Horta is a magic place. There are so many people on boats coming from and going to all sorts of directions and the harbour is full of energy. The first few days I got even less sleep than at sea because I was constantly meeting people, hanging out in bars or boats or just on the pontoon and exchanging stories. I guess this must be like Mekka for yachties. Some people I had already met elsewhere like Andi and Kudi of course or Manuel from Switzerland whom I had met in Bermuda and Alex from South Africa. I had met her first in Tobago and then again in Antigua. Her crew had left here and she was looking for new crew. But just as new boats are arriving daily from everywhere, so are hitchhikers roaming the harbour and looking to crew on boats for a ride home or to far away destinations.
Almost every square inch of harbour wall has pictures painted on it by boats’ crews who have been more or less creative to leave a memory of their ship here in Horta. This custom has been going on for decades and for superstitious sailors it will bring bad luck to not paint a picture. So after not having painted anything in Madeira or the Canaries I decided that this will be the place. Andi and Kudi had been here 10 years ago and only needed to renew theirs but right above was a small free spot with a view of the Pico and overall in a seemingly perfect location. We all painted. I made a white background one day and came back to paint the rest the day after. The harbour wall with the paintings is a tourist attraction and people come up to you while you paint and want to know all about ocean sailing.
In the evening I invited Andi and Kudi over for dinner. I had cooked Moray Eel with a risotto. I was anxious about the fish and when the two came over and after telling them that we are having Moray Eel and they said, “oh yeah, we had that once, it tastes like fibreglass” I was a bit downhearted. But we all ended up liking the fish. After a while Marco from the Italian boat a few berths down the pontoon came by and after that more and more people until Amy’s cockpit was full as never before. It was a great evening.
The next day I started refilling my provisions and doing some repair jobs on the boat. I met Alan with Wave Rover who was parked across from me with his 6,5m self built junk rigged boat who has been sailing across oceans for many years and has a YouTube channel. Ray a friend of his from Ireland who was helping with some electrical issues came by Amy to check out my HF weather fax setup. We had a coffee and he had all sorts of good tips for my trip to the Irish Sea and in the end offered that I could sent him a Garmin message from underway and he would weather route me out of trouble on my way to England from here. Wow!!! What a great and generous offer and very reassuring for me. He is a meteorologist for the Irish aviation authority.
The morning after I rented an electric scooter and drove to the Caldeira, the crater of an old volcano. I also visited the east coast and an old derelict lighthouse. The battery wouldn’t have made it to the west coast but it was already getting late anyway and that part will have to wait until I come back here another time. In the evening a regatta left from here to Terceira and most of my friends left with it. I still had to do some small things up on the mast and wasn’t ready and had already decided to stay. I wanted to take an extended walk through the city, visit the whaling museum and go swimming at the beach.
I said good bye to Alan the next morning as he took off in Wave Rover for England. Then went back to the supermarket to do the rest of my shopping and went to the beach in the evening.
Today I checked out, went to the whaling museum which was very interesting and I’m now getting ready to cast off for Terceira.