When Brenda and I purchased our SAGA 43, the first boat we did extended cruising on, beginning around 2010, the goal, for me anyway, was to have a boat that could “cross an ocean” and while that boat was certainly capable of such a journey, I can say with certainty, that I NEVER expected that I would ever be able to say, “I am almost to Horta.”

After years of sailing in Long Island Sound and venturing to Maine for summer vacations, the idea that I would someday cross the Atlantic Ocean, seemed to be an unattainable goal.

Who knew?

As I begin this post, we are less than 50nm from Horta and if the story of our cruising life so far tells us anything, there will be a lot more chapters to this story.

I do not really know what is next after I leave Pandora in Spain and fly home with Brenda in August but I have already made it farther than I ever imagined.

Well, here we are…almost.

For much of this passage, we really thought that we might be able to sail nearly the entire way but as we moved into the last part of the run it has been tougher to keep moving as the wind has become lighter and moved aft.

Motoring or not, compared to other runs I have made over the years, we have sailed the bulk of this run, and surely more than any previous passage.  

When we are offshore, on a long passage, we can adjust our heading to keep moving, even if it points us in the wrong direction for a while as we can always wait for wind from a different direction and get back on track.

However, once we are near our destination, we have limited ability to adjust our course and still make it into the harbor and today is a good example.  If we could just adjust our course by as little as 20 degrees, we would be sailing but to get into Horta before dark today we do not have a lot of flexibility.

For the morning I struggled to sail, as we were dead downwind but now, as we make our final approach, the wind has freshened and veered so we are now on a solid broad reach and moving along nicely.

While we have been able to sail most of the last few hundred miles, the wind has not been terribly cooperative recently and we have had to resort to the engine for a few hours, from time to time.

While we had hoped for a mid-morning arrival, it is now looking like we will not make it until later in the afternoon.  Fortunately, it does not get dark until around 9:00 so there is little risk of arriving in the dark.

And, speaking of “time of the day” we made our final adjustment to the clocks earlier today and are now four hours ahead of Brenda in Connecticut.  Not a lot of risk of jet lag when you are going so S-L-O-W-L-Y…

There is a lot of boat activity approaching Horta as this is “the” place to make landfall.  This shot of AIS on my plotter shows so I can see that we are not the only boat heading that way.

Based on some information from boats that are already in the harbor, we learned that it is very crowded and that there is a wait list to get on a dock or to tie up at the cement wall.   Having said that, there is a lot of movement every day as boats depart and spots open quickly. 

A shot of the harbor on Marine Traffic, the AIS tracking site, shows just how crowded it is.  Oh boy, good luck anchoring.  

When we were planning dates for departure from Bermuda we tried to take into account the schedule for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, ARC, to Horta, a large group that has been doing this run for years.   As their numbers really strain the local facilities, we wanted to arrive at least a week after they did but given how busy the harbor is, I am wondering if perhaps their passage was not a fast one suggesting that we will have arrived before many of them have moved on.

We probably will not arrive in the harbor in time to clear customs today but I will ask around and see if it is ok to head ashore for a beer and dinner.  I am so ready to do that…

I reached out to the sailmaker to arrange to have the mainsail leech cord replaced and a few other minor repairs and was told that they have daily pickup from the waterfront.  I hope that the repairs are completed before the guys fly out as it is a handful to get it back on the boom.

When we arrive, the plan is to drop the anchor and put out fenders to protect us from other nearby boats.  I have to say that I have never deployed fenders when I am anchored.   With so many boats crammed into the harbor, I expect that this will be a whole new experience as “Close” does not begin to describe how tight boats are anchored near one another.  I hope that my brand-new paintjob does not get violated immediately.

Fortunately, I have the large inflatable fenders as well as a half dozen smaller ones that should help cushion the blow from nearby boats.

After nearly two weeks on passage from Bermuda I am really looking forward to being at anchor and going ashore.

I can’t believe that I am nearly to Horta, a place that I only imagined that I would one day visit.

To be here… I really wasn’t expecting this…

Editor:  While the Salty Dawg rally from Bermuda to the Azores is drawing to an close you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

Brenda and I will remain in the Azores for a month and we will both be posting regularly while we are here.  In mid July I will depart the Azores, heading for Spain and will continue to post along the way.

Five weeks ago, I left home, and Brenda, to join Pandora in Trinidad where I had left her earlier in the spring to have some additional work done to complete the refit that began last summer.

Along the way north I stopped in various islands in the eastern Caribbean.  Hung out with friends and said my goodbyes knowing that I would not be back for at least a few years.

As of today, my journey north, and for the most recent leg, from Bermuda to Horta is nearly complete.

We are finally within 200nm of our destination, Horta, in the Azores, a journey that had its’ beginnings more than a year ago when Brenda declared that nine seasons in the Caribbean was just about enough. 

She did not say where we were going to head next except it became clear that unless I could find something compelling to do next that I would find myself sailing a 14’ Beetle Cat back and forth on the CT River in front of the Essex Yacht Club, while Brenda waved (Queen style, of course) to me from the deck.

Having sailed with Brenda much of the US East coast from Eastern Maine all the way to Key West, the Bahamas, much of Cuba and just about all the islands from The US Virgins and south to Trinidad since we began seasonal cruising back in 2012, I had run out of cruising grounds to explore on this side of the Atlantic.

After more than a decade I was out of ideas so it seemed that the only real option was to investigate “crossing the pond” and see what we might do there.

Yikes, I knew nothing about that except that my Dad, now gone for over 10 years, once said (and you have heard this before), “Bob, wouldn’t it be great to take Pandora through the Straights of Gibraltar?”

So, I got on the phone and found folks to talk to that had done all that to get their thoughts.

After a few Zoom meetings with fellow cruisers and a number of YouTube travel videos of the Med,  Brenda was convinced enough to give a “guarded OK” so that became the plan.

I was president of The Salty Dawg Sailing Association at that time and asked the board if there was interest in doing a rally to the Azores.  Much to my surprise, they liked the idea, very much and several fellow board members even raised their hands, offering to do much of the planning.

So, fast forward a year plus and here I am, about to make landfall after nearly two weeks at sea from Bermuda, in the company of ten boats participating in the first Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores.

I will admit that it is surreal to be doing this and I do wish that Dad was around so I could share the experience.  Even being in Bermuda, where we departed on this leg, was a landmark for me as that was where I departed decades ago, on my first offshore passage, helping a friend bring his boat back from the Bermuda Race.

We have been blessed with a swift passage of under two weeks, never seeing winds more than 20-25kts, and usually much less.  To do this trip in under two weeks is unusual, I am told, and Chris Parker, our weather router, had warned us months ago to expect to spend perhaps as long as 2½ weeks and to encounter perhaps two gales along the way.

My crew Jason and Ted have been wonderful and their easygoing nature and competence has given me comfort, knowing that Pandora was in good hands while I was down below getting plenty of rest.  Of course, the benign conditions, “champagne sailing” as Ted has described it, helped too.

As I write this we are moving along at about 6-7kts with 22-15kts on the beam, healing about 3-5 degrees.   It does not get any better than this and a fitting way to end the longest passage I have taken despite sailing more than 25,000 blue water miles over the years.

With such mild conditions, meals have been easy to prepare and with much cooler temperatures, think 70s at night, than the Caribbean, I have even baked muffins and biscuits 4 times.   

Here are todays’ biscuits, my third batch, in addition to some muffins, on this trip.  No complaints from the crew.

Brenda does not arrive until next Monday and by that time I will have been away from her for six weeks, the longest that we have been separated since we became inseparable in Highschool 53 years ago.

Brenda has booked a hotel for a week when she arrives in downtown Horta and it will be fun to kick back and enjoy the scenery.    

Our plan is to hang out in the Azores for a month, perhaps cruising to some of the other islands before I welcome crew in mid-July when we will head east to Gibraltar and onto Almeria, Spain where Pandora will be hauled for the season.

And, for the next several seasons, Brenda and I will spend two months in the spring and two in the fall, cruising the Med. 

I really do not know what to expect but based on the many cruisers that we have talked to about these cruising grounds, we should be for quite a treat.

Now, if I can only get past the Orcas as I approach the coast of Portugal.   You know, the orcas that bite off the bottoms of boats rudders…

I won’t think about that today, I will think about that WHEN I HAVE TO, and that will not be until sometime in late July when we get close to their “chomping grounds”.

Until then, a bit more champagne sailing and sometime tomorrow we will be in Horta.

This lovely tern landed aboard Pandora earlier today.  Perhaps he is here to welcome us to Horta.

And, of course, what is a post without a picture of beautiful clouds?

And next Monday, after six weeks away and over 3,000 miles of sailing, I will be back with Brenda.

I am getting excited!

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

And, if you want to learn more about Salty Dawg and the rallies and educational programs that we sponsor, and you should, check out www.saltydawgsailing.org. It is a really great group.

After more than a week of sailing and never needing to turn on the motor, yesterday the wind died.   And after nearly a day of nursing Pandora along in ever lighter wind…

I finally reached the end of my rope when the log said that we had only gone 11 miles in three hours.  ENOUGH!  Engine on…

It does not take a lot of wind to sail Pandora at a good clip, pretty much 11kts on the beam and we will do around 6.5 to 7kts with her jib and full main, but with wind, if you could call it that, under 6kts, we were just wallowing along.  Not acceptable. 

Chris Parker works hard to help us stay in the “sweet spot” on passage, enough wind to avoid motoring and yet not so much, that the passage becomes unpleasant.

Slow sailing or not, both Ted and Jason built a lot of extra time into their schedules so their answer to being nearly becalmed is “we will get there someday”.  That is a refreshing position to take but late yesterday afternoon, hoping against hope, for just a little bit more wind, and still more than 400 miles to go, it was time to turn on the motor.

I will admit that the “we want to keep sailing” attitude was refreshing as, on several passages, I had crew that were all about keeping the speed up to make what was seeming like an impossible deadline and sometimes that meant running the engine even though we could probably have sailed.    More than once, we dropped the hook in Antigua and I ran crew ashore to catch a flight home that same day.   Was it something I said?

Fortunately, after motoring overnight the wind picked up again this morning, and we are making good time again.  I’m happy…

Our constant companions have been dolphins, and there are several species that have dropped by for a visit, keeping us entertained for much of the last few days.

I know that I have already posted several photos but indulge me as we have had dozens cavorting at the bow.  They arrive in a rush, dozens of them, hang out for about 15-20 minutes only to be on their way in a moment.

My SLR camera has “sports mode” that takes two frames a second and with image stabilization makes it possible to catch their antics.  

As in much of life, try hard enough, and in the case of photos, take enough of them, and you will end up with a few good ones. 

Jason, on the other hand, was easy to catch in action as he watched the dolphin show.  It is hard to say who was having more fun, Jason, or the dolphins.

It is very hard to get a photo that shows the beautiful patterns on their sides.   Caught one…

Ted has a favorite spot to watch for whales.  “Bob, come quick, I saw a whale.”  Quick was not quick enough as the best I could get is a blurry shot of steam on the water, and a crooked horizon.  Trust me, it was a whale…

Of course, sunrises are always cooperative.

Motoring?  Well, for a while, but at least I can say that I sailed most of the way…

From what I have heard about this passage, “only a little motoring” is saying something. 

Two more days to go, I think…

Of course, that depends on the wind.

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

Today I turned 70 and we are still over 400 miles from Horta.  Progress today has been glacial, with very little wind.  All is not lost as the wind is supposed to pick up by tomorrow.

The good news is that with light wind comes calm seas, all the better for baking a birthday cake.

With my “special day” I had to think that this beautiful sunset was just for me.

Or the large pod dolphins that stopped to say Hi! and the Humpback Whale waving his fin in the distance, wishing me a special day. 

Given the fact that there is NOBODY nearby, who else could they be here for? 

The stars were out in force, a nearly full moon, and this beautiful sunrise.

And Portuguese Man-O-War passing us by every few minutes.  This photo is a bit clearer than the one I posted the other day.  What a remarkable creature.  Hard to believe that they are so deadly.  

Here I am, yet another year older and firmly in the category where special medical considerations are directed to people like me, the “frail and elderly.”   Ok, I cannot deny (mostly) that I am elderly but I do not accept the label of “frail” quite yet.

During my last Medicare checkup, the clinician asked me if I had fallen recently.  That is a tough one.  Was she talking about getting off the toilet or from the top of the mast when I was fixing a wind instrument? Negative on both, BTW. 

She also asked me if I had been threatened recently by my partner.  Hmm… Had to think about that one. Only when I first brought up the idea of sailing across the Atlantic.  

I have always been a big fan of bran cereal so I can say with confidence that, according to “age appropriate” dietary recommendations, my preference of cereal has finally caught up with my age.

And then there is the whole you are “only as old as you feel” thing.  Not sure how I fit that…  Today, when my alarm went off at 02:45 to go on watch, I did not feel great and moved a bit slowly, well only until I suddenly realized how badly I had to “go.” and then I moved barely quick enough. Whew!

Ok, ok, my bladder is getting a bit frail but the rest of me feels ok, well mostly.  Besides, what better place for a guy with a bladder that has shrunk to the size of a dry garbanzo bean, than on a boat where the head is only steps away.   Very practical, if you ask me.

Give me a minute… I’ll be right back…

Ok, better.   Just had to pee…

Where was I? 

Oh yeah, today is my 70^th birthday and here I am at sea, coming up on the end of the longest ocean run ever. 

I will admit that I would prefer to be with Brenda, the same thing I said on Mother’s Day, and our 48^th wedding anniversary recently.  Perhaps others but I can’t recall right now. We will have to catch up and celebrate all those missed events when she arrives in Horta.

Now it seems that I am deep into the age group when folks like me are referred to as “the elderly” I find the whole thing quite unsettling and it was not all that long ago, when I was in the “upper middle age” category, that I would have loudly scoffed at anyone at 70 decided to sail across the Atlantic.

Perhaps in honor of my advanced age and coming frailty, the wind overnight lightened considerably so now I am not as confident that we will arrive during daylight on the 11^th.  That is Ok as I do not like the idea of arriving in a strange port with poor visibility. 

So, slowly, we continue to sail along, 450 miles from our destination.  Now the only real question, aside from how old I will be once we get there, is how long it will be until better wind conditions catch up with us and we can get moving again.

Besides, what better way for an old guy to get around than on a machine that only goes 5 miles per hour?

It was nice to talk to Brenda today via Starlink but for some reason it took a lot longer to boot up and, for about 20 minutes, I feared the worse.  Perhaps it is getting old.  Hmm…

Next stop, with as good visibility as possible and before I get any older, Horta.

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.

We are just over 600 miles from Horta and moving along nicely at 6-8kts over the bottom in about 9-12kts of wind.  With a slight current in our favor, we continue to make good time.

I am tempted to say that we are “almost there” as having “only” 600 miles left on a run of 2,000 miles seems like “close” even if it is still quite far away.  Think New York to Chicago far.   

Anyway, I am going with close as we are currently sailing along at a good clip so life is good.  Ask me how far it is if the wind drops and we are just flopping around making no progress.  Then I can assure you, I will feel that we are nowhere near Horta.

The sunrise this morning, and there is not a lot, other than that, to take pictures of out here, was, well, it was a sunrise.  We had showers and a lot of clouds but now it is sunny.

I also discovered that I am just about out of clean underwear so it was time to do a bit of washing.  Actually, I washed them yesterday and they did not dry.  It is breezy but humid.  I hope that they dry today.  Jason and Ted have made it clear that they hope so as well…

I wrote yesterday about how Chris Parker, our weather router, commented that Pandora was in just about the perfect spot to take advantage of light to moderate winds as we make our way east and said that if things continue as they are, we may not have to motor at all.   Here we are, a few days later, and it is looking good that the run will play out as predicted.   Of course, that assumes no broken stuff.

To that point, we do a “walk around” every day to be sure that there are no signs of chafe or imminent breakage and at least three times now we have made a few modifications to line leads or repairs to address chafe.

And speaking of chafe, I will be contacting a sailmaker in Horta to get some repairs done on my mainsail and perhaps the jib.  It is amazing how much wear and tear there is on a boat that is run 24/7 for two weeks at sea. 

Someone once told me that there is more wear and tear on a boat that is lived aboard, in a single year, than one that is “day sailed” on weekends and vacations for a full decade.   And, Pandora has surely been used plenty.  This season alone I will have covered well over 5,000nm by the time she is hauled in Almeria, Spain.   

I am also confident, and not in a good way, that we have spent way more on Pandora than most will ever spend on their boats in a single year.  Best not to think about that right now…

So, back to Chris’s routing suggestions to avoid a lot of motoring. 

He instructed us to make our way to 41 degrees north and to head east from that point.  We reached 40N yesterday afternoon and are now running due east down the parallel.    By taking this approach, we hope to skirt just north of the windless zone and just south of the strong winds to our north.  The goal is to stay in what I will call the “goldilocks zone”, not too much or too little wind.

The hope is that we will have enough wind to sail on a beam to broad reach (wind from beam to stern quarter) to continue to push us east.  So far, so good…

The dilemma is that if we go too fast, we will outrun the wind as it fills in from the west.  In a way it is self-correcting as our speed is based on the wind.  And, if we go to fast, less wind will slow us down and allow the better winds to catch up.   In theory anyway…

So far, so good.  Details to come…

Fortunately, the most recent run of the GRIBS (graphic wind files) suggest that this strategy will play out and we should, I hope, I really hope, be able to make the entire run with little or no motoring. 

The plan is to continue to move eastward along, or slightly north of, the 41^st parallel until the wind clocks from the south to the west and fills in out of the northwest.   At that point, when we are perhaps 200nm from our destination, we will turn to the SE and head directly for Horta. 

As we enter the second week of our passage we have covered a bit more than 1,200 miles at an average speed of a bit over 7kts, which is amazing.  To that point, that is the farthest that I have ever sailed without turning on the engine, by a lot.

Unlike passages to the Caribbean, where we tend to turn on the engine every time the wind gets light, to keep on schedule, on this passage we have been encouraged to be patient so that we will not outrun the wind and end up having to motor through the windless zones.  To try and keep moving would force us ahead of the wind and put us in a position where we would be forced to motor beyond our fuel range. 

All of this goes against my grain as I am generally an impatient person so the experience has been a learning experience.  So far, in a positive way.   Ask me again if the wind dies 🙁

As I mentioned before, a number of boats left a day ahead of us and given our good fortune we have closed the gap with them, well at least with those that have not turned on their motors to keep moving.  So, as they lost their wind, we gained ours. 

Over the next few days Chris feels that the fleet will tighten up and most of the boats should arrive within a day or two of the same date.   There are now a total of 10 boats in the fleet with one just leaving Bermuda, a week after the rest of us due to personal timing issues and weather delays.  Another has been forced to drop out of the rally as they had to turn back and are now stuck in Bermuda waiting for parts for a broken sail furler.

I heard earlier today that because of his delay, he has lost his crew as they “timed out” and need to head home.  I can only imagine how frustrating that must be for the skipper as he does his best to organize the arrival of repair parts, a new crew, that he has not even identified yet, along with a new weather window once everyone arrives.    

And, as June is the beginning of the hurricane season, there is also the issue of an early season storm spooling up toward Bermuda and into his path to the Azores.   Sounds very complicated and I would be stressing.   All of this reminds me of the anxiety I was feeling in St Maarten with my own mechanical issues, thinking that I might have to bag the entire trip.

However, we are well on our way and given the growing certainty that the bulk of the fleet will arrive sometime between next Tuesday and Thursday, it will soon be time to consider scheduling arrival events. 

In addition to some informal happy-hour events, we will have an arrival diner as well as an event at a friend’s home on the nearby island, Pico, a short, 15-20 minute, ferry ride from Horta.  

With Brenda arriving on the 16^th, it may be hard to hold off on those two events to allow for her to participate as she will not be there until perhaps as much as 5-6 days after the fleet has made landfall.

A lot of this will depend on what the other boats are planning, how long they will remain in Horta before heading east to the Med or to northern Europe or if they have crew changes that will keep them in Horta for a while. 

When we booked Brenda’s flight months ago, I never imagined that we would be in Horta before her arrival, now perhaps by a full week, as Chris told us that this run usually takes between two and two and a half weeks, involves lots of motoring and probably a gale or two. 

Fingers crossed that things will continue to go well with the weather and that nothing breaks.

So, for now, as we have for the last week, we continue to sail along, making good progress toward Horta.

Oh yeah, one more thing. 

As all of my long-distance passages have been north and south, I have never had to think about time zone changes, beyond the seasonal “daylight savings time” issue and going from east coast and Atlantic zone.

On this passage we will make our way through three time zones, from Atlantic Time to Horta, which is four hours ahead of New York.  This means that we have had to estimate when to turn the clocks forward to ensure that when we approach Horta we well be acclimated. 

So, where to change the clock?  Well, I am glad you asked and here is how we decided to handle things.

The world is round, 360 degrees, and there are 24 hours in a day.  So, divide 360 by 24 and you get 15 degrees of longitude between time zones.  I think that is right.  Anyway, we took the degrees between Bermuda, 64 degrees west, and Horta 28 degrees west, divided by 3 which is the number of time zones and you get 12 degrees, sort of what we are looking for.   We know what time it is in Bermuda and also in Horta so the real issue is where to change the clocks.   So, to divide things up we chose, perhaps a bit arbitrability, that we will move the clock forward by an hour at 42W and 35W.

To that point, we just passed 42W and my iPad has automatically changed so I guess I am right.  It’s magic.  Sort of like a thermos, I guess.  

Ok.  Time to move the other clocks ahead and again one more time in about 300 more miles to get on the same time zone as Horta. 

One more thing.  Jason has his heart set on catching a fish and we have trailed a line for three days now and not a single bite. 

We did see a humpback whale though but it was too far away for a photo.  All we saw was his big pectoral fin splashing the water a few times. 

I am told that near the Azores is a hotbed for whale watching so perhaps we will get lucky and have a closer encounter.  Not too close…I Hope.

Somehow 600 miles does not seem all that far away, for now anyway.  Ask me again tomorrow…

Editor:  As part of the first ever Salty Dawg Rally to the Azores, you can see where Pandora and the other boats are located in real time at the Salty Dawg Azores Rally Map.

If you want to see where Pandora is alone, check out “where in the world is Pandora” at the top of the page or click on this link.

And, as always, you can register to receive a notice when I post, Which I do regularly, at the top of this page.