Part 9: Azores (last part)
One, of course, is sometimes bored, and one day my tired consciousness decided to amuse itself. I wake up one day after a rather stormy night and suddenly, opening my eyes, I see a human figure descending into the cabin in the light opening of the hatch. Seeing another person in the middle of the ocean on a ship is cool, but the fact that he or they did not warn by shouting or something about their arrival is creepy! After all, the pepper is clear, with good intentions they do not come to visit in this way. I immediately closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, hoping to put me to sleep vigilantly.the person who entered, and then, using surprise, jump up, rush to the bow cabin, where I kept a supply of pyrotechnics, and from there, from behind a closed door and with a rocket in hand, to negotiate. The dream passed immediately, as if it had never happened, and I began to listen to what he was doing. I didn't hear anything, and that was all the more disturbing. Then I remembered that I had succeeded enough in conducting covert surveillance, and slowly began to open one eye. Through the eyelashes I saw that he was still standing in the hatchway and at the same time waving his arms. As always,The method of covert observation gave its positive results. Watching the uninvited guest, I realized that my waterproof coat was waving its sleeves, which I hung to dry on the edge of the hatch. But, honestly, this feeling of horror, I still remember.
There were pleasant events in this voyage. For example, the birthday of my cousin Irina. I already wrote that I remembered her with an unkind word at least every 15 minutes, and at the same time I certainly could not forget that her birthday falls on July 11th. Of course, the little sister I cursed countless times did not deserve these curses. She helped me with the medical support of the trip and, in general, helped me a lot in life. I know with what attention she followed the course of this whole enterprise, and her prayers also turned out well.Every year I congratulated her and myself on this event, but this year I could not help but celebrate it in some non-trivial way. Beforehand, carving out moments between keeping the sailboat on course and unflattering words addressed to her, I marked out a piece of paper and carefully wrote on it: “July 11, 2008 4.. N; 5.. W". I put the missing numbers at the moment when I was already pouring dry red wine into a glass and raising it with congratulations to my sister. On this occasion, he even put on a captain's cap and took a picture. It is to this event that you owe the pleasureWii see the photo on my messages in this topic. I sent her this image from Azor, and then she belatedly found out that her brother took advantage of the occasion to drink one more time. Two weeks later my daughter Olga had a birthday. I wanted to prepare the same gift for her, but I thought that this would already be plagiarism. Nothing else original came to mind, so Olga was left without a gift. I'm sorry, daughter! Of course, I drank to your health and not dry wine, but real Venezuelan rum, so you can consider that I love you for 30 degrees is stronger than Irinka.
Between these two drinks, I met a real aircraft carrier in the ocean. I think he deliberately changed course a little to see who it was that was spying on his movements. Probably, it was not a full-scale aircraft carrier, but rather something like an aircraft-carrying cruiser, I will attach a photo and the most competent of you will clarify this issue. I didn’t manage to see him then, because I rushed between the helm, keeping the course, the radio, which is in the cabin, and photojournalism. It turned out that athis English carrier, where he was going, I delicately did not ask, but wherever he eventually went, I asked him to call my daughter from there or just send her an SMS if there was not much money in the UK Navy. The fact is that I am very late in the ocean and my family is worried about me. The sailors understood the sailor perfectly, they immediately refused to call, because. this call would have given away the location of this aircraft carrier, but they offered another option that suits everyone if my daughter has an e-mail. "Yes, yes there is E-mail!" "Well then, we'll let her know right now atall that is needed." Still, there is a direct benefit from the arms race for us, the townsfolk! My daughter received the message, she was very happy, only one thought haunted her: “Which point in the ocean is her dad at the moment with the English aircraft carrier?” Sent back an e-mail with a request for coordinates. The English gentlemen turned out to be impolite people and did not answer her request. Do they still not know that Russia has a sufficient number of spy satellites and at any moment knows where not only thisan aircraft carrier with a bunch of crew, but, I suspect, her citizen, crossing the ocean alone. At parting, the English officer showed me his knowledge of the language of the potential enemy and said "Goodbye!" in Russian. In my closing remarks, I expressed special gratitude for this Russian expression, while thinking, did they have time to learn the word "Hello!"? And after thinking, I decided that the expression "Goodbye" in relation to the Russians for them, the British, is sweeter than the word "Hello." Another ship, a dry cargo ship, I met 4 days before arriving in the Azores, I decidedthat I would get in touch with my relatives before he arrived at some American port, and therefore I did not contact him. And they didn't call.
Email that Irina received:
-----Original Message-----From: ""HMS ARKROYAL-FC1 (Lt Meigh)"To: Qlch@mail.ruDate: 13 Jul 2008 22:56:03Subject: Yacht Baklava> >Olga>>> Our Ship is in the North Atlantic and we came across your father in his sailboat Baklava yesterday afternoon. He asked me to tell you that he is fine and not >to worry about him, although he has been delayed so will be late. I hope this is good news and that your father has a safe journey back to the Black Sea.>>>Yours>>Peter>>Peter Meigh>>Lieutenant Royal Navy>(name of the sailboat is inaccurate)
On the 34th day of the journey, I saw the earth! It was the island of Flores from the Azores archipelago. Flores means flower. He seemed wild and unfriendly to me. I didn't stop. There are marinas on all the islands of this archipelago, but experienced sailboatsmen advised me to go to Faial Island, where all the color of world sailboating gathers. Before him, there were still days of travel with a good wind. The wind was good!
He approached Faial from the west with a strengthening south wind already in the evening. On its northern coast, sheltered from the wind by an island, it was quiet. Some houses descended to the ocean, but I did not see a marina or any moorings. In such cases, binoculars help a lot, unfortunately, the former owner of the sailboat apparently had better eyesight than mine, and therefore there were no binoculars on the sailboat, and I did not think to buy them. I decided to go around the island and look for a pier or marina, since the island is small. It was already dark when I got out into the passage between Faial Island and Pico Island. Hereblew such a strong headwind, about 40 knots, that we had to lower the previously reefed mainsail, reef the mizzen and change the staysail to a storm one. In complete darkness, I went south along the strait in a maneuver from the shore of one island to the shore of another, guided by the lights on the shores. Ahead, on the right, on Faial, the city of Horta, the capital of this island, clearly loomed. I need it right there. But after all, in complete darkness and with such a strong wind, I still won’t be able to enter an unfamiliar harbor and in a narrow strait I won’t get up to drift for the night. How I didn't want to leavespend one more night on the ocean instead of enjoying a good Spanish wine in a cozy restaurant! The common sense peculiar to me won again, and I went back to the same cape from which I came. It was quiet there, but too deep for anchorage. Stood adrift under sail, if these little scraps can be called such a loud word. Decided on the speed and direction of the drift, it was safe. I went to bed and changed the alarm all night so that it would wake me up every hour. Twice I had to bring the sailboat to the originalpoint, because she longed for wind and excitement. And in the morning the wind died down! I walked those miserable 6-7 miles to Horta in 8 hours. Imagine, after 36 days of sailing, I can't land! I had enough time to make out in this strait two large rocks rising from the water almost in the middle of it and not marked on the map in the chartplotter. Then I realized with belated horror that I had the opportunity to land on the beach the previous night, though not in the way I would like to do it. Do you understand going topitch darkness into a maneuver with a small sail area, I would certainly jump out onto these unlit rocks! I can say without exaggeration: the desire to spend the night in comfortable conditions saved my life!
In the afternoon the wind appeared again from the south and very quickly reached the mark of 15 knots. Under this wind, I entered the marina along a fairly wide passage, although a little narrower due to the cargo-passenger ship standing at the wall. The audience watched with approval as I tacked along this passage against a headwind, with each tack taking exactly 8 seconds. I myself was proud of my skill. Igor Borisovich huddled in some corner and showed no signs of life. Approaching the berth of the marina administration, I noticed two catamarans, Synergy andseems to be "Beluga". There will be someone to chat with in Russian, except for Igor Borisovich! But first, the registration of the parish. To my question, the marina administrator, how much does parking cost here, wrote something on a piece of paper and pushed the piece of paper towards me. 100 dollars! I expressed my full readiness to leave the hospitable harbor at this very moment. “If the seigneur agrees to stand in the second building, parking will cost him 18.5 euros.” The Senor agreed. But, first, the seigneur needs to visit the immigration police and customs, they are located in the same building. Trouble with the policeI was. They took my passport and my 46 euros, saying that they would return the passport with a Schengen visa for 15 days tomorrow, but they would never return the euro. And the door to customs was closed. I went back to the police to ask where they could find the customs officers. “And they have a day off today, come tomorrow.” Surprised, I walked towards the exit. “Oh, wait, tomorrow is Sunday, customs is also closed tomorrow,” a police officer shouts after me. “So, should I come on Monday?” “Yes, you don’t have to come at all, if they need you, they themselves willwith will find. Prosperous European customs officers got stuck! Passing by the receptionist, I asked where I could buy a Spanish flag. “Why do you need the Spanish flag?” the administrator asked suspiciously. "What do you mean why? I must hang the flag of the host country under the spreader! The laughter of the administrator and those present was loud and infectious. Proudly sticking out his chest, the administrator said: “You, sir, are in the territory of Portugal!”. Here are those on! Mr. Renown was wrong when he reproached me for not having paper charts on board. On board "Waava” were paper maps in the form of a small school geographical atlas published back in Soviet times. And there it was clearly written in black and blue: "Azores (Esp.)". I didn't invent the Spaniards in the Azores! Every time I later met with this administrator (and Horta is a small town and we met often), he asked with sincere interest whether I managed to find and acquire the Spanish flag? He laughed at the same time not offensively, and not at me. He laughed at the unlucky Spaniards, who never managed to clean up eand islands under their jurisdiction. And there were disputes between these two countries. The laughter of the administrator sounded the pride of the winner!
On that day, the marina's inflatable boat took the Vakawa in tow and put her third hull to sailboats whose owners, like me, did not want to pay $100 a day. I only stayed like that for a day. A place next to the wall was vacated and I moored to it. By the way, you can anchor in Horta completely free of charge, or at anchor in a bay near the embankment, or even in a closed harbor, but also at anchor and slightly away from the fairway. Immediately after mooring, staggering on solid ground, I went to our catamarans. Their trail is already gone! This Saturday, August 2,they left Horta.
At this point, the single passage across the Atlantic is over, further, to the Crimea, we were already three of us and sometimes even under the engine, so this topic has been exhausted. It, in my opinion, is not quite correctly marked, because. in fact, I had not crossed the Atlantic alone; Gibraltar was still 1,000 miles away. Perhaps I will rework this story into a small book, then the happy buyers of it will be able to learn not only that it ended safely in the Turkish port of Sinop, but also about those small adventures experienced by my wonderful teamon the crossing from Azores to Sevastopol and about various tourist details, omitted by me, like dinners in restaurants, etc. I promise, only in another topic, to describe the adventures that happened upon arrival in Ukraine, with a heart attack, flight from the hospital, the Russian Consul General left without dinner, illegal swimming of the state border back and forth. I will write about international politics, under the millstones of which I fell, about former sailors who became captains of the port and ceased to be sailors, and about customs agents who ceased to be sailors, throwships and crews to fend for themselves. See you!
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