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Webster - My liver Horta's



Tuesday 27th to Sunday 1st. Horta on island of Faial, Azores

Having arrived very early morning on 27th we all slept the sleep of the dead, awoke at 0830 cleared customs and moved the boat over to raft up against our friends and rivals, Ballytrim the Swan 46. Clearly the Rally Control boys know what they are doing as they placed us next to the second noisiest boat in the fleet and well away from anyone else who may be easily offended. We then went exploring the island and made it as far as the Cafe Sport, better known as Peter's Bar for a quick lunch and stayed there for 12 hours! Neal had to retire hurt, but Dave, Igor and I visited the local Chinese where we ate the left overs from the next table and ordered a set meal for four for three, as you do.

Wednesday - hangover all day, until evening when we re-visited Peter's bar and walked in, apologised to the everyone therein, not for the previous evening but in advance of anything that may happen from there on in! Peter, the Raymarine engineer from Mid-Atlantic Yacht Services visited to have a look at the malfunctioning chart plotter, more in hope than expectation on my part as the equivalent guy in Bermuda had written it off as a bad job and in need of a return to the factory. Peter, who looks more of an aging rock star than an aging rock star, soon found an obvious fault in the wiring - water ingress into a cable joint which he fixed, then found when it still didn't work that the chap in Bermuda had re-wired it all up back to front and correcting this it fired up again! Treacle Miners now in seventh heaven as they have an electronic navaid to play with! Decided to go and celebrate in the pub and got home at, er, well we got home later that night.

Thursday - Igor and I went over to the next island of Pico on the ferry with the crew from "Deaf Ear" to climb up the volcano. 2350 metres high, it was hard work on very rough and steep terrain but we got to the top and back down again in 5 hours 40 minutes including 45 minutes at the top admiring the view. The average is 3 hours up and four hours down so we did alright. We had an Arc flag with us and had a photo taken at the summit. Its a bit disconcerting when sat on a supposedly dormant volcano when steam emanates from vent holes all over hot enough to boil an egg, not that we had an egg to boil - perhaps next time.

Friday - Jobs day, and I was up early to buy some paint to put a mural together on the harbour wall to show off our artistic talent and it actually turned not so badly until Kaije from Deaf Ears painted hers next to ours and linked the webs together - as she is a professional artist hers was ever so slightly better than ours depicting Spiderman climbing onto our spiders web (Web-ster). No matter we will be there in oils for years to come regardless! The TM's had done many of the jobs on the list yesterday whilst Igor and I were up the mountain, so we hired scooters and went around the island. I had not been on such a machine for forty years and the 50cc motor cycle was almost as wobbly as the boat downwind in a gale until I got used to it! Fabulous island and the day was perfect for it. We dropped in on a Slovenian lady whom Igor had bumped into a few days before and who had invited us to visit; glad we made the effort as they were charming people who gave us an insight into living on the island. We then went up the long and winding off road track up to the volcano crater which looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park, Pterodactyles and all(well sea gulls with big beaks anyway).

The electrical engineers from Mid-Atlantic's arrived at 7.30 pm to look at the malfunctioning bow thruster in their Indesit van. Oh dear thinks I, washing machine mechanics who did not speak a word of English and had no idea what a bow thruster was seemingly. How wrong can you be.....they had it fixed in no time! Brilliant.

Saturday - Prize giving day! We were transported over to the other side of the island which did not exist until 1958 when the volcano erupted and created a new corner to Faial, leaving the old lighthouse some way inland. Dinner and drinks were laid on and the prizes were distributed in turn, until it came to Class A, our class. "Third place" (pause), "Webster!". We proceeded up to the front on our knees singing Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Its off to work we go......etc, which did take the local mayor and entourage slightly by surprise.

We had heard that Sea Eagle (Oyster 61) had made it in having started very late from Bermuda due to electrical problems and had a lot of drinking to catch up on. They were awaiting our presence in Peter's bar so off we went. What a party! Live music, beer, more beer, G&T, and port, and.....dancing - everyone in the place were on their feet. Got back to the boat at gone 3am. Liver bashing extraordinaire, and we were leaving at silly o'clock in the morning for Terceira.

Next stop Terceira - no wind forecast so we shall see what happens. Our planned race with Deaf Ears may be postponed.


Hi Hoo

Charlie


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