Remember that post about amazing passages? Then there’s the other type…..

We left Sao Miguel with a crappy forecast of light inconsistent winds. After a few hours of motor-sailing we did manage to get some nice wind, and we were able to sail for 8 hours or so.

Then the wind died and it was back to motoring. Then the squalls hit. The first had no wind and came on fast with drenching rain. Trip was in jeans and a wool sweater, he needed to change first, and I was soaked to the skin by the time he came back into the cockpit. The next few squalls brought more rain. I went below to rest, only to need to pop up when the winds hit. I was wearing my bib overalls, but didn’t have time to put my jacket on and so got another proper drenching.

It turns out Terceira experienced significant landslides with all this rain, but luckily no one was injured.

The sun finally came out and we were 5 miles from Horta when the engine started making strange noises and water stopped coming out of the exhaust. Crap. We killed the engine, I set the jib to take advantage of the breath of wind we were getting. The riser to the mixing elbow had cracked again. Crap.

Over the next two hours, in the broiling sun and stuffy engine room, we managed to cut off the broken bit, really-screw the riser in, and re-attach the elbow. In between, we each managed to miss a step, fall and bruise our arms and/or backs. Then we crossed our fingers, held our breaths, and re-started the engine. An hour later, just as the sun was setting, we limped into Horta and anchored in the last bit of daylight. I foraged for pasta for dinner and we hung up everything soaked (and there was a lot) to dry.

Some days cruising just plain sucks and hurts. (But the good still outweighs the bad).