FORCED to LEAVE | Seeking Safe Harbour | Sailing Florence Ep.167

After a 12-day Atlantic crossing, Florence is safely tied up in the harbour on Flores in the Azores, or so we thought. The problem is that this harbour is not protected and becomes dangerous with an easterly swell and that is what is now forecast. So we are forced to leave and sail 140 miles overnight to the nearest safe harbour on Fial Island. We are Amy and Matt and this is Florence, our home and safe haven upon the ocean. Together we have sailed over 46,000 miles around the globe on a seven-year voyage of discovery and now it's time to sail back to where this journey began. Despite having Florence tied to the wall here in Lages harbour on Flores, we are still at the mercy of the weather. This harbour becomes very uncomfortable and potentially a dangerous place for a yacht to be when the waves come from the east, which is what is now forecast. So we've been trying to decide should we go or should we stay? Should we stay and go around to the other side of the island or sail on to Horta? And the forecast is looking slightly better. It looks like there is enough wind to go this afternoon and sail overnight tonight and get to Horta tomorrow evening just before the stronger winds come through. So the maximum wind we should have is hopefully no more than 20 knots but it was a bit risky whether there was going to be enough wind to start with and looking out to sea we can just see it starting to fill in now so hopefully we're going to have five or six knots which would be really nice sailing because the water is completely flat and then it will just pick up as we go through to take us just over 24 hours to get to Horta. I'm really sad to be leaving Flores early. It has been one of my favourite places that we've been on our whole round the world trip. I absolutely love this of days the sea state will make the harbour on Flores untenable but we are also excited to move on and explore more of the Azores. Looking down as we sail out onto the glassy calm surface of the North Atlantic Ocean for the 140 mile passage to Fayal you could be forgiven for thinking that this is an empty expanse but below the surface the Azores are hugely rich in marine life us sailing from the Bahamas to Bermuda we were complaining incessantly about going upwind but there's a massive difference between going upwind in 25 to 30 knots where Florence is leaping off of waves and smashing down and you're kind of going airborne in your bunk and then crashing down again to going upwind in these beautiful flat water conditions. Actually when it's a really light breeze like this going upwind is almost the best point of sail and although we're going upwind we aren't actually hopefully going to have to tack to get to where we want to go. for sailing out here today. We've had a flat water, plenty of wind and we are absolutely creaming along. It is just perfect conditions. We had a really nice calm night fairly drifty through the night doing three or four knots and then the wind just built as was forecast once the sun came up and it's continuing to build now but we've been charging all day and we can just see the island of Fowl in the distance underneath the sails here and as the wind continues to build we're really now charging along. It's time to probably put a reef in. We've actually been able to sail a slightly higher course than we planned to. We planned to come around the south of the island to Horta which is the harbour we're going into but that would mean sailing through the windshadow in the lee of the island and also would mean beating up the other side of the island just a short distance to get to the to the port but because we've been able to sail a higher angle than we thought to we're actually going to sneak around the top of the island so we don't have any of its windshadow effects and then we'll actually sail downwind into the harbour so I think it's fractionally further but it'll actually be quicker because we won't have a period going through light winds and upwind. But it's picking up as per the forecast so time to put a reef in the main. Reefing is nice and easy when we're going upwind. Normally we spend all our time going downwind and we have to round up into the breeze to put a reef in but of course because we're already going upwind all we do is let the mainsail down the track, ease the mainsheet a bit, put the reef in and pull it back in again without having to change course. Nice and easy. One of the real advantages of having all of the lines for reefing led back to the cockpit is you can just do all of that really simply and quickly without moving from this spot. It's so cool sailing in here and not just having views of Fajal, the island that we're sailing to but also Pico which is the neighbouring island with a huge volcanic peak. We are definitely hoping to climb at some point and they also apparently are famous for a special type of wine that they grow on the island. I'd like to try that. And then over behind me there's also another island that we can just see underneath the clouds called São Jorge which is famous for cheese. Definitely head there too I think. Cracking idea, grub it! Cheese and wine, we are definitely in Europe. Although they are 800 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, the islands of the Azores are actually part of Portugal. So along with the individual island's local specialities, there is a European flavour to island, then sailed past the breakwater and into the congested harbour under just the genoa. This gives us much more control when sailing downwind. Finding a place to anchor amongst all the other cruising boats was a challenge. Wow it is super busy in here. The boats in the marina are rafted three or four abreast. There's not very much room at all into anchorage. It's a real stopping point for everybody who's crossing the North Atlantic Ocean and we could see like a stream of boats coming in here on the AIS as we came in. So it's gonna be pretty tight. It's gonna go pretty windy for the next few days so hopefully everybody's anchors will hold and everything will be good in here. That there is one of the traditional whaling boats from the Azores. There's no keel on that so if it leans over too far it will capsize. We are very happy that we came in yesterday and we didn't try and sail across today because it has been blowing 30 knots in here in the harbour. Everybody is sailing about on their anchors. All the boats that are rafted up on the on the end of the pontoons ashore, it's like four boats deep and they're all heeling over and bashing into each other so we're better off out here at anchor today. When you live on a boat your life really is dictated by the weather so we actually decided we weren't going to bother trying to go ashore today just in case. It's best to stay on board just in case Florence anchor drags or another boat anchor drags and drags into Florence. So we've just been working editing videos today which is good because we need to catch up anyway. Hopefully it'll calm down tomorrow we can get ashore and explore. We heard from friends that stayed in Fagio Grande on Flores that the conditions in the anchorage had been so bad that three boats cast off their anchors and sailed out to sea to spend the night slowly sailing back and forth through the worst of it. So I guess now is the time that we should admit that we've actually been here for three weeks and we haven't really been off the boat very much. We've just been using Florence like an office to try and catch up on the editing that's left over from the North Atlantic crossing but we've also been trying to plan our refit for when we get back to the UK because we've got a big list of parts that we need. We've managed to book Florence now into a yard but we've still got to find somewhere to live because we can't actually live on board Florence when we're in the yard so we've just been trying to get as much of that work done as possible whilst we're here because it's such a great sheltered harbour we've got easy access to the shore the showers ashore and a supermarket just five minutes up the road so it's been a great place to get some editing and planning done but we're in need of a break and it's an absolutely beautiful day today so we thought we'd show you around the harbour of Horta. Evidence we've been here three weeks look at the state of Florence's stern nice short rowing we didn't have to go far to get to a tourist attraction in Horta because the marine river itself is actually one of the major attractions on the island of Fayal. It's traditionally where all of the yachts arrive into from the North Atlantic and it claims to have the largest collection of maritime paintings in the entire world and by marine artwork I mean all of these paintings which not only cover the walls of the marina but also the dock itself. I've actually had to be really careful where I sit because some of them around here are actually still wet. The tradition is for any sailor who sails into the Azores that they must leave their own stamp on the marina with their boat name and when they were here. Some of these paintings are really creative it's supposed to be really bad luck if you leave the Azores without doing one of these paintings but we might have to test that theory because as you heard we've been here three weeks and so far we have not been able to find the time. We've spotted a few paintings by our friends who we've met on the trip so these guys Steel Sapphire we first met in Seychelles we last saw them in South Africa and we're hoping that we'll get to see them again in the UK and then our friends on Vega you might even remember from our videos when we were in Vanuatu and we last saw them we think in Malaysia but that's it we don't have any more friends. The marina here has really cleared out in the last three weeks since we arrived and that's because this really is a temporary stopping place for yachts crossing the Atlantic and we all tend to leave from the Caribbean to cross the Atlantic at the same time because of the seasons and the weather so everybody came in about the same time as us and now most boats have moved out to sail onto Europe and the Med. Here in the Azores we have shared every harbour we visited with these traditional whaling boats. These boats are still made and maintained in the traditional way. There are regular regattas where the different islands race against each other and we also see them out practicing rowing and sailing several times each week. The Azores are famous for their whaling history and although they no longer hunt whales it seems that every island has at least one whaling museum telling the history of this industry which at one time was the main income for the islands. These days whale hunting has been transformed into whale watching and trip boats head out onto the often calm seas every day in the summer months taking visitors to see these giants of the deep. Horta is certainly a beautiful place to stay but it was time for a change of scene so we took off into the hills. The top of the island not only gives views down into Horta with Pico behind the clouds in the distance but turn the other way and you get a view across the island's spectacular caldera. Like all the islands in the Azores seeing the peaks in the centre of the island requires getting lucky with the cloud or being patient and waiting for it to clear. So just 15 minutes ride on a scooter from the central caldera at the other end of the island we found a completely different landscape. So the really cool thing about this part of the island is that if I was sat here in 1956 none of this behind me would exist. I would actually be sat on a cliff edge with looking out over the Atlantic Ocean and then in 1957 there was an eruption which caused the creation of all of this land behind me. The first eruption created an island that was actually four times the size of this but most of that land has now fallen into the sea because it was obviously fairly soft ash. The thing I really like about this part of the island is it's like travelling back in time because all of the Azores were created originally by volcanoes and so even the islands like Flores where we've recently come from which is this lush green island would have originally looked like There is a sharp line between the foliage covered old island and the bare rugged new land. So the ash from the volcano obviously covered some of the existing land and the crazy thing is that I'm actually stood on top of a two-story house at the moment. The ash goes six meters below me and this lighthouse behind me marked to the most western end of the island and you can see that the ash comes up to used to be the second story of that lighthouse an end. With the seasons marching on it is time for us to set sail for England before the autumnal storm set in and make that journey more dangerous. Next time we leave the stunning islands of the Azores behind and set off to sail a thousand miles across the open North Atlantic Ocean to the Isles of Scilly off the southwest tip of England. Don't forget to subscribe to catch the next episode we release a video every two weeks. As always we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who supports the making of these videos and especially our star patrons.