
most pleasant and easiest ever of Customs and Immigration clearance
procedures. What a nice way to be made welcome by a super Harbourmaster and
efficient Civil Servants! We tied up in the Northern part of Horta marina,
alongside our Oyster Rally sistership, "Mariela". The harbour walls, pavements
and every rock within sight were all covered with the yacht paintings of
those who had gone before.
Before
too long "Sulana" had also got her painting on the wall, added by artist, Will.
Our very own "Sula" (in the form of the Northern Gannet - Sula Bassana) now
flies along the wall in some great company. Finding space was not easy, so one
just had to be judicious and take over that space where the original was no
longer identifiable. It is reputedly bad luck to leave Horta without doing mural
artwork for your yacht ......
So
everybody does it, and paint-overs are essential nowadays!
Then it
was a call to the local laundry, which got several kilos of bedding and dirty
washing sent off to be cleaned, ready for delivery back on board within two
days. We do miss our broken washer-drier which has lapsed into non-use on
board....We will have to replace it in either Gibraltar or Turkey, I
guess.
In
addition, when we hit the local bar for a drink and supper, we were made
extremely welcome by Jose Henrique Azevedo, the third generation of Azevedos to
run the world-famous Peter Cafe Sport. He not only very readily and happily
agreed we could add our world-worn West Mersea Yacht Club burgee to his huge
collection, but he took it and exchanged ours for a new Peter Cafe Sport burgee
for us to keep! Even after saying he thought there was no space left up on the
ceiling, which is prime site, he very courteously agreed we could try a
spot I had asked about and then, to my delight, later personally put
it up in our presence one evening, in the top left hand corner above the bar.
So the
WMYC is at last represented in this sailor's 'mecca', along with so many other
celebrated sailing clubs.The food served in the evenings at Peter Cafe
Sport was also a delight and of excellent quality, especially after
several weeks of shipboard food.
A visit
to the superb Scrimshaw Museum Jose keeps above the bar is a definite 'must
see' for anybody visiting these islands, too. I guess it would take a lot now to
be so famous a sailor as to get your face sketched in scrimshaw by a local
artist on a Sperm Whale's tooth, and have it added to join those like
Slocum, Chichester, Moitessier and Tabarly. Their excellent likeness
scrimshaw mementos line one of several show cabinets amongst the over 1,000
exhibits in the museum. On top of that, of course, there is now no further
future supply of new teeth.
However,
John Van Opstal, a Dutch Media Advertising man, who sketched ad images for a
living and then retired to live in Horta, still does wonderful scrimshaw
work, when he can find a tooth, or some ivory or bone to work with. We visited
him in his own home, having been kindly offered a ride and pick up / drop
off by him in his own car. His personal collection was very good indeed,
and, after he had demonstrated to us how he did the etching work on a real
tooth, we admired the spectacular view over Horta harbour from his hillside
home.
We
spent several days in Horta, recuperating, with the crew 'recovering'
by hiking along the 26kms of the Faial 10 volcanos' trail, and
then also visiting Pico on a cheap day ferry trip. There they again went
hiking, this time up and down Pico's 8,500 ft volcano in terribly wet,
windy and cloudy, foggy conditions, whilst I was more sensibly visiting the
whaling museum at Lajes do Pico together with the old taxi driver who took me on
an island tour. He had spent nearly 30 years of his earlier life as a Whale
harpooneer (just like Queequeg) up until the hunting of the Sperm
Whale was banned in 1984. We met up with Will, Jason & Nelius
again at the volcano centre, after their return from the trip into the
clouds. They were drenched through, shivering and hungry, but proud to have done
it on a 'difficult' day, of course. Later, on the return ferry trip, we watched
the latest of the knockout phase games of the Brazil World Cup on the ship's new
satellite TV system!
Upon our
return to Faial, the next day we also visited the whaling factory museum,
at Porto Pim, Horta, and then busied ourselves getting re-stocked
for the next few days. We could be a while in less well-stocked
islands.
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