MONDAY 4th JUNE
2012
Last Friday , our proposed sail in the Whaling
skiff's was cancelled and we were dissapointed with that decision,
however , there lots of these elegant " Gaff rigged
" whaling skiff's out on Saturday, but no offers of a sail for us,,
but none the less, we admired the view of them
sailing on the bay,
There was 3 of us rafted to the quay wall, "
Sookie " inside us tied to the Quay, then ourselves and outside
us we had " Emilija" ( from Malahide
) They were all great gas and we had plenty of banter between us all,
Then Saturday night, the wind got up big time and
screemed through the rigging making lots of noise,
AND, And, and WE were all leaving at 06.30hrs on
Sunday morning, ahhhhh,
06.00hrs SUNDAY 5th
June
Ohhhhh, brrrrr, blooming freezing as well , winds
of 45knots plus, so most people climed back into the
scratchers and got an extra hour or so the
really wake up and face the surf once more,
08.30hrs, Emilija followed by ourselves slipped out
from the dock and headed into the open sea.
The wind was screeming, ( well Howling ) so we just
unfurrled a small section of the mainsail and rooled out
a small section of the foresail and of we went,
doing 10 to 11 knots over the ground ( with the benifit of a current )
As we sailed on a beam reach down between Pico
Island & St George Island we had winds of over 42 knots
and it became really very uncomfortable , so much
so that we even closed the washboard and hatch, thats
only the 2nd time in over 55,000 miles that we ever
did that,
We passed many boats on the way and and were
the first of the fleet to arrive in " Angra do Heroismo "
in Terceira ,
The seas off the Island were as uncomfortable as we
have experienced in 3 years at sea, and then as we
rounded
in towards the Harbour itself , we were shocked to
see this newly built Architectural monstrocity looking out to sea
at us, A new Hotel , wow , ( as an architect
myself ) its unbelievable that such a building would be allowed in
a
a " Unesco heritage Town " and in such a prominant
position,
The authorities should send their planners down to
Lanzarote and look at how tastefully they have controlled their
developments and architecture, all thanks to
Architect "Henry Manrique" , ( the spelling might not be accurate )
Today is a much better day, sun appearing at times,
We all used the modern showers here this morning,
again the design is ! ! ! , gosh skipper feels that overall
designs tend to be uncomplementary to the
surrounding buildings, like little monuments to each architect,
( and this applies to the boss also ) but worse,
inside they provide a huge and generous shower room
and then install shower boxes so small and tight
that they would be really suitable for Midgets.
We often find this situation in modern airports
also, huge toilets with WC cubicles so small that one
would need to be a "skinny mini" to use them,
There is a walking tour at 14,00hrs followed by a
"Bull Run " at 18.00hrs , now that should be interesting,
Thats it for now,
Signed ;- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper )