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Horta is the largest city on the island of Faial in the Azores. It is located on the Southeast corner of the island. There is good natural protection from North, West and South winds with the only exposure being from the Southeast. In the early 1900’s a large construction project created a molle or a protective sea wall on the Southeast side was built creating a very well protected harbor. Since then another molle inside the original wall has been built leaving a very nice, safe harbor that can shelter hundreds of boats. It is a great marina in my opinion. There is plenty of space, the facilities are great and nearly any marine needs can be met somewhere nearby.
The people you meet in the Horta Marina hail from all parts of the planet. Most folks are nice as can be and they have good stories they are more than willing to share. I find a kinship among sailors in Horta not found in other ports. You can strike up a conversation with anyone easily with “How was your crossing?” or “When did you arrive?”. Everyone seems glad to be there and some feel grateful to be alive. If you are willing to listen you will hear some great tales.
There is a tradition among sailors passing through Horta to leave their mark or boat emblem. Tradition says you will have good luck for the rest of your journey if you leave your mark in Horta. I did not care to ask what tradition said would happen if one did not leave a mark. I had no hesitation about leaving a mark.
All of the sidewalks, walls, benches and most any smooth concrete surface is covered with paintings. From a distance it reminds one of graffiti, which I suppose technically it is. The street that runs through the marina is cobblestone and no marks are found on the stones. Some of the sidewalks and patio areas are put together with small black and white stones in varying artistic patterns. This form of construction obviously took a lot of time and effort and is very beautiful. Sailors consider these surfaces off-limits for paintings as well. Nearly any other surfaces are fair game for yacht paintings within the bounds of the marina.
One frequently sees people walking through the area with cameras taking pictures of the paintings. While in the act of painting one gets a chance to meet many people. Almost everyone stops by to see how you are doing. Of course many of them may not speak English very well so you get the universal thumbs-up or thumbs-down sign. It depends.
There were a couple of small children from Argentina, Sophia and her little brother Benji that were trying to paint the mark for their boat. They bummed paint and supplies from other sailors. They had quite a time getting it completed. The first day they completed a small 10x12 inch white “square”. Next to the white square and kind of overlapping it was spilled white paint. The next day they had red. They got it sort of fixed up and only left the small can next to it to block traffic and someone stepped in it and smeared it. The following day they got a hold of some yellow. I found the yellow paint sprayed about 12 feet from the little square in a nice splatter pattern. A taxi had evidently run over it and squashed the can all over the place. I’m not sure if they got a thumbs-up or not but it was fun talking to them about their project. They were quite proud that they did it all by themselves.
As I posted earlier, we also left a painting marking the passage of Koinonia and her crew through Horta. I’ve included in this picture gallery some photos of us working on it. Our painting did not get stepped on or smeared because we did “paint-drying watch” in shifts. Seriously, its’ well documented.
I also included probably too many pictures of some of the paintings I found while wandering around. Each one tells a story. It’s fun to imagine what that story may be and where the story teller may be now.