Moondancerx's BIG adventure

Arrived in Horta - July 18th – 5.00pm We had quite the reception when we got in as we were a couple of days later than everyone else, i.e. The Wind Cries, our Dutch friends, Guns and Roses – Barbarossa who took the northern track with much more westerly wind (they sail well downwind), Exiles the 2 ‘boys’ from Montreal who managed to get about 150 miles ahead of us and avoided the north easter wind which really set us back the last 3-4 days. Anyway, enough excuses we were just late, but that didn’t deter our enthusiasm to party when we got in, even if we had only a couple of hours sleep in the last 24. So, no sooner were we tied up than our boat filled up with our friends who all brought the necessary party ecoutrements. So yesterday was a bit of a write-off, though we did walk around town and have some idea where things are. And what a place Horta is. It is such a gorgeous town, plus it doesn’t cost a fortune to be here. We have a slip in the marina, a very nice marina with good facili...

Atlantic Crossing Bermuda to Horta Left 26th June 2009 – Posted July 20th Its amazing to us that we left Bermuda so late in the season. Even more that many more boats were arriving in Bermuda from the Caribbean to complete their journeys home to the US east coast or to come across the Atlantic. Newbies like us are very concerned about being in the hurricane belt after the end of May as that’s when the likelihood of early hurricanes can happen. But according to some of the locals we met in Bermuda, hurricanes hardly ever happen this early. The ARC ‘race’, which is an organized Atlantic crossing from the Caribbean to Europe left May 8th, which is a helluvalot earlier than June 26th. As said in earlier posts we were in Bermuda almost 2 weeks longer than intended due to weather, and when we left we knew that we had a window of a couple of days to get away from the bad weather which was hovering over Bermuda and into the ocean. We knew we would get ‘clobbered’, and we did. But we would stil...