Finally on land, after the storm...

On Sunday evening (03.06), as everyday we listened to Herb in the SSB radio. He is talking with boats and give them weather information. Lucky us, there was one boat called “Pinocio” very close to us most of the days so their report fit us also. Herb said that a srorm (even more than a storm, a hurricane force is getting closer to the Azores islands and we better arrive to Horta until Wednesday morning. We had left then 240 miles and we had 2.5 days. We continued sailing and on Monday morning when the wind became weaker we started the engine and calculated that in 36 hours we will be in Horta, just before the storm begins. On Monday evening I wished Assaf “Enjoy your last night watch”, but it was a mistake to say it because on 2 AM Tuesday we heard that the engine stopped and Bosse shouting “Shit”. We came immediately to replace him and he went to try and fix it. It was raining a lot and it’s not fun at all to sit and steer in heavy rain. We knew we will not make it to Horta in time before the storm only with the sails (we were only 77 miles from there) because our direction was North East and the wind came from that direction so we couldn’t sail fast so we changed direction to East, hopefully the engine will be fixed soon. After 8 hours of working on the engine, he gave up so we just kept sailing east and we didn’t know what to do with the fact that the storm is getting closer. The next morning Bosse saw a ship near us and talked with them in the VHF radio to get a weather report. They told us they think it’s ok to sail to Horta because the storm will arrive only the day after. It was good news for us and we started to sail back to Horta but it was not easy because now we had to sail North and the wind was again against us. As the hours passed, the wind became stronger and the Barometric pressure kept decreasing rapidly which usually means the winds become stronger. In the evening we already had winds of 30 knots and in the night it raised to 40 knots which is very strong wind, it means that we got into the storm but from some reason we didn’t change direction (the captain makes the decisions…). The waves were very high and against us and they bit the boat so hard that it sounded like they are going to break it (but the body’s boat is very strong) and I didn’t feel good from it so I just stayed inside my sleeping bag most of the day (when I was not vomited) and Assaf took the night watch instead of me. At around 7 in the morning we suddenly broached, which means the boat got a big wave from the side and it knocked down almost 90 degrees into the water (the mast touched the water). Assaf was sitting in his watch in the leaving room and flew to the other side of the boat and hit his head in the ceiling. no damage occurred to him but he was in shock for some minutes. I was in my sleeping bag and flew to the other side of the room which is very small so it was not much but I didn’t understand what is going on, where is up and where is down and I saw lots of water in the boat. I was sure the boat is going to sink, so as soon as I could I stood up, put my rain pants and coat and as an instinct, I put on me the water proof bag with the passports and wallets. After few minutes we understood the boat is not going to sink and for now we will not find ourselves waiting in the life raft for some ship to see us one day… but we also found out that so many things were damaged or lost and we were frightened that something like that will happen again because the storm didn‘t pass yet. Accept for the engine that didn’t work already for 2 days, the sails were ripped, we lost the navigation lights, the wind vane (self steering device), one solar panel, all the drinking water were spilled from the tank (we had left just 80 litres in the spare jerikans), the SSB radio (our only way to communicate for long distance) was burned because water came into it. The only thing we had left working was the VHF radio that works for short distances (distance you can see), so we decided to try and call for help every 15 minutes but because we lost one of 2 solar panel, the electricity was low and we had to decrease the callings. In that time, the waves were huge and the only reasonable thing to do was just going with the wind. We were around 58 miles from Horta (so close…) and for the next 24 hours Assaf and Bosse made turns of steering with the wind and I called for help in the VHF every 20 minutes, all day and all night. We were so terrified, we didn’t have sails and the waves were huge and we were afraid we will not see a land again in the next period, if at all. It’s very scary to be in that situation and not be able to inform anyone about it. On Friday morning the waves began to be lower and we changed the main sail to a spare one which was weaker and we had another small storm sail (that was there already before the storm and was not ripped) so we hoped for not having strong winds (because the sails were not strong enough for strong winds and we were not mentally ready for a storm again…) and started to sail again to Horta with 150 miles left (the waves took us south 100 miles in 1 day). The winds were still against us so on Saturday morning Bosse decided to change our destination to the island Sao Miguel which is more north east and we could sail faster. We didn’t want to make any plans for the arrival because we were afraid it will not happen, but of course each one of us thought so much about the moment we will step on land. And on Sunday 12.00 it happened! We arrived to the port of Punta Delgada and intended to get into marina because we had so many damages to the boat and the best way to fix it is to be inside marina, but we didn’t have a motor, so first we saw fisherman boat and they dragged us to a dock but it was a big ships dock so immediately policemen arrived and started to investigate us for an hour, which was the last thing we had energies for…, we just wanted to get into the marina. After that 3 small boats came and were very nice and towed us into the marina (we had to convince the marina people we really need to be there because they were full, but eventually we managed) so finally around 2PM on Sunday, 10.06, after 25 days at sea and a very unpleasant experience, we were on the island.
Happy end…