We are now all back in England!!! 

We had an amazing trip home from the Azores - about a 9 and a half day trip. It was great fun having the boys on board and I think they enjoyed it too. Well I know Andy definitely did as he is possibly the most consistently cheery person that exists. Who else would reply to “Andy it’s 2am, time to get up” with “fantastic!” - and not even a hint of sarcasm. Neither of them got seasick and both gave our lovely autohelm a rest with a go at the wheel.

The trip passed incredibly quickly as we had such different conditions - from no wind in all directions, medium strength winds, to sailing through a gale. We ended with a bit of excitement as well - we were attempting to outrun a second gale through the Channel, allowing for a stop at Salcombe for their triple chocolate crepes. But the winds picked up earlier than expected, going from 6 knots to 35 in a matter of seconds (poor Andy was on shift by himself), and so we had to change plans and had a very windy day sail to Yarmouth where we rested for the night. It was funny seeing the boys get off the boat, after James’ complete denial of the existence of ‘land sickness’ he was proved wrong immediately!

We arrived at Emsworth marina just before midday on Friday, to be greeted by Jilli, Shelly, and mum’s friend Sarah, carrying a huge banner and wearing party hats. It was lovely! Then we had a big meal cooked by chef Andy - dinner for 8 and lots of drinks on board Triple D.

Everyone has been asking what it feels like to be home. Answer: very odd. Chichester was so full of people and they talk so loud. Mum and I wandered around in a daze our first day out! We can even notice a difference between Jilli and ourselves - she talks much faster and moves much faster than we do. It won’t be long until we settle back in completely though I’m sure!

We left the boat in true Triple D Disaster fashion. I had filled Jilli’s car up with my stuff to move to London and we were going to the car with the last load before setting off, when climbing off the boat I dropped Jilli’s car keys into the muddy, dark water of Emsworth marina. Panic panic panic. So I stripped off and climbed into the chest-deep, freezing cold water, to spend a good five minutes feeling around the mud with my toes for the keys. It all worked out for the best as I found them, and the remote locking still worked. But I have to say I did not think my last swim of the year would be in freezing cold water in Emsworth!!!

What an amazing year we have all had, with such fantastic memories. Triple D out for the last time.

Well its Jills here, I haven’t been the most regular contributor to the Triple D blog but this will be my last updateL

I fly home today, and its very sad. Up until a couple of days ago I was all excited to be headed home but now… now I don’t even want to go! It’s just the idea that this year is over, and i have to go home to the cold and work and grey etc.

Right now I’ve been remembering the isolated anchorages in turquoise seas where you can jump in any time for a cool off and swim to the white sandy beaches… it’s been a pretty idyllic year!

But I’ve planned a busy-ish summer and am planning, whilst Mum and Alice endure the cold, the night shifts and the ever changing wind I will be eating in nice restaurants (hopefully), rebuilding my relationship with the TV and walking my dogs! YAY.

But for now, Triple D I must say ADIEU. Safe journeys to Mum, Alice, Cousin Andy and James. I hope the boys can live up to my brilliance as most useless crew! (Or perhaps they won’t be seasick and will do more than sleep?)

I am now on the other side of the blog. Let’s hope I keep up.

BYE BYE TRIPLE D! I LOVE YOU!!!!!

(as I post this she is currently in a plane on her way to Lisbon…)

A lot of the sailors here might not know it, but Horta marina is actually on an island called Faial. So yesterday we rented a car and set out to explore the island. Turns out Faial is actually a tiny island, and we drove from one end to the other, with detours (to get beautiful views of the ocean, as if we hadn’t seen enough of it) in less than 45 minutes. Slightly different from the 8 hour journey across the Dominican Republic! 

The far end of the island was covered in lava from the 1957 eruption and the landscape looked like a black desert. The very end of the island was actually created by the eruption. There was a museum about volcanoes but it cost 10 euros to get in, we had learned quite a lot about volcanoes in Madeira and Lanzarote and decided we would rather spend 30 euros on lunch, (greedy girls) so instead we paid 1 euro to climb up the lighthouse for fabulous views of… guess what? The ocean! We were a bit confused when we had to go down some steps before we could begin climbing, but everything became clear when we were outside once again. The lighthouse was built on top of a two-storey house, the first storey and a half of which had been completely buried by the lava from the volcano.

By this time it was lunch time, and we drove through some tiny deserted villages, the buildings made out of volcanic rock, with beautiful black sand beaches and jagged lava sticking out of the sea. No restaurants to be seen however - it may be yachty season but it is not yet tourist season, and I doubt Faial gets that many tourists anyway! Soon enough we stumbled upon a local cafe run by two brothers with stunning views over the ocean. We all had hamburgers and maltesers for pudding - very disappointing that we didn’t have any of the local food, but hamburgers were less than half the price of everything else!

In the afternoon we drove up to La Caldeira - the crater of the volcano. There is a 6km walk around the rim of the crater - Jilli and I were under the impression we were just going to look at the crater, Mum of course had been hiding the fact that she wanted to do the walk. “We’ll just go a little way” she said and set off. Eventually Jilli asked how far - “Well I thought we’d walk half-way round” she said, giggling to herself. Here we mutinied but agreed to climb up the hill to a telephone pylon hiding in the mist to see if we could get a better view. Once at the top, it was absolutely freezing, the wind was howling and the mist was blowing in so we couldn’t even see the crater. Mum threw a strop at not getting to walk all the way around but Jilli pulled the “it’s my last day” card and so we set off back down the mountain! Floundering around in the mist without a clue of where the car was, or even where the crater was. Luckily we made it back down safe and sound! By this time it was actually almost 4pm so far too late to go for the walk anyway.

That evening we went out for dinner (a surprise) to a restaurant in Horta, where you cook your own meat on a hot stone. It was amazing. Mum had the mixed grill with white fish, tuna, squid, shrimps, pork, beef AND chicken. Jilli and I were slightly less adventurous (although I ate mum’s squid) and had four huge steaks to cook. Yum yum yum!!!!

Today Jilli left…. it was very sad and she wrote a last blog post which I will post after some photos.

James arrives on Sunday, Andy arrives on Monday, and we plan to leave Tuesday morning. The weather looks quite good for that at the moment but obviously it can all change!!!

Well we made it across the Atlantic for a second time. Europe greeted us with grey skies, rain, freezing cold temperatures, and (strangely) mosquitos. Having put anchor down at 00.30 and crawled into bed for my first night of unbroken, still sleep, I heard that familiar whining, but was too exhausted to do anything about it so comforted myself with the thought that I was wearing so many thermals as defence against the cold that all would be okay. Needless to say, it covered my face and hands in bites instead. Grrrrrr.

Mosquitos aside, the sailing trip was absolutely fine. A lot more frustrating than the first trip across as we had even less wind, and what wind we did have always came from in front, making it even colder than it would have been anyway. The temperature did make it slightly less enjoyable than the first trip - but our wonderful boat has a raised saloon meaning that it is extremely comfortable (and we can keep watch) from inside - we just made camp on the sofas in our thermals, Jilli watched movies, mum ate chocolate and I read books. All good! 

The best thing about this trip was the wildlife. For the first week we were sailing in sea of Portuguese Man-o-War jellyfish, a different one floating past at least every 5 minutes for a whole week. Dolphins visited us nearly every day, and a few at night, when they are only visible as streaks of glittering bioluminesence. We also saw quite a few whales and lots of birds.

I won’t say too much more about it as we did a daily log - http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled

We are in Horta, a town on the island of Faial, in the Azores. Horta is lovely, all green rolling hills, tiled buildings and tiled pavements. The marina is amazing. It is considered bad luck to leave the Azores without painting a logo of your boat at Horta marina and so every spare inch of concrete is covered in brightly coloured paintings. All over the walls and along the concrete pontoons. We are planning our contribution and really hope it will turn out better than our previous efforts in Gran Canaria! I love transit marinas like this as they are always so busy. Every spare inch is used here in trying to fit in as many boats as possible, and everyone is bustling around fixing sails, cleaning, doing their laundry etc…

Talking of doing laundry, I have now been sat at the laundrette for two and a half hours and we are still not done. Our washing machine has decided to give up on us just when we needed it most! It is run by a very nice Portuguese lady who I have been chatting away to in Spanish as she replies in Portuguese. I’m not sure either of us really understand each other but I keep getting first dibs on the empty machines as she turns other people away and tells them they will have to wait an hour or come back later…

We also made friends with the fuel man when we realised we couldn’t pay him. (he didn’t take card). He came with me to help catch ropes and was telling me about the different skippers he has had in Horta, including one who was “a very big sailor, all the big races, but not a big person, you know, very ice.” I think he was very taken with Mum as a skipper though as he then went on to talk about us - “it is incredible what you do, three women, I mean, not incredible because women can do what men do, because, you know, it is not just a man’s world, but still, incredible.” Bless him. And we have paid him now.

On that note - we have seen no other all-female boats all year, and only two other female skippers from the Arc. Last night we went out to a restaurant that was obviously frequented by yachties - although it was full there were only two other women there!!!

Right - the washing is now done so I better go and fold it before heading back to the boat - it is a beautifully sunny day in Horta today! We are here at least until the beginning of next week, doing some sight-seeing and waiting for James and Andy to arrive. Jilli flies home on Thursday!

Well we are off tomorrow for the Azores. The forecast is not great as it is for very light winds most of the way across so we are buying more canisters so we can carry 100 litres more of fuel (550 overall) - but it is not due to change for over a week and at least there is nothing nasty coming.

There was a chance that Jilli could jump ship in Bermuda but the crew in question only arrived yesterday afternoon after a particularly uncomfortable sail up from the Caribbean so was understandably not keen to leave again immediately! So Jilli is on board for her last trip on Triple D.

We have had some boat problems in the last few days (it was messy, I won’t go into detail) but super-mum fixed some pipes and we seem all ready to go. Just got food to buy and pre-cooking to do.

Bermuda has been lovely and we are so glad we came here, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world! Great atmosphere in St. George’s with all the sailors getting ready to leave, and we are all going to miss walking through the streets saying ‘good morning’ to everyone we see. Its also been great to catch up with all our old ARC friends, who can believe its been five months since we were all together!

Much love and thank yous to the Bermudians that have been so nice and helpful - special mentions to the Scots, Doug at West End yachts and Linda for showing us around the island. We have had such a good time here, but here comes the next adventure… We should be around 2 weeks to the Azores (maybe longer due to the forecast) and we have heard they are also lovely.

EMAIL US!!! And we will be updating our progress on http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled

Hello! I thought i’d give the Darling girls a break and do a little Bermuda blog for them. I have been staying aboard Triple D for 1 week on the beautiful island of Bermuda. There is SO much I could write about but today is my last day here so I want to get out to enjoy the sunshine!!

Upon my arrival Triple D was out of the water at the naval dockyards having some maintenance work done. Once onboard I immediately felt at home as I have stayed on Triple D a couple of times before. It was great to see Trycha, Alice & Jills again - they were all looking very healthy & tanned, Triple D looked great too!! We stayed in the dockyard for a few days where Doug, the marine yard guy, became our tour guide. One of the things that will stick with me about Bermuda is how genuinely friendly & helpful everyone is.

As soon as the boat was back into the water we motored onto St Georges, having lunch along the way & seeing the island from the water which was great. All of the houses here have white roofs which are used to catch the rain water as they don’t have mains water. The actual houses are painted all different colours so the effect is very pretty.

Our first night at St Georges was spent at anchor so we had to get the dinghy ashore & the boat moved around alot more too. We went ashore to meet with some other people who had made friends with Triple D along the way & again everyone was lovely! It seems that if you have a boat/are on a boat then you instantly become friends with other sailors.
The very next morning we managed to get a space alongside the marina wall which made getting on & off the boat MUCH easier.

For those of you who don’t know, the traditional drink of Bermuda is the “Dark & Stormy” which is rum & ginger beer. I have had them before at home but they taste MUCH better in actual Bermuda!! Its probably fair to say that I have drunken my fair share whilst here especially on mine & Alice’s big night out which was great fun, has provided many laughs since & ended with us getting home at 3am!

Thursday was spent sightseeing, we climbed up to the top of Gibbs Lighthouse for views around the island of its amazing turquoise waters & pink sandy beaches.

After lunch we managed to find a secluded beach for a couple of hours relaxing & snoozing in the sun.

Its been really great spending time with Trycha, Alice & Jills especially in
such a beautiful location. There is ALOT more I could write about but the one thing that will stay with me when I think about the week I have spent here is how much FUN & LAUGHTER we have had - oh the stories  I could tell………………. !

ps - Rum Twizzles are also very good!!

Over & Out

Shelly