This is the big day! Departure by sailboat, finally! At least for us, although I know Louis can't wait to set sail again! We leave around 10:15 after having looked for ice. Oh and eggs… bagged! Too cute! That's why I looked for them everywhere. But unfortunatly, in the fridge/cooler… there are two that will not survive the jolts of the boat or its occupants!
It is so acquired in our North American culture. You can find ice on virtually every street corner, in all convenience stores and food markets. Well, it's not that simple when you leave Quebec. It was hard in Newfoundland and even harder here. Luckily our small portable freezer is able to produce some. You just have to be patient, but it works!
No wind, but that won't stop us. We will sail by motor. Without it, it would be 24 hours of navigation. At 5 on the sailboat, we will try to get there a little faster. Especially since we need to know if they have room for us in Terceira or if we have to save time to find another island capable of storing our sailboat for the winter. We will do a few hours with the genoa in addition to the engine for fun and will continue our progress to arrive more quickly.
(Goodbye Horta!)
We even see a turtle on the way. She was on the surface, with a paw in the air that hit the water. I hope she didn't need help because we can't stop as suddenly as an inflatable boat. We will think of her for several days hoping that she is well.
We have a lot of fun on the water. Everyone takes the opportunity to go to the bow seat (in front of the boat) and enjoy the view. I'm a little more under the weather than the others but that's fine. I have a little discomfort rather than a lot of seasickness which prevents me from enjoying it as I would like but I like the trip.
We arrive at the bay of Angra do Heroismo around 9:15 p.m. We do not ask for a place at the marina given the time and the number of boats in the bay. We also know that several boats that were in Horta had to be relocated to the other islands (for the mini transat) so we know that we have to anchor.
The darkness will soon fall, we try to lower the anchor with the electric windlass, without success. We try a few times but it doesn't work. After a short interlude of swearing, We manually drop the anchor about 40 feet deep. We're not sure if she'll go down uncontrolled or not, so we position ourselves in the right place before letting her go in case we cont controle her descent. This is indeed the case! Watch your fingers because over 150 feet of chain goes down fast!
We had dinner around 10:45 p.m. with two huge steaks on the BBQ (thanks Marie-Andrée) and a salad and went to sleep around midnight. Tomorrow we will go to Praia da Victoria, but we prefer to arrive at the marina by day, much easier. It at least allowed us to see the bay of Angra which is very important in the history of the island. We will find out later.
During the night, I will often wake up looking to see if the anchor is holding well. We will have a lot of swells overnight. But the anchor holds! We didn't buy a Mantus for nothing!
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