Having arrived on Thursday at 1730, we met up with Barry and crew from DINAH
and also Mike and crew from Flamingo Lady, both OSTAR boats who had made
Horta a day or 2 prior to ourselves. They all expounded the beautiful
island and we enjoyed a nice relaxed meal ashore as a group. Both of those
yachts sailed on Friday morning and we spent the day undertaking minor
maintenance tasks on the yacht.
Everybody is very friendly in Horta and the locals speak English well. It
appears to be an island just discovering tourism and as yet not maximising
the potential, so all the better for this. The marina is full of yachts
from many nations but primarily Western Europeans. It seems the majority
sail to Horta from UK, Ireland or mainland Europe and then return the same
way. A very small number had arrived from the US or Caribbean and very few
depart for those shores.
The most popular yachtie's watering hole is called Peter Sport Cafe,
apparently established in the 1950's and now in the third generation of same
family management. It provides good food and drink in a little changed
environment, which is small, crowded, full of flags, name tallies and other
mementoes of previous visiting yachts and generally the place to visit in
yachting circles. We made several visits!
The marina is unusual in that visiting yachts usually leave their mark on
the surrounding paths, roads or pavements, in the form of a painting
incorporating the name of the yacht. Hence there are thousands of such
street paintings, some ageing and some fresh. It is now considered bad luck
to sail without leaving a mark, so Paul bought some paint and did the
necessary on behalf of our boat. As neither of us consider ourselves to be
an artist, we decided on a simple theme in honour of our UK adopted county
and hence our painting was based around the black and white flag of
Cornwall. Simple but effective. Some paintings are large and yet others
are very artistic. It is the graffiti artist's dreamland here.
The pace of life in Horta is slow and easy to fall into. It is no wonder it
is such a popular destination and perhaps one of Europe's better kept
secrets.
