Days Gone By

Do you remember the Famous Five adventures? Five Go to Mystery Moor and Five Go Off to Camp were my favourite stories because they were the most nocturnal. Well, you won’t believe it, but tonight I lived through exactly that sort of adventure, the kind where somebody...

I do not believe that anyone in my position could avoid wondering about Captain Jackdaw’s mysterious companions. First there was the misanthropic lighthouse keeper and the extravagant Captain Ed, then our travelling companion on the voyage to Horta, the adventurous...

A week of rest in Santa Maria was enough to restore our energy after the transatlantic adventure between Sagres and Vila do Porto. So much so that the voyage to Faial feels like a genuine weekend outing, with a gentle five-knot breeze offshore. The conditions are...

We spent the weekend recovering from our seasickness. The day after arriving I was still aching all over, but we went out to stretch our legs and explore the village. It is a settlement nestled lengthwise along a narrow valley, with three or four streets running from...

Prepare yourself for another ride on the fantasy carousel... Our arrival in Santa Maria was anything but conventional. And it wasn't just because we'd spent a week trapped in the monotony of the sea, with nothing to look at but waves and the same faces day after day....

"Seamanship is as much fortune-telling as it is science." That was my outburst when we finally caught sight of the lights of Vila do Porto, and I was immediately rebuked. "Everything that happened during our voyage could have been predicted if we had all the necessary...

Surrounded by water on every side, it seems odd to say that the last two days of the voyage have been painfully dry. The culprit, however, is the lack of wind... In an attempt to escape the depression – the very same one that apparently caused small tornadoes back on...

I feel that now the adventure truly begins. Like turning the first pages of a novel, when the analytical mind weighs every sentence while quietly measuring the promise of the chapters still to come, I have spent these first days trying to understand the meaning of...

The first week after departure, and the travel plan is already at risk of being changed. Everything went smoothly until we reached the port of Baleeira, by Cape Sagres, around lunch hour. It had been 93 peaceful miles, calm enough to allow for deep sleep. As Nómada...

There’s a kind of hesitant calm when night falls over the sea. To me, it feels like a remnant of childhood, when my parents would switch off the bedroom light and I’d lie there in the dark, watching the faint shadows made by the light slipping through the crack in the...

I’ve just got home after meeting Silva. It was as if I had returned to the crime scene. He was waiting for me at Adega dos Frades, on the ground floor of the same building of the boarding house. Doesn’t it ever feel when you go somewhere familiar as you’re returning...

Sorry for the interruption. I have more news, but I’ll tell it later. Let me finish this while it’s still clear in my head, before the details start slipping away. You’ve probably realised it already. It was a night that did not belong to this world. And the worst of...

Sorry for the interruption again, it was the building manager. He came to deliver the building regulations, a dense document filled with minor precepts. Only the typical fondness for formalities, so often displayed by those in minor positions of authority, can explain...

Sorry for the interruption, it was a call from my boss. She says she wants to speak to me in person, probably to fire me. The thing is, yesterday, after she sent me that message, I really did end up not sending her the work. I’ll explain, let me try to pick up the...

Have you ever tried to tell someone about something that happened to you, only to realise you have to go much further back just to make sense of it? That’s why I’m asking for your patience as you read this email, this long account. The past 24 hours have been so...