Azores Shore Leave – Day 2

Horta, Faial
Date: Sunday 06/08/2008
Weather: Upper 70’s and Mostly Sunny


Robyn and I arrived on Faial early afternoon, sure that the guys were as excited to see us as we were to see them. Although we had told them not to meet us at the airport, we secretly believed that they would. They did not, so we took a cab into Horta.

Robyn had booked a hotel for her and Eric for two nights in Horta. We decided to go straight to the hotel and drop our luggage before going to find Severance. The hotel was incredible. They had a beautiful room with a balcony overlooking the marina. We stood on the balcony and used Robyn’s zoom lens on her new Nikon to search the marina for our ship. We could not find her.


It was time to do a serious search. We set out to pound the docks.

Horta is a major stop for ships crossing the Atlantic. It is the westernmost island and first stop for ships coming from the Americas and the last stop for ships headed for America from Europe. It has the largest marina in the Azores and was crowded with yachts from every country.

We searched in vain for Severance. At one point I asked a woman, who looked like she belonged, where the harbormaster’s office was. She pointed it out to me, but said that they close at noon for an hour and a half for lunch. It turns out that most businesses in the Azores do this, as well as being closed on Sunday. A much more civilized way to live.

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About this time Robyn received a text message from Eric that they were an hour out.

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We decided to go get beer to welcome them. They finally arrived. It was so good to see them. The beer was well received.

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We waited for them to clear customs and to be assigned a slip. They were not able to get a slip so were assigned a spot rafted up against other boats on the seawall. As the days went on, more and more boats came and we ended up rafted off 4 boats deep.

Once we got Severance secured we headed to Peters Café Sport for dinner and drinks. This is a well loved hangout for the sailing crowd. There we met many other sailors that the guys had met along the way, including the woman from the dock that I spoke to when looking for the harbor master. She turned out to be Cynthia, of Michael and Cynthia fame, the couple Scott, Eric and Kelly were hanging out with in Flores. They left Flores the same time Severance did and were one of the 5 boats Eric and Kelly were racing when they left Flores. Eric said that we should have just asked her where Severance was.