Friday, June 10, 2011

More from from Angra and Porto Delgada

Wonderful little towns - we're off for now. Ciao.


More island beauty - this time on the beach, although not quite beach weather.


More volcano lakes.


The little towns might not have much, but they all have a nice church. My buddy Luca timed this half head shot perfectly. Funny Italians! Buena sera!


Unfortunately the weather didn't always cooperate as we toured around Sao Miguel, the Azoran capitol. The beauty is unmistakable.


Here's a local specialty - grilled squid. Excellent.


Who's hungry? This hot dog was a local specialty and it looked a little better than it tasted. Then again, maybe not.


Beauty everywhere.


We took a tour the next day and visited the "Furnace" where the volcano continues to out gas. That's our driver behind me. When I said "Hey, nice furnace", he wouldn't stop laughing. I'm telling you, I slay 'em in multiple countries.


Where was Jimbo the matador? Behind a retaining wall making sure the womens were safe. This fella got close and dropped a duece on us - it was bullshit. I'm killing me again, how do I do it?!


One of the features in the Azores is the "running with the bulls" events held by the various towns. Basically the locals stroll around acting cool until the bull gets close and than it's hilarious to watch their faces as they scramble for safety. A few guys do it with style, but there are tons of wan-a-bees
that you'd pay money to see flattened ... like this dork.



More beautiful countryside.


Here is a beautiful park in Angra.


Time to catch up on Azorian history? Nope, this fellow has the same name as Jenée's son, Garrett. He's an important guy in their history.


Thursday, June 9, 2011

Here is the tour group now, sans Captain Jimbo, who by now is snoring on a park bench.



This is a famous tree in town. Better yet, I'm having a pistachio ice cream some where in there while Jenee, Rick and Lennie go on the rest of the tour.



The architecture in these islands dates back to the 1520's. This is not an example, but a nice picture.




The city hall has some nice stain glass windows.


This is an interesting color combo (lillac and white) for a church in Angra do Heroismo on the island of Terceira. We sailed here during the day from Horta.


Now in Angra, we've enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people on this trip. Lyall Burgess is in the left front and is the representative from ARC Europe. Lyall's doing a great job. Next to Lyall is Rui Soares who is on the final leg of his ARC World Tour in Thor VI, his Moody 44 - very impressive. Opposite is Jack and Rinatta from Belgium and sailing on their Oyster 54 Surya. Jungle crew; Rick, Lennie, Jim and Jenee round out the photo.



Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Beautiful Horta, Azores

Our happy photographer after a successful shoot - now on to Rick's beer ... otherwise known as the Bourne Ultimatum.

Here we are over the remnants of the volcano that makes up Horta. As mentioned all the Azore islands are of a volcanic heritage.







These pictures are from the eye of Jenee - great job. Did you know she took photography at Fountain Valley High (CA). Well, there you go.



Crewmember Rick Bourne is digging on the sights and of course, looking for his next brew pub. Wait, I think I see ... oh, false alarm.


That is the island of Pico and the mountain of the same name. It is the highest point in the Azores at over 7000 feet.


The Jungle crew took a tour around Horta to take in the natural beauty - indeed!


Saturday, June 4, 2011

Abrigado Horta

Behold the Jungle! We're told it is very bad luck to pass through Horta and not leave an artistic rememberance. We're covered.


Can't have more fun than a 3D movie at the local museum. Don't ask me why, but I passed this trip up.

Horta is a spectacular island. Temps in the high 60's, very pleasant, very green, very nice people. I was told that Fall River, MA is populated with Azorian Portugese - mostly fisherman. Still predominant population to this day. Abrigado! Now you can speak a little Portugese - thank you.


Sailing is a great way to meet people. This is the crew of S/V Diatonic. Tony, David and Paul were on there way back to the UK. We had a lot of laughs. David loved telling the story of when they hailed me in the early AM on VHF, on my watch. I asked them for their coordinates so I could figure out where they were located. David said, "Oh, look out your starboard window, I'm the one in the blue shorts". Oh, right, there you are.


There is some pretty good competition out there for boat art.


The captain and admiral are wearing their Sunday best for a stroll through the marina. My outfit is retro rap - charming. I'm a gonna bust yo ass .... C'mon, sing wit me.



What looks like one man's graffiti is another man's art. A long tradition in Horta is to paint a remembrance of your ship. This looks like a job for Lennie Bourne.



By the way, welcome to Europe, home of the over crowded marina. Perfect fit!



The Jungle crew is happy to be at rest after 13 days, 14 hrs, 23 min, 51 seconds at sea - give or take 2 hours, 13 min. Our creative designer - Lennie Bourne - devised the catchy Jungle shirts. People are lining up for these shirts.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Ola Azores!

Jungle sitting pretty on the dock.


Finally in the harbor - we arrived at 0300. Dawn over Horta.


A pod of 8-10 whales decided to swim by. We had to scramble to get our camera - quite a sight!




We combine our efforts to get the salt off the boat - it isn't clean until the salts off.


They put me at the back of the boat.


OK, enough of that - tme to swab the decks. Of course while fashioned in the latest swimwear from Malibu.

In a blink of an eye, we hoist the main sail and usher Jungle on her way. Onward!


Ignore that last picture. Here, I will at least look busy while a fair maiden looks on in obvious admiration. Rick, not so much.


And I, Barbeque Man, will expertly commandeer our next plan of attack! A little drooling may be involved.

Jungle's fair maiden will then repair the damaged sail as it's fed through the overhead hatch.


Fear not madam. As I will quickly drop the sail to the deck. I will have Crewmate Ricky use his consummate skills to hold the sail down from the beating, relentless winds!


Oh Barbeque Man, the sail has split (again) at the top.


I AM BARBEQUE MAN. And no weather can stop me from grilling steaks, burgers fish and those little pork chop thingies. 20-30 knot winds? HAH, I spit at them. Then sometimes take a good one right back in the face. But I will not be deterred! I wield my tongs with extreme fury and skill.


Jenee and Lennie found time to read and relax.


When does opportunity on a boat arise? Constantly. We noticed a strong smell of diesel fuel and upon inspection, found this floor storage area and much of the bilge just floating with diesel! It turned out we did quite a bit of rocking in heavy seas an full fuel tanks. We located a disconnected fuel tank vent hose on the starboard (right) tank. About 7 gallons of diesel had spilled out before we reconnected the vent hose and were back in action. As always, it could have been worse.

Jungle sails along at the end of another beautiful day.


Rick Bourne manning the helm. We had a bumpy start but no crew member missed their watch. Rick and Lennie proved to be troopers on their very first Ocean passage. When all is said and done, they will have logged 2000 miles and 17 blue water days at sea. Most peolple never make one day. So there.


Jungle at sea. We could see all the sailboats for the first day. Day 2 we could see one and after that, we would see none for pretty much the whole trip. The spread turned out to be about 600 miles as the race boats shot to the lead and others turned back to avoid weather or return to Bermuda for repairs.


We're headed out the Town Cut which is the narrow channel out of St. Georges on the northern most point of Bermuda. This will be our last sight of land for almost 2 weeks.


And we're off! Let's see Jungle is starting in about 9th place - same place she ended up at the finish. Who cares, sailing is for pussies anyways.


Poor Katie is tramatized at the thought of another passage - woe is kitty. While the Admiral makes all attempts to comfort, I look on in total empathy for our feline fur ball.


Smiles everyhere as we take trips to and from Jungle to get ready for a trip.


The Jungle team discusses the strategy for the 1800 mile passage to the Azores. Or maybe, they're just having a nice dinner.