Our Atlantic Crossing - USVI's to Bermuda to the Azores to Portugal / Spain

Animated Chart of our Crossing

Trinidad -> B equia -> Gaudaloupe -> USVI -> Bermuda -> Azores -> Portugal

Summer 2003

	Nautical Miles	Passage Time	Engine Hours	Average Speed	Average Daily Distance
USVI to Bermuda	842	4D 6H	23	8.25	198
Bermuda to Azores	1843	9D 19H	65	7.84	188
Azores to Portugal	802	5D	49	6.68	160
Totals	3837	19D 1H	137	7.59	182

We have broken our Trans-Atlantic crossing into 4 steps.

Click Below to see details:

USVI´s to Bermuda:

Bermuda to the Azores:

Azores to Portugal:

Portugal - Gibraltar - Spain, Including the Balearics:

We wintered in Barcelona. To see Barccelona, click here!

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We flew our Spinnaker several days in the crossing. Becuase of the potential threat of numerous, localized squalls, we took the Spinnaker down in the evenings.

Our Atlantic Crossing (Summer 2003)

USVI´s to Bermuda:

After general provisioning, we sailed over to St. John's to spend a few relaxing/remaining days before our departure to Bermuda. Our friends from Pagent, Dave & Harriet, were there and it was nice to catch up on news and events with them. The last we had seen them was a year nearlier in the Bahamas.

Harriet, Dave and Karen in Warwick Wells, Bahamas

USVI to Bermuda... The trip was excellent. We had a high pressure system North of us and the ridge associated with that system kept moving North as we did. The result is that we had great broad reaching winds and clear skies almost all the way to Bermuda. We made it in a little over 4 days, doing over 200 miles/day 3 of those days. We stayed in Bermuda for several weeks. Bermuda is a great island to visit. It was Karen's first chance to get to know the island.

Selected Scenes in Bermuda

John Buxton joined us in Bermuda to sail the Azores leg

Tim McCormick, Editor Cruising World, Dan and Steve Pettingill

sharing a brew and good times at the

Bermuda Dinghy Club

Bermuda to the Azores:

Flash Pictures of places visited in the Azores

Bermuda to the Azores... Another fast passage, this time done with a 4th person on board. Yes, Josh counts as a person. At least he thinks so... John Buxton, our friend from Annapolis, joined us for this part of the crossing. Being able to split the watches between 3 people sure made standing our watches nice and gave us all ample opportunity to stay well rested. Again the weather was great and we were able to sail an "S" shaped course that kept us in good wind for 8 of the 9 days. Again we did several 200+ mile days. We made the Azores without incident. Note: The chart projection on the right somewhat distorts the appearance of the "S" shaped course.

The Azores

The Azores is composed of 9 islands. We spent aboutr 6 weeks there and visited 7 of the 9 islands. Some of our adventures in those islands is given below.

Provisioning for the Atlantic/Azores Leg

Details - Western Half of Azores

Flores is located in the upper left hand corner. Folowing our course line from there you have Faial (Horta), Pico and Sao Jorge. We bypassed Corvo and Graciosa.

Our first stop was Flores (pronounced "Florishhhh".) A very beautiful island with lots of waterfalls and flowers growing everywhere. The beaches were rocky. We found this to be the case for all of the Azores. From Flores, we went to Horta where John left us to go back home to his MAJOR home refurbishing project.

We painted our logo on the wall at Horta. That turned out to be a bigger project than expected but we were very pleased with the results. It will be interesting to see how long the logo remains before being eroded away. The logo is about 5 feet wide.

A selection of ship's logos from the walls of Horta, Faial, the Azores

Dan and Colin raced Colin's Tartan Sailboat as a team in the Around Horta Sail Boat race sponsored by the Horta Yacht Club (Club Nautico). They took first place, beating the nearest competitor by over 3 hours.

We also visited Pico, San Miguel, Santa Maria, and Sao Jorge islands. Each is unique and sufficiently different from each other. The food, typically Portuguese fare, was OK but certainly didn't rank high on the culinary venue. French fried potatoes seemed to be the main staple of their diet.

Details - Eastern Half of Azores

Sao Jorge is located in the Upper left hand corner. Following the route, we have Terciera, Sao Miguel and Santa Maria

Flowers in Sao Jorge, Azores

Farmer's wagon in Sao Miguel, Azores

Azores to Portugal:

Azores to Portamao, Portugal... This was the hardest part of the trip because we wound up bucking a 25 knot North East wind, gusting higher, while being shoved in the wrong direction by the Portuguese current. We wound up beating into choppy, uncomfortable seas which lasted until we made landfall. It had been reported to us that there was a lot of shipping traffic near the coast and that we would be inundated with it. We saw very little traffic. I guess we were lucky. That leg of the trip took a little over 5 days.

Dakare & Marnie at anchor in the harbor of Santa Maria, Azores

Santa Maria is the most SE island in the chain and it is not visited much by yachts although it does enjoy a good tourist trade by plane. The anchoring was tight but more yachts could be accommodated. We learned, that thanks to EU money, a new marina was to be built in this harbor. From Santa Maria, we had to head back North, after giving up that northing to head South to Santa Maria. This actually increase the amount of time it took us to reach Portugal, even though we (Santa Maria) were a bit farther East.

Our first landfall on the Portuguese coast was Portimao, just beyond Cape Saint Vincent and Logos.

Scenes from Portimao in Portugal

Click here to see another Website with more detail on the Azores.

Portugal - Gibraltar - Spain, Including the Balearics:

From Portamao we visited Lagos with L'ame Libre - by car. A very nice place where many cruising hang out after making the Atlantic crossing. Some never leave. We did and we headed to Gibraltar, making a few overnight stops along the way. While in Gibraltar, we took a ferry to Morocco. It was an interesting trip. We very much enjoyed walking around in the markets of Tetoaun. We like Tetouan better than Tangiers.

From Gibraltar we made our way NE up to Cartagena, Spain and from there we crossed over to the Balearics (Spelled Baleares by the locals) and enjoyed a short stay in Ibeza and Mallorca before heading over to Barcelona, Spain where we are spending the Winter.

Straights of Gibraltar

Upon our arrival in the Med we experienced a Levanter (One of the many strong winds that blows in the Med) while approaching Gibraltar. Out of nowhere, the wind picked up to a sustained 40 knots with gusts to 50. It was quite a thrill and not a problem as we were close to making Gibraltar and were soon out of it. It was great fun while it lasted, even if a bit hair raising! During our Camper trip to Tuscany and Provence (See our webpage on Tuscany & Provence), we experienced a Marin wind in the Gulf of Leon, usually known for their Mistrals. In this case it was a Marin since the wind was blowing out of the SE onto shore. As proof, (See the wind surfing movie on our Movies webpage) our camper van was covered with salt. The winds of the Med have been named by many nationalities since ever... and the plethora of names attests to it. Below is a map that shows the various winds and where they are located.

The Winds of the Med

Wind Chart taken from Mediterranean Cruising Magazine, published by Yachting Monthly, June 1998 Supplement

Side Trip to Morocco

We walked over to Spain from Gibraltar where we could catch a high speed ferry to Morocco. The chart below shows our route by ferry from Algeciris, Spain to Cueta, Spain. From Cueta we took a bus to Tetuoan and then we went to Tangiers.

Gibraltar is located in the upper right hand corner as is Algecira, Spain, the starting point for the ferry. We took it to Cueta, Spain on the North African continent. Cueta is roughly located midway on the right hand side of the chart . From there we went to Tetuoan and Tangiers, located in the large bay in the lower left hand side of the chart - follow the route.

Some scenes from Gibraltar

The Spanish habor at Cueta. Cueta is Spain's last outpost on the North African continent.

Cueta, Spanish Port of Entry into North Africa. From here, we took a bus to Tetuoan and Tangiers

Moroccan Flag

Some colorful scenes from Morocco

I never thought it would happen!

Karen is overwhelmed!!!

There's just too many shoes!!!

Some more scenes from Morocco

Your standard snake charmer hard at work

for all those tourist dollars

A new definition of a hardware store

And of course, you have your standard rug shops

(What would Morocco be with rug shops?)


Selling Rugs	Joshua testing

From Gibraltar we made our way NE up to Cartagena, Spain and from there to Alicante where we then crossed over to the Balearics (Spelled Baleares by the locals) and enjoyed a short stay in Ibiza and Mallorca before heading over to Barcelona, Spain where we are spending the Winter.

We cruised from Mazagon (not shown) to Barbate where we timed our departure to obtain favorable tides into Gibraltar. From Gibraltar, we did an overnight trip, approximately 250 Nautical Miles, to Cartagena, Spain. Cartegena, Spain is a beautiful city (See below). From there, we departed for Alicante. That was the most expensive marina we stayed at - we stayed there only one day. We did the Portimao to Alicante trip in company with L'ame Libre. We departed company after Alicante so we could visit the Balearics before our planned arrival in Barcelona. Due to scheduling demands, L'ame Libra headed more or less direct to Barcelona.