Island Odyssey: The Azores -- São Miguel

The next day (May 7, 2011) was spent sailing towards the Azores, a welcome slow day after the exciting and busy time on Madeira. Activities included the mandatory safety drill, introduction of lecturers and staff, a presentation on the history and geology of the Azores, and our delayed Welcome Cocktails.

Our first port of call in the Azores would be Ponta Delgada, on the largest island, São Miguel.


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We approached the island in the morning light of May 8.

Ten minutes after I took the snapshot above, the Explorer encountered a blue whale. The numbers of the blue whale are starting to recover from near extinction due to whaling, but such a rendezvous is still rare in the North Atlantic. The naturalists were ecstatic to see a member of the species thought to be the largest animal ever to exist on Earth, including the dinosaurs!

Some guests hope to see jumping or breaching, but that behavior is limited to a few whales, including the well-known humpback and the diminutive (for a whale) minke. For most others, such as the fin or our blue whale above, the blowhole and the back are only body parts that rise above the water. Here is our crowd watching the show.

Both afternoon options took place at an extinct volcanic crater, Sete Cidades. The milder choice was a walk along the shores of one of the lakes, below, and the other choice was a hike on the rim of the crater.

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The hike on the rim started at a parking lot/observation area that was just below an abandoned luxury hotel.

The trail is really a tertiary dirt road; we did have the occasional passing small car or tractor.

The next photo zooms into the caldera, where the two main lakes (Green and Blue, or Lagoa Verde and Lagoa Azul) reside. Down there, on the peninsula, is where the gentler walk took place.

The other slope of the volcano runs down to the sea, supporting small towns and farmsteads.

As we walked we heard sporadic booming noises, reminiscent of cannons being fired. There was no obvious smoke, and some of the sounds came from inside as well as outside the caldera. Finally, I asked our local guide what was happening. The answer was that it was the second Sunday after Easter, and many of the small villages were having fireworks or processions. Apparently these mini-festivals are held for several Sundays after Easter.

The noises didn't perturb these cattle as they browsed. I wonder if they prefer clockwise or counterclockwise grazing?

Our hike covered perhaps a third of the old, worn rim of the crater; the ups and downs weren't challenging. We rejoined our bus, which descended to the town (also called Sete Cidades) for a brief stop. There was a motorcycle club at the canteen across the street, complete with aggressively decorated leather jackets, so several of us investigated the church instead. There was a picnic waiting for us at the lakeside anyway; this was a merely a bathroom break.

The interior of the church.

Our bus paused for several minutes before entering the final road to the picnic; the other group's buses had to leave first because this road could not accept traffic from both directions at once. The site itself was attractive, a few yards from the shore of Lagoa Azul.

The picnic was a feast; it could have substituted for dinner. Still being in Portugese territory, wine was of course included. I tasted a local wine, made on another Azorean island, Pico. I didn't know that I would see unusual vineyards there in a couple of days! 

Here is one of three tables (two for food, one for beverages) after both groups had eaten their fill. I tried a sample of everything, and ate a second piece of several items.

The ground was too soft for our bus to finish turning around -- it got stuck. Here the driver hopes that a simple piece of cardboard will suffice to gain traction. It didn't work.

More sophisticated methods having failed, the bus was finally freed by a dozen volunteers laying on hands and rocking it forward and backward in synchrony with the driver. We did leave our mark on the picnic ground.

This bird seems suspicious of my intentions. I'm just interested in your picture, honey.

Soon after arriving back at the Explorer, we were easing out of the harbor with the aid of a local pilot, and on our way to our next Azorean island, Faial. Here is my photo looking back to Ponta Delgada.

The clouds were beginning to increase. 

Island Odyssey: Final Day of Madeira

The first stop on our last day was the Funchal Market. All four of our Lindblad group buses stopped here first, and we weren't the only tourists or tour group, so the Market was packed. But it is one of the places one must see, and it exemplifies the three Fs of Maderia -- flowers, fish, and fruit. Lots of fruit.

The fish market was in a separate section, and we barely had time to visit ...

... but we were finally saw the black scabbard fish, a citizen of deep waters (600 to 1600 meters) and considered a Madeiran delicacy. We tried it during this trip and found it a good, slightly sweet white-fleshed fish. However, it looks ferocious, as do so many of the creatures who live in the dark, deeper ocean.

After the market the group had options. Joan and I were among the those that had chosen the walk on the Sao Lourenco Peninsula. This peninsula forms the easternmost trip of the island, and is much drier than the rest, for which we would today be thankful.

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At the parking area Jim Kelly gave us the geological explanation for pillow lava -- mounds that form from underwater extrusion of lava.

The Sao Lourenco walk has a well-marked, there and back again trail, with much winding and going up and down (just look at the map above!). This gives the fast, "how far can I go" walkers plenty of legroom, while avid birdwatchers can find a good place to sit. Joan and I occupy the middle ground, neither too fast to see things, nor too slow to get somewhere. We learned early on from Karen Copeland, a Lindblad naturalist, to always take your binoculars whenever you go on such trips. In fact, the first corollary of her rule is to take binos everywhere, even including the dining room on board ship, for you never know when a whale or other creature might be spotted.

The rocks and the sea make a strong contrast. These two rock formations, one in front of the other, also make a strong contrast!

From this point, as far as Joan and I hiked, you can just see at left the final islet.

There was some occasional light drizzle. We were much better off than the other buses, towards the middle of the island, where we later learned the rain had been torrential.

After the hike we lunched in the nearby town of Caniçal, and returned to Reid's Palace to finish packing our luggage and clean up before dinner. Joan and I also took a turn through the gardens at Reid's. One of the first things I noticed was the replica of the Santa Maria, Columbus' largest ship, sailing in front of a stiff breeze; they took her out, I imagine, as part of the Flower Festival. It pitched and bobbed; I would have needed a double dose of seasickness medication. (This is not our ship, the National Geographic Explorer.)

This is a good example of the floral exuberance at Reid's. It's also the only photo I took.

We finished our packing. During this time, a Very Large Ship  (not ours!) left the harbor.

Dinnertime arrived, and our group was seated again in the formal dining room. Both Reid's and Lindblad had been nimble, given that our group had needed a 12 hour extension of our stay at the hotel. Then we left Reid's for the last time, and boarded our buses for the harbor. There she was!

It took some time to get all the passengers aboard, and to conduct the champagne reception. We departed Madeira in complete darkness. The lights of Funchal were a tempting scene, even if I had only a point-and-shoot camera. If I took enough pictures, my hand might be steady enough for one good one.

This interesting shot looks back along the Explorer.

Having undergone a complete rebuild a handful of years ago from her previous incarnation as a Norwegian coastal ferry, the Explorer has a wonderful library and observation lounge on the top deck. You can see the windows at left, and you'll see the interior in a later post. The fully enclosed lifeboats are impressive. The Explorer's wake has a ghostly appearance because of the long exposure time.

I held up well during the reception and taking pictures, but by the time we went to bed, now exposed to long swells in the Atlantic, I decided to observe the maxim of safety first, and took one seasickness tablet after lying in my bed for a few minutes. I find tablets much preferable to patches because I can vary or even skip the dose with a tablet, depending on the weather and my sea-legs.

After a full day on the broad ocean, the morning after next would find us approaching the Azores.

Island Odyssey: Madeira Day 2

The second day on Madeira dawned clear, in great contrast to the previous day.

There were again two choices for the day's activities. Joan and I passed on the boat ride to the nearby (uninhabited) Desertas Islands, and picked the bus tour, which would take us up to the second highest peak, Pico do Arieiro. Perhaps it was the good weather, or another unpredictable factor, but our bus made an unexpected stop at an agricultural research station. Although tourism is now Madeira's single largest source of income, agriculture is still important, and the island has a different climate zone every few hundred meters of altitude. Here seedlings are being started in a greenhouse.

Grafting citrus onto hardy rootstock is one of the activities of this center. Here is one top-onto-bottom technique.

This sequence shows a different side-splicing technique.

The workers who do the grafting are paid per successful graft, so they are both skilled and fast. Next, a greenhouse for tropical trees:

This view from the research station shows how intensely terraced the lower elevations of Madeira are, for agricultural purposes.

The guide/researcher at this station had an interesting story for us. We had observed, while walking in, banana trees with blue plastic around the young fruit. It turns out that EU regulations require export-quality bananas to be at least 15 cm (6 inches) long, and the exquisitely sweet and densely flavored Madeiran bananas are short. The heat of the blue plastic encourages them to grow long enough for export, but weakens their flavor. Another example of well-intentioned regulations going awry!

From the research station the bus went up and around, up and around, and up until we reached the top of Pico do Arieiro.

A new radar dome and gift shop/visitors center were not yet complete.

Looking back at the unfinished gift shop from the viewpoint at the top. This mountain does as all mountains do, and creates clouds as the warm sea air is lifted up more than a mile high.

Looking out at a further viewpoint, with which we would become acquainted in the dark of the night. Down and to the left you can barely see the Nuns' Valley, where the nuns (and presumably church valuables) of the island would flee during pirate attacks in the 16th Century.

You can see large stretches of bare or reseeded ground in the above photos. This is due to a large fire in August of 2010, as shown in this NASA photo.

Sadly, this fire was arson, not accidental or natural, and aimed at the Funchal Ecologial Park, a preserve of about 1000 hectares, or 2500 acres. The guides that we had during our visit would speak about it with varying degrees of openness. What we gathered is that the creation of the Park, with the aim of restoring native vegetation to a small portion of the island, angered the ranchers who could no longer graze their livestock within the Park. Fires started at several locations simultaneously, implying that several individuals were involved. Only one was brought to trial, and his only punishment was to wear a tracking bracelet and check in with the police a few times a year. The guides often used the word "politics" to describe the situation. The fire was also made worse by the Madeiran authorities, who at first were confident that they could handle the blaze themselves, and declined help that had been offered by mainland Portugal.

We wound down, down, and down for lunch at the Quinta do Furao. Madeira has excellent modern roads and a plethora of tunnels, supporting both tourism and the local population, who in the not so distant past would travel from town to town by boat rather than overland. The island has benefited greatly from the EU policies of subsidizing infrastructure in less developed areas. The sign for our lunch stop:

The Quinta do Furao has a small wine shop and bar, and extensive meeting and dining facilities. Here is a glimpse of the grounds from our parking area.

After a taste of Madeiran wine, we check out an antique wine press. (Wine was also included in the meal, of course.)

Following lunch we stopped at Santana, a reconstructed village of traditional thatched houses. The buildings now contain a post office, gift shop, artisan demonstrations, and so forth.

On the way back to Reid's Palace we saw the other side of Eagle Rock.

Dinner that evening was a poolside (but indoors) buffet at Reid's.

Joan and I had signed up for the optional evening excursion, departing at 9PM for Pico do Arieiro to listen to the calls of the Zino's Petrel, a pelagic seabird (it returns to land only to breed), the most endangered bird in Europe, which nests only in mountaintop cliffs on Madeira. Originally the excursion was limited to 20 persons, but there was such demand that it was expanded to 32 or so. The young ecologists leading us were obviously eager to spread the word about the petrel.

Zino's Petrels were hit hard by the fire of August 2010; according to our guides, the entire chick population was killed and several adults perished. Conservationists over the world are praying for good luck in the 2011 breeding season, especially because the burrow sites are now burned over.

Being driven to the top of the mountain in the dark was an adventure in itself. We were enveloped in fog for the last several miles, and our van began to fog up as we continued to exhale and the outside air grew colder and colder. The guide either said that the condensation was not frost, or that the van did not have a defroster: I was two rows back and he was difficult to hear. He wiped the inside of the windshield with a cloth instead. We made it to the parking area without incident, along with the other three vans. The radar dome and other structures were invisible in the dark and the fog.

We suited up. Some brought flashlights, and some, including Joan and me, brought headlights. Hats, gloves, jackets -- yes. I had long underwear beneath my hiking pants, and was glad of it. It was only April, after all, and we were 6,000 feet up! After setting out our party became a long string of illuminated circles bobbing across the ground. We came to the observation area, sat down, and tried to stay quiet.

Our guides helped us ignore the first calls we heard, of the more common manx shearwater. Then we could focus on the cries of the Zino's Petrels, which make a haunting, warbling wail. The local shepherds have a legend that these are the sounds of the souls of lost shepherds, and it's plausible.

Lights appeared in the distance ahead, where we had been staring without seeing. They grew closer, and we wondered (silently) who this might be. It turned out to be a pair of park rangers conducting a burrow survey of the petrels. After our guides verified their credentials, making sure that they were not egg snatchers, the rangers passed through our group and were gone.

The fog, or clouds, really, began to thin as the time passed. Occasionally a star could be seen, and then some lights of a village far below to the right. I did not keep track of the time; I just tried to sit quietly and experience the sounds of the petrels. I was glad I dressed warmly. Some of my comrades were wishing for another layer.

The guides decided it was time to go back to the unfinished gift shop, where we found a spot mostly out of the wind, and huddled on some steps for hot tea, cookies, and a presentation on the petrels and other conservation work in Madeira. It was a very modern presentation. Two of the guides stood in front of us, each with an iPad held out for us to see. As one guide narrated the tablets were used to flick from image to image (a gentleman of a certain age, such as myself, would say from slide to slide).

After the refreshments and presentation, we hurtled down the mountain in the vans. Our driver took a couple of small detours so that he could slow the van without damaging the very hot brakes. We arrived back at Reid's just before 1 AM, and very happy that the schedule had changed again.

Yes, the schedule had changed again. Originally the plan for tomorrow was that our luggage must be outside the door of the room by 6:30 AM, and, for the option Joan and I had chosen, the departure was 8:00 AM. However, during dinner before the petrel excursion, we were informed that the Explorer was running late.

As usual, the Lindblad staff handled one more surprise adroitly. If we could not board the Explorer at 3PM, we would have another dinner at Reid's palace! Luggage would not have to be outside the room until late afternoon, except for a few unlucky individuals whose room was already promised to an arriving guest; these persons would be given a different room. And our morning excursion would not start until 9:00 AM, a very welcome turn of events for us petrel watchers, who now got an extra hour of sleep.

Tomorrow would be another busy day.