19 Jun: Among Like-Minded
Jessica studying the countless paintings in Horta
The paintings on the breakwater were countless and could be seen all along the harbour walls. Even the side-walks were filled with pictures made by visiting yachts. They were everywhere in Horta harbour!

With more than 1000 yachts passing through the Azores each year, no wonder the harbour was so colourful. Some of the graffiti were real pieces of art. No sailor wanted to sail away without having left their mark in Horta. Neglecting this is even said to bring back luck. Of course, we did our homework as well, using a similar design as the one we had made in Porto Santo some 9 months earlier, carefully leaving space for more years to add for the future.

The ultimate blue water sailors had crossed the Atlantic several times already and retouched their paintings regularly, adding yet another year for every time they visited the island. Would we ever come again?
Leon and Jessica working on our painting. Photo by Jonathan.
Forever bound with Koshlong in Horta, who had been there the summer before, in 2005.
I looked around. So many proofs of ocean crossers! So many lives; so many decisions; so much courage! Every painting was asking for attention, wanting to tell his own story about a yacht, its crew and the oceans. Every painting had a destiny to tell about a family, a couple, a bunch of friends or a single-handler, all in search for something special beyond the horizon.

I walked along the paintings as if priceless art was hanging out in a gallery. I tried to recognize their names from books and articles I had read or friends I knew. The boat names opened up my imagination, the country flag notified their origin, the occasional map told their route. Some were old and were fading away, like the memories of a past dream, some were just recently painted and still wet.

Who are they, the sailors coming to Horta? The salty types? The family on a sabbatical year? The Liveboards? The racers? The traditionalists? The hippies? The superyacht owners? The paying students crewing for learning? The crew getting paid for their job delivering a yacht?
Jessica and Jonathan admiring some of the famous sailors who had passed through Horta during the last century. In Peter's Scrimshaw Museum, you can see them being etched onto whale ivory.
Joshua Slocum has been in Horta...
...and so has Tristan Jones....
...as swell as my idol from my own youth, Bernard Moitessier...
.... just as the father of scuba diving, Jaques Cousteau!
The answer is, they all come to Horta! Joshua Slocom did it, Tristan Jones passed by, Jacque Cousteau was here, Bernard Moitessier has made his landfall in Horta, and many, many more famous names from my marine library, mixing with names never heard of, and yet heroes of the oceans. Sooner or later, the day you sail from America to Europe and don’t take the route via the Pacifc, you end up stopping by on this small volcanic island and, not to forget, at Peter’s Café Sport.
My visiting sister Jenny, Jessica, Jonathan and Karolina in front of Peter's Café Sport with José Henrique Azevedo, son of the legendary "Peter", passing by.
This famous Café in the Atlantic (www.petercafesport.com) was now running under the third generation as a mid-Ocean meeting point for yachts and its crew and has been so ever since 1918. José Henrique Azevedo has recently taken over from his father, José Azevedo, alias “Peter”, who unfortunately passed away while we were crossing the Atlantic westbound in November 2005.

Ever so proud, and deeply devoted, I slowly entered one of the two doors into Peter’s famous “Café”. I could feel how the saints of since long sailed away blue water sailors were blessing me from their last ocean called heaven. I suddenly did not only become one with all the blue water sailors currently sitting in this bar, but, at the same time, felt to have achieved something grand in life which allowed me to share this bar with all great sailors of the past and of the future.
Sticking in my head into Peter's Café Sport. I would be doing this daily during our stay in Horta.
The Café was packed with sailors, each lifting their head when I came in, to see if I was one they knew or they were waiting for to come in from the seas. You seldom passed by without sticking in your head into Peter’s just for the sake of seeing if there was someone you might know. Very often there was, and hence passing Peter’s Café Sport seldom was as straightforward as planned. Sharing a beer with a friend you might not have seen for a long time cannot just be ignored!

Flags from all countries of the world and nautical clubs were hanging from the roof and along the walls. They all told their own windswept stories, just as the paintings did on the breakwater. The scent from distant shores beyond storms and calms could be felt the moment I entered Peter’s for the first time. I hoped I would become a regular customer in the future.

This was the bar in the world I had dreamt about the most to one day enter, having made it to Horta on my own keel. Now it had actually happened and I was proud and happy at the same time: I was among like-minded both in person with my family and fellow sailors sitting beside me, as well as spiritually with my heroes from gone-by days, whose souls still filled the room.
With friends in Café Sport. Jessica admiring all flags.
Jonathan in Café Sport. Photo by Tom Kingston
I remembered the nervous episode in the Canaries six months earlier, when we were getting ready for our first ocean crossing to the Caribbean. I thought of the warm welcome we had experienced by our friends in the West Indies when we finally arrived after the crossing. It was celebrated on both sides as a major achievement, which it, in deed, was! Parties on all boats, congratulating each other for a successful crossing!

Arriving in Horta was different. Very few boats were on their first ocean crossing and many cruisers were very experienced sailors. Sailors you meet in Horta differ from charter sailors as much as the Azores are placed from any mainland. We were greeted as like-minded, being asked about our crossing, the time it took and the weather we had experienced. And then, since the crossing had been eventless and enjoyable, the subject of our actual crossing was soon replaced by other, more dramatic topics, like speculating why the “missing” yacht Joshua, now safely moored in Horta, had not had understood that a PanPan had been put out in search for them by the coastguard, distributed via Navtex, Inmarsat and SSB, since they were two weeks overdue with the husband anxiously waiting in Horta for them. Numerous yachts, including ourselves, had called them regularly on VHF during our crossing, but they had not had their VHF switched on.
Jonathan and Jessica looking at "missing" Joshua. Please observe the never ending paintings everywhere in Horta!
Another dramatic topic was the dismasting of the Bowman 42 that had come in limping by motor earlier that day, after having lost their mast 100 miles out of Horta. Apparently, a shroud had been worn off at deck level resulting in the falling of their mast. After having cut off the dragging mast from their boat, the crew had quickly replaced the mast by their vang. Far too short to carry any sails, it, at least, allowed them to fly their courtesy flag in an appropriate manner. Very British!
"Eternity" was dismasted in the storm west of Azores, replacing its mast by the vang, so they could fly their courtesy flag!
Or, we talked about the many friends we were still awaiting and who were still “out there” and had not arrived, yet, being led by Herb first south and then north and finally south again to avoid some strong gales, which were blowing west of the Azores. At the same time, the ARC-Europe boats (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) were coming in one by one, despite the gale. Many of them talked about the heavy weather they had experienced with winds up to 48 kts surfing along with just a small cutterstay sail set. We later learnt that no less than four boats had been dismasted in the storm, one boat was totally lost with its crew having to climb into the liferaft and being rescued, while others experienced winds over 50 knots for more than 9 hours with knock-downs and water-filled cockpits. One boat's tri-colour in the mast-top stopped working due to no less than three knock-downs with the mast-top under water in waves of 30 feet.

Suddenly, I did not only feel proud for our recent crossing, but also lucky that we had enjoyed such a pleasant cruise having been able to avoid any heavy weather. I am also glad we own a strong and sea-worthy boat, such as the Hallberg-Rassy.

Before we continued on our third leg north-eastbound crossing the Atlantic, we would enjoy some wonderful weeks on four of the nine islands in the Azores, which inevitably leads us to my next story coming up soon...