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Cape Canaveral to London
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| Slocum 43 Pilothouse Cutter |
Updated October, 2003 |
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Our first "med" mooring was in St Georges Harbor, Bermuda.
Leaving our mark on the seawall in Horta for good luck.
Imported from China years ago, hydrangea now blanket the Azores.
Trusty crew maintains watch.
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Polaris Crosses the Atlantic! After many years of dreaming and planning his world cruise, Bob cast off with his crew May 30, 2003. From the docks on Merritt Island, near Cape Canaveral, Florida, they set sail for an Atlantic crossing to Lisbon in three legs via Bermuda and the Azores. 
Mattijs Swets, Bob and Mike Beckman ...ready to cast off. Mattijs Swets from Holland sailed all three legs with Bob. Mike Beckman, a sailing friend from Milwaukee, flew in to crew on the Canaveral to Bermuda leg. Mike then departed in Bermuda to return to work. Mattijs and Bob sailed the boat on to the Azores. Patton met the boat in Horta on July 3rd to join Mattijs and Bob on the last leg to Lisbon. Generally winds were light for most of the trip. It took 6 days to reach Bermuda, 15 days to Horta and 6 days more to reach Cascais, a suburb of Lisbon. We motored several days on each leg of the trip and had to carefully monitor our fuel.
Horta harbor on the island of Faial in the Azores. The Azores are still little-visited by tourists and their unspoiled, spectacular beauty was a surprising discovery for all of us. Our only regret was not being able to stay longer on these beautiful islands with their proud, very hospitable people. On the island of Faial, port of Horta, we painted our boat sign on the wall for good luck and drank and ate at famous Peter's Cafe Sport (an international landmark for blue water sailors). It was here that we again met Evie, a semi-retired computer expert on the Unix system, whom we had met first in Melbourne, FL, during a Spanish class with the Seven Seas Cruising Association, and later in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas, where she was making her way down island. She came across the Atlantic with a crew of three young people. Our crewmate, Mattijs enjoyed hanging out with them while we were there. Adam Boggs, from Colorado, later joined us on Polaris to sail to Sao Miguel when Evie had to fly out for a computer consultation. On Faial we rented a car and visited the scene of the 1957 volcano eruption that left a bleak, barren landscape along the coast. From the top of the island, magnificent Pico Island's volcanic mountain dominated the view. From Horta we sailed to Angra do Heroismo on the island of Terceira. Walking through the old town and fort, we came into a quiet, residential avenue. Suddenly, a uniformed marching band appeared from around a corner, stopped, turned and played just for us for a few minutes, then marched on. We never knew what we were celebrating, but we certainly felt quite special. We noticed much reconstruction on the small stone homes along the roads, damaged by a 1980 earthquake. There is an effort to restore the original stone architecture, but this is very expensive and progress is slow.
View from the cliffs of Sao Miguel. Our third and final port in the Azores was Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel. Bob and Patton hired a taxi to the town of Furnas on eastern end of the island. We looked down from the mountain top into the crater lake to see the steam of hot springs coming up from the volcanic earth everywhere. We drank from the cold springs there, sampling the different flavors of water created by the varying types of volcanic deposits. It is tradition here, to sink pots of meat, fish, potatoes and other food into the clay ground, cover them with dirt and let them bake in the heat of the volcanic earth for several hours. Picnickers were pulling their pots up and eating on the lake beaches. The aroma was incredible. We wished we had buried our own pot. On July 10th, Patton, Mattijs and Bob cast off for Portugal. Patton did not look forward to six days and nights at sea with four-hour watches twice in every 24-hour period. The first four days were very calm. Out of boredom, Patton did most of the dinners--curried chicken with raisins on rice, hamburger noodle casserole, pork loin with mushroom gravy and potatoes. Mattijs, who had eaten Bob's cooking for more than a month, said he certainly could tell there was a woman on board. The wind came up in the middle of the forth night and seas were high. We reefed the sails and didn't eat for two days. On the sixth night, we made landfall in Portugal, tired, happy and suddenly very hungry. It was dark and quiet. There was no cheering, no champagne, but the Atlantic had been crossed.
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Departing the Banana River Lock near Cape Canaveral.
Polaris underway out in the Atlantic.
Mattijs climbed the volcano on neighboring Pico across from Horta.
Angra is a World Heritage Site due to it's key role as a stopping- over point in the exploration of the new world. Tea is a major agricultural product on Sao Miguel. After seeing the tea fields, touring the factory and watching workers hand-pick the tea, we bought a wonderful orange pekoe.
Beside using the hot springs from volcanic activity for cooking, almost half of the electric power on Sao Miguel is produced from geothermal steam power.
Six days from the Azores, Polaris made landfall at 1:00 am in Cascais, Portugal.... a suburb of Lisbon. Click here to learn more about the details of the Atlantic crossing.
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The cliffs of Sao Miguel.
