First day in the Azores

 April 26- 27

Yesterday was a quiet day at sea as we transitioned from Madeira to the Azores. Well, perhaps some would disagree with “quiet”. After having calm seas for nearly all of this voyage, the Atlantic found us, with 10 foot seas and 20 mph winds on the bow quarter, meaning that we didn’t quite “pitch” nor did we quite “roll” but were “in a confused sea” for some of the day and both nights!

Sea days are filled with time outside (or in this case behind windows to stay out of the wind) looking for seabirds and marine mammals and attending talks by our naturalists. One of the presentations was about whaling in the Azores— less the grisly aspects and more a discussion of what happens to a community when its major industry vanishes.  The Azores whaling industry began with the arrival of American whalers in 1765 and grew rapidly.  The advent of electricity and other advances in materials and technology reduced the demand for whale products long before bans were put in place. The impacts on the economy and social hierarchy of small isolated communities was a thought provoking topic. 

On Saturday we arrived at Vila do Porto on Santa Maria in the late morning. Santa Maria is one of the smaller islands of the Azores in both land area (97 sq km) and population (5000) and is the most southeastern one. 

Santa Maria is mostly flat as its volcanos were of the fissure type, and the island spent millennia under the ocean so it has limestone as well as basalt. The island is (desert aside) lush and green with many herds of cattle and sheep. It was the first of the Azores to be discovered by the Portuguese (1427), and a favorite target of pirates. In the 17th century a new town (Vila do Porto) was built around an existing convent and with better defenses. It remains the largest town on the island.

We hiked from the highest point on the island (also the site of the famous 1989 plane crash) to a village down on the sea coast where Columbus attended a thanksgiving mass on his return from the new world in 1493.  We had been told the hike would be a 4 mile loop but it was instead a 6.5 mile linear hike — a great trade as it enabled us to see many different landscapes from forests to meadows to a red (volcanic) sand desert.

Pictured: defensive walls around the 17th century town, red desert, fields of Santa Maria