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Terra Firma : Flores , Azores

We arrived this afternoon in Flores , the most westerly island in the Azores, 17 days since leaving Bermuda. Good crossing, a bit of everything, sun, rain, zig zaging between the Highs and Lows ( that’s pressure systems), one day of motoring and today a hell of a kick of wind to blast us in with heavy heavy rain, visability down to less than quarter mile as we aproached. Hestur is now anchored snugly behing the big break water, and we both snugly anchored in a little bar! Wet old afternoon!
We will spend some days here, looks like a REALLY lovley place, and low and behold, would you belive that on this coming Monday, its the Flores Festival day!!! What luck x cheers all

Prop on, pop off

Yup we’re good to go, leaving first thing tommorrow morning …

The Great Barracuda and Dan!

Branded Merchandise

Here is the production line of the New Hestur Tee ( inspired by the yachtie crew – ware seen on the Quay sides)
Get yours now, as seen on the top models in the Caribbean this season.

Barbados

We are finding our feet here! We are anchored in Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, its beautiful. We met some others who we knew , yesterday when we arrived, John on ‘Oystergo’ and Richard on ‘Hot Lips’ , so nice to see familiar faces. We went to the Barbados Cruising Club last night, a beautiful beach bar club house, great food ( we had been dreaming about that meal for the past 16 days) and superb Rum!
Swimming horses from the beach this morning, race horses relaxing on Sunday. Crusing Club this evening for music.
P.s. I have added photos to the post called ‘Brilliant Brava’ (2posts ago)

Arrived!

We have arrived Barbados! 9.30am local time , this morning the 1st of Feb. a good passage. 2150NM. Constant wind, strongest 25 kts of wind , but passing squalls of more. Average 125 NM a day. Saw flying fish, a fin or two , dolphins, birds and that was about it. Read lots of books, ate well and I made a skirt! Cleared customs this morning, lots of offices to visit. very friendly place. Tied Hester up between huge cruise ships in the big harbour to go to the offices. Quite an awakener after seeing only horizon for 16 days. So delighted to arrive, LOTS to explore. its hot! And the water is wonderfully warm and turquoise. More later x

Fog in Luacra

we are still in Luacra, decided not to head on yesterday as it was so thick fog. Dan changed the oil on the engine, and i did some more spanish homework! leaving today though still thick fog. There is some rain coming tonight , maybe that will help to shift it? Its still very warm, and we have been swiming off the boat again in the harbour.

 

Back in Falmouth

Here is Hestur at the pier, floating again after a scrub and paint!

So, We are back on-Board, and now feeling well acclimatised again, to life on Hestur.
We drove down last Tuesday (21st May) in a hire car after a full day of packing, organizing our affairs and saying our goodbyes. My dear studio colleges had organised a gathering at lunchtime for me and had bought some exquisite, delicious cakes and a bottle of bubbly which we had at the communal couches in the studio- a fine farewell, I was really touched to have this send off and to have made such a connection with studio 3C !
Bristol has been a really fantastic chapter. We have met so many great people who have become close friends, even after this short time, and we have many happy memories of our time there.
We saw Ruth and Martin (Dan’s Parents) too on Tuesday. They were coming past Bristol on their way north to back to Shropshire. They very kindly helped us by picking up some of our possessions – for storage: Skis! and some items from my studio. We had a meal with them at the Nova Scotia, a really nice pub down at the Underfall Yard, where happened to regulars of a Friday afternoon after work!
Then leaving Bristol behind, with a fully laden hire car we drove south to Falmouth. It felt like quite a wrench to leave, as if we had been there for a lot longer than the 6 quickly passing months over the winter. Emotional to say goodbye to so many friends and places we had got to know- but indeed exciting to be on the move again!!!!
We arrived down to Falmouth so late on Tues that we had missed the ferry boat service to the moorings, or indeed a lift from any passer by… so we slept in the car.
Next Morning we “woke” early, to a fine day and headed down to the familiar High street to find an open coffee shop. We then spent the morning unloading the car / stowing the boat, and in the p.m. while we still had the car, we drove down towards the Lizard to drop off the life raft for a service.
The next couple of days turned out pretty shabby: Northerly winds ( Cold!) and rain, not an inspiring reintroduction to Hestur.
Over the winter Hestur had grown a great mane of kelp, weed and underwater foliage we had never seen, so on Friday we dried her out on the pier by the Bosuns Locker Chandlery in Falmouth- for a scrub and a paint. It was another horrible day but we were sheltered behind the pier wall and dry underneath Hestur’s flat bottom!
We had bought Hemple “Dove White” anti-foul as it was on offer x 2 tins. When it came to painting her “Dove white” turned out a rather pinky/ parma violet hmmm… We got one coat on before discovering that we had left the other tin in Bristol. Tim Start is coming down this week though so he will bring it and we will bring it and we will dry her again this week for that second coat.
We decided to stay an extra tide against the wall as it was absolutely horrible at 6 pm when we were floating again, so we left it till the next morning when it was blissfully calm. She looks very smart again with a new paint job and teh “Dove White” has now settled into a rather tasteful warm gray. Much better.
Saturday was a nice day – jobs aboard am, and a cycle to Penryn to drop off Dan’s dive gear for a service pm. Sunday was a scorcher! there was a Boat Jumble up at the rugby ground which which yielded a new 35lb CQR, a chart, spare rowlocks, rope a French courtesy flag, a quarantine flag and some chips . We then spent a very happy afternoon in the sun in the garden at friends house : Barnaby and Catrina, a cycle home then out again to meet some people in the “Star and Garter”, Great music there too, and a row home under a fabulous moon. Today was yucky! we were aboard all day doing jobs, then moved off the mooring ( as we had run out of our paid up period ) and into the anchorage . We are now in the most wonderful pub , which we were told about last night, in Falmouth called Beerwoolf . Its a bookshop and apub all in one, great atmosphear , it has a feel of Iceland about it.
Lots of Jobs still to do in Falmouth while we are here. There is a Regatta this weekend and friends arriving at different stages to stay and sail. We are thinking of setting off early June, will keep blog up dated
Cheers Charlotte
http://www.beerwolfbooks.com/

The empty studio

Well I haven’t written for a while! All has been going well (and busy!) , and now Dan and I are at the end of out time in Bristol .
We have spent the last few weeks, (since the beginning of May) with a friend in the St. Andrews area of Bristol, just up from my studio. We had to move off ‘Broadleaf’ at the end of April and Tori, a friend who we met when we were doing a ski season in France in 2009, invited us to stay with her. Its a really beautiful flat, high up and over looking the city, and great to experience another part of Bristol.
It has been a wonderful 6 months! We have met so many inspiring people, and made some great friends. Dan has been busy at the boat yard working with Tim: starting one 25 foot boat, starting and completing a 17 foot one and laying an entire new teak deck. I have been in the studio, working on new work and commissions since the exhibition in April. We are now packing up and tomorrow we are heading down to Falmouth, and back to Hestur!