The arrival of the race boats gets delayed and I was allowed to stay for another night in the marina. This suits me very well as the racing fleet is sailing exactly opposite to my planned direction and we would have met sometime in the night. Asking the harbour master, if all participating boats have AIS I got shaking shoulders with a “probably not”. Asking, if they at least keep position lights on the answer was “well, it is a race, perhaps not”! My departure is now planned for 7am tomorrow morning following a narrow SW wind band moving from Terceira to São Miguel and meeting the racing fleet during daylight, hopefully.
I have decided to go back to São Miguel at bit earlier as the wind predictions over the next week or so are not very stable and I have a hard stop to be in Ponta Delgada latest by 14th August, the day Susan will arrive.
One more time, I hope the wind will stay until my arrival in Ponta Delgada but some engine hours on the final approach might be unavoidable again.
I look forward to another relaxed passage.
Good night.
Unfortunately all visiting yachts have been asked to leave the marina from 2nd to 5th August to provide space for a regatta field, which stops over here in Angra do Heroísmo during the Atlantis Cup 2022.
We are evaluating the options and one is to drop the anchor just next door as you can see on the left side of the photo. Other options take the wind predictions over the next few days into consideration and we might straight return back to Ponta Delgada.
We will decide after my final visit to the marina office around 5pm.
Fair winds…
The lights of Terceira have become visible at the horizon. It is 2am and we have less than 20nm to go. 8kn of wind allow us to keep sailing but direction from NNE is less favourable now, As long as we get closer to the marina we will keep sailing. Still 4 hours to go until the day will start to break.
A sailboat was heading towards us and finally passed quite close heading opposite direction. It was a decent size boat around 10-12m under engine. For me it is hard to understand that there are still boats out here not having AIS. It has become affordable technology adding good safety for yourself and others. As a consequnce I have taken the BIG Steiner binocular out instead only using the smaller model. It provides better performance in critical situations.
We will have to kill a few more hours until dawning and before approaching the harbour entry.
Time for a fresh cup of tea.
Fair winds…