Island Odyssey: The Azores -- Faial and Pico

We arrived at Horta, the main town on the Azorean island of Faial, after lunch the next day. Off-and-on showers prevailed, but this did not deter our traveling pigs, Thelma and Louise, from taking in the view.

Horta is a major rest and resupply port of call for transatlantic yachts. In the days of wind-powered whaling, ships would depart the United States from New England with a skeleton crew and then recruit Azorean men to finish the crew. These men, at the end of a multi-year whaling voyage, would disembark in New England, which to this day has a large population of Azorean or other Portugese descent.

We boarded our buses for an island tour, and David Stephens, one of our naturalists, took a shine to this trash bin. I took the picture through a water-streaked window.

What tickled his fancy? The label ...

What was really meant was undifferentiated trash -- not aluminum, glass, or another recyclable material.

From a high point we had a view of the town and harbor during a brief pause in the rain.

The rain had eliminated the option of a more strenuous hike over old volcanic fields on the northern side of the island. Instead, we would travel to the site of the 1957-1958 Capelinhos eruption, where there is now a museum, which meant driving to the westernmost point of the island.

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The guide on our bus was of Faial, and not a full-time guide. (Faial derives much less of its income from tourism than the largest island, São Miguel.) I don't know what his day job was, but he favored names and dates -- Sir Walter Raleigh captured and burned Horta in 1597 -- and not so much the natural history of the island. When we arrived at the Capelinhos volcanic site, the rain was blowing horizontally off the sea. Our guide did not make clear to the entire bus that there was a museum here, and many assumed the stop was merely an opportunity to view the volcano or the lighthouse in the rain, which they naturally declined.

Joan and I zipped our rain jackets and bashed on. At first there appeared to be snow or hail mixed in the rain, but it was too warm for that to be true; I later realized that the stiff sea breeze was sucking up small bits of sea foam and blending it with the rain. After perhaps 100 yards/meters we arrived at the entrance to the underground museum, built within the first two stories of the old lighthouse, which were buried in volcanic ash. It was a revelation.

We didn't have enough time to give each exhibit the time it deserved, nor were all the sections open this day (Monday). However, we were able to view a short 3D movie on plate tectonics and vulcanism, and an excellent holographic documentary that compressed the history of the eruption into one or two minutes.

For an American footnote on this volcano, I'll note that, with the ash having devastated agriculture on Faial, over 4000 of the island's inhabitants emigrated to the United States under special immigration exemptions promoted by Senator John Kennedy.

We returned to Horta, where, despite the best efforts of the Lindblad staff, the local guides had inadvertently arranged for at least three of our four buses to arrive at the small whaling museum simultaneously.

The museum was commensurate with the scope of the whaling activity in the Azores, which was a part-time activity engaged in by men who were otherwise farmers, shopkeepers, or dockworkers. A total of about 20,000 whales were killed in the entire history of Azorean whaling, compared to millions in the industrial whaling of the late 19th and 20th centuries. (Whaling stopped in the Azores in 1984 or 1985, when the markets vanished due to US and EU regulations.)

It is difficult to begrudge the Azoreans the whaling that occurred. Life was hard on the islands, and it was a source of income. Further, it was much more of a "fair fight," with men sailing and then rowing up to whales in open boats and throwing harpoons by hand, not iron steamships firing explosive harpoons from guns. Here is a picture of some whaling artifacts from the era.

Lindblad offered us a final activity, a free drink at Peter's Café Sport, the most famous bar in the North Atlantic. Joan and I were tired, and dinnertime was close, so we gave it a pass.

The weather prevented any organized excursions after dinner. Also, due to the unusual direction of the high winds, the port at our next destination, the island of Flores, was closed. The port at the neighboring island, Pico, is too small for the Explorer, and using the zodiacs was out of the question. Other options had been eliminated by a Portugese naval exercise and by a docked asphalt barge. Now, with plans A, B, C, D, and E all eliminated, the flexibility and resourcefulness of the Lindblad staff shone.

For tomorrow morning, there would be two choices. First, to stroll around Horta, and perhaps stop in Peter's Cafe Sport. Second, to embark on an expedition to the close-by island of Pico: to get there, arrangements have been made for the ferry to São Jorge to stop at Pico first for us. To return before lunch, a ferry has been chartered for just our group. The Pico group would visit a whaling museum in the village of Lajes do Pico, and a winery.


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We started with an early breakfast and, for me, 25mg of meclizine due to an unfortunate tendency to seasickness and the obvious roughness of the seas. Here is our ferry.

The fellow in front was our pan-Azorean guide, who had been with us from the beginning of our Azorean visit at São Miguel. He was wonderful, a warm, enthusiastic man, and I wish he could have been on all our buses. And Joan and I think his name was Evaristo. (note to self: take some notes!)

I have no pictures of our crossing to Pico, and for good reason. The boat was gyrating through rough seas and crosswinds. I was concentrating on not becoming sick by sitting very still on the lower deck of the ferry, in fresh air, with my rain jacket keeping the spray off and the meclizine keeping my stomach settled. The ride lasted only 45 minutes, but I was relieved that it took no longer; the only times I have encountered rougher seas, I took two meclizine and lay down flat!

I also succeeded in keeping most of the spray off my glasses. Glasses wearers hate spots, and salt water leaves opaque blobs, not translucent ones.

Our bus brought us to the harbor in Lajes.

The whaling museum was a pleasant surprise, new and much larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. Joan and I could have spent much more time working methodically through its exhibits and artifacts than was allotted, forcing us to make choices about what to study and what to breeze by.

After we had been inside for a few minutes the attendant rushed in to tell us emphatically of a "No Pictures!" policy. I put my camera back in its case, but had already taken pictures of one of the highlights of the museum, a whaling boat built in the traditional manner. Every little part has a particular function.

Before leaving Lajes I noticed this sign. With whale killing unprofitable, tourism (and whale watching) is a nascent industry.

On our way back we stopped at the winery, a cooperative run by the island. They have a web site, which is in Portugese, but has some photos that are good regardless of language.

The gale-force Atlantic winds that frequently scour the Azores make growing grapes a challenge. At Pico they are not trained to grow high, but shelter behind low stone walls and spread along the ground.

Inside, modern stainless steel vats are used.

Only a low-volume bottling line is needed. I don't know how many cases a year they produce.

We happily accepted tastings of two of their several wines, what they called 'less dry' and 'more dry.' The 'less dry' would definitely be a dessert wine, while the 'more dry' might be more of an apéritif. These beverages had an amber, rather than purple, color.

Our return to Horta was bouncy but gentler than going over. Joan even journeyed to the upper deck for the crossing while I repeated my statue imitation on the open portion of the lower deck. We had lunch on the calmly berthed Explorer, which afterwards began sailing towards the northeast. We would now have three days at sea without landfall.

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.