On Second Thought, by Amy Jordan and Roger Block, Boston Station
O
ver the years, our favorite cruising has usually involved tropical settings, trade-wind passages, and remote anchorages. Given this history, how did we end up bundled in a thick quilt in Shango’s v-berth on a windy and rainy 40-degree day in August, rafted up with a stranger in a harbor filled with hundreds of other boats in Dartmouth, England? Even stranger, how was it that we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves? It all started in the fall of 2018, just as hurricane season was coming to an end. Shango was safely on the hard at Shelter Bay Marina in Panama. We were trying, with some difficulty, to decide on our next season’s cruising destination. It was during these deliberations that an email arrived from friends who described their loose plans to spend the winter in the Bahamas, then head to Bermuda and the Azores in the late spring of 2019. Would we be interested? We had always enjoyed cruising with them, whether in Fiji, South Africa, Maine, or Nova Scotia, and it would also involve new cruising grounds for us. We didn’t have a clue about where we would go after the Azores, but there would be plenty of warm destinations to choose from—Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean. We had the makings of a plan. After leaving Panama, we spent an enjoyable winter in the Bahamas. May 2019 found us in St. George’s, Bermuda, waiting for a weather window to head for the Azores. Our two weeks in Bermuda had been great. Les Crane (BDA) had graciously made us welcome at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club for the length of our stay. Then, as often happens in cruising, the unexpected occurred, and our friends needed to head back to New England. Sadly, Shango would be heading to the Azores without them.
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