Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Island, Azores:

Friday October 9th

We got the ship docked and began getting everything ready for the seascouts. We dragged “Heavy Defender” our giant fender into the water and then I reached up to undo the flag halyard. As I reached up my back decided it was game over, knotted up, and I fell to one knee in pain. For an hour I was up on the bow trying to stretch out my back, but having now luck. Several people gave me a hand. I swallowed a bunch of pain killers and spent another hour stretching and hobbling around. I was hell bent on not letting this damn thing ruin my time on the Azores. It took a while. and I didn’t completely feel better for a week, but I got it under enough control that I could move around.

I took a quick walk with Zach to check the area out, bought some snacks at a local grocery, and came back to the ship. The head of the seascouts is buddies with the mayor (apparently the whole island runs on connections)  and so that mayor got us a bus with seascout tour guides. We got a very nice bus and a 5 hour tour of the West end of the island including several beautiful crater lakes.

The whole island is like a large land crammed down into miniature. Tiny valleys, hills, meadows, forests, mountains and so many farms or tiny villages.  I have rarely seen a more scenic land with vistas everywhere and no building seemingly under 200 years old. We came back for a lovely barbeque and then went out for drinks. We had seen poster for an Azorean Heavy Metal Music Festival which happened to be free and next to the ship for 2 days. I went to see what it was about and had a grand time.

Saturday October 10th

Today was our sail with the seascouts. They were all extremely excited to be onboard and we had a beautiful day despite a rainy beginning. First we did an on deck program with the little kids and did aloft training with the older kids. We had some kids drag cannons around and a kid or two ride them which they absolutely loved. I helped with the aloft training and even the kids who were scared powered through it, I was impressed. Enough people spoke english that we always had a translator handy. Of course non of us speak Portuguese.

We took onboard more older kids and more adults and got underway. I took the helm to get us out of the harbor and under way: I must have had my picture taken close to 50 times by various people. The leader and a friend took the helm and I was instructed to keep an eye on them. The leader saw this and said not to worry, he had plenty of experience steering big ship and promptly went off course.

We set topsails and topgallants and had a great sail with plenty of breeze and sun.  We only had one real excitement. As 20 kids hauled the fore topsail halyard the block must have caught on something so when they hauled it popped the halyard block off and down the whole yard went into its lifts, dropping about 10 ft.

Well I was tending a brace and hauling on it just as that happened, so before i knew what was happening up I shot 10 ft off the deck in a split second. As I was going up all I could think was “I probably should have let go”. As suddenly as it happened my ride ended and I was hanging onto the line with one hand, my feet swinging 10 ft off the deck. I laughed and lowered myself down onto a stantion and then got to deck. Several scouts were pointing at me with surprise on their faces and I just laughed and walked away like it happened all the time. My was racing for a while afterwards.

Gabe and I went aloft and got a new block rigged and we set the sail without a problem. We sailed around a bit more, wore ship and sailed back to the harbor. On the way back some of the crew played instruments and sung sea shanties and the scouts sang Portuguese seascout songs. We even fired a cannon for them, which the kids loved. We struck sail when we got close and the kids helped us furl sail.  They were extremely thankful and sang what I assume to be thank you songs and despite being tired from all the work the crew had a great time too.

After the sail we had dinner and went out on the town. Zach and I went to find the Azorean Octoberfest, which turned out to be a bust. We did however, run into a seascout master who gave us directions to a sailor’s bar in the old part of town. We met up with Freya and headed out for it. It looked like a very plain dive from the outside, but when we came in there were tallship posters and shirts everywhere, several ships we had met and sailed with.

Over the course of the night we met an American artist who had been living on the island for 25 years and an Irishman who had been there for 3 as well as a 16 year old art (student of the American) student native. We hung out with them, as well as others, all night and I never bought a single drink. We had an incredible time. I left at midnight to chat with Amelia, but my friends stayed until 3am and came back with some interesting stories.

Sunday October 11th

I slept in late, being off duty, and went for a walk to a nearby beach with Zach. We strolled along with coast and through the city a bit to a black sand beach below a cliff with a beautiful old church perched on its edge. The whole island feels natural, not bulldozed for hotels and condos. The tourism industry is small here and home grown. All along the waterfront old homes, dilapidated homes, remodeled homes were in their ancient lots. For once I felt like I was seeing the true face of a place and not hotels and advertising campaigns; and I loved what I saw.

We came back in time for the second bus tour which took us to more stunning vistas and a tea factory (the island has a strong cattle, fruit, and tea industry). The big event of the day, however, was a visit to the island’s volcanic areas and hot springs. We stopped at a patch of bubbling pools with a strong smell of sulfur. It was as beautiful as anything I saw in Yellowstone and here they had pits the locals used to cook meals.

We came to a small town littered with hot springs and volcanic pools of various colors and temperatures. We went to a local public hotsprings and everyone went for a soak. Man, did that feel good! There were several pools and stream of hot water. My favorite was a small pool in the mouth of a small cave. I could have spent an entire day there.

After that we got back in the bus and had another scenic drive back to the ship. I went out for a couple beers with some of the crew, had a skype date with Amelia, and went to bed early.

Monday October 12th.

Woke up early as per our plans to rent motor scooters today and found a heavy rain. We couldn’t even check the weather on the internet as it was raining so hard we couldn’t bring out our laptops. We decided if it was going to rain all day as it looked we didn’t want to rent scooters and so we didn’t wake up the other half of the crew that wanted to rent scooters with us.

When the rain subsided Zach, Mitch, Doug, and I went to find the local market and stock up on a few more supplies for the next leg of our crossing. We found the market, but alas Monday is apparently a poor day for it as there were only a couple fruit venders. We did find a cheese shop and Doug bought a huge wheel of cheese for the ship.

Doug went home with his cheese, Mitch went off to wander and Zach and I went to look for a supermarket. We walked along with vague directions and ran into Mitch who joined back up with us. As we walked toward the general direction of the supermarket we spotted the scooter store. We thought we should at least check it out.

So we went up to the door and Mitch tried to open it, a man ran up behind us and said “it is closed”. The rental place closes from 11-4 and it was 11:05. The owner was leaving and spotted us. So, he opened up and with the weather clearing, the whole rental including everything was 25 Euro. So we decided, why not?

We did the paperwork, got outfitted and he asked us how much experience we had on motorbikes. He could sense my hesitance and got almost upset and asked me “Have you ever ridden before?!”. I replied “A bit, but it has been a little while” (lie). He gave me a quick “refresher” and off we went.

We rode through the narrow winding cobble stone streets of medieval Ponta Delgada and worked our way back to the ship. What an experience riding in the Bounty Biker Gang through this old Portuguese city. We got back to the ship and got ourselves ready for a ride as well as a little photo shoot in front of the ship. I wore my deck boots with my work pants and a pair of sailing gloves, the safest biking gear I had (Mom you didn’t raise a fool).

Off we went to find the big supermarket on the other side of town, which of course became an adventure in itself with winding streets and alleys not marked on maps. We got lost a dozen times and even ended up on the Azorean highway. Eventually when we decided to give up I spotted it in the distance and we made our way to it.  We had lunch, stocked up on supplied (which fit conveniently in the compartment of our scooters) and off we went to just ride until we had to return our rentals.

We decided after getting so lost in the city we would just follow the coastal road West and see where it led us. The road was long with stunning views and almost no traffic other than ourselves. We opened up our little 2 stroke scooters to their top speed (which wasn’t much). We had many adventures and sights that day including when our road ran out of pavement and we went scooter offroading.

We drove around the backroads until they were impassible, then we backtracked to a main road we spotted. We tore down that road until we decided to head back, which was fortunate as it began to rain. Turns out we had a tail wind previously as when we headed back the rain was hitting us a 60 mph in our faceless helmets. We rode on and the rain continued on. We stopped and I put on my foul weather jacket.

The rain picked up and pretty soon I could look down and see an unbroken stream of water shooting off the bottom of my jacket onto my pants. I just laughed and kept on riding. A pool of water formed at the bottom of my seat and I could open my mouth, stick out my tongue, and get a drink of water. We made it back to the ship soaked through and through, but thankfully not cold.

We got on our foul weather gear, threw our clothes in the dryer (with everyone else’s caught in the storm), and Zach and I continued on for a little ride to the beach we had visited on Sunday. We rode along a coastal road and ocean spray hit the sea wall and shot into the air next to us, it was really quite dramatic.

We made it to the beach we visited and past that. We stopped a at some ruins next to the beach to enjoy the view and then off we went back toward the rental shop. Of course, since the second we put on our foul weather gear it hadn’t rained a drop and we had a nice ride back. We found a gas station to top off the tanks, which, during the whole day’s riding, hadn’t lost a half a gallon.

We returned the bikes, met up with Mitch, and we all got coffee and doughnuts together, Mitch’s treat. Zach and went off to get a last shore dinner; we picked a hole in the wall cafe. Who did we find there but an 2 Americans who lived on the island and chatted us up the whole dinner. Dan and Sam came by so we grabbed them and shared some wine with them. The Americans bought us another bottle before they left. We enjoyed that and went back to the ship.

I had planned to go to sleep early, but my arm was twisted by the offer of spending Zach’s leftover Euros at a nearby bar; which, with the wonderfully reasonable prices in the Azores, we did until 2am.

I had an incredible time in the Azores. I met many friendly people and an island not falsified by a large tourist industry. The island and its people live for themselves and the beauty of the land is among one of the most incredible I have ever seen. I will most definitely go back to the Azores some day and I encourage anyone who reads this to visit them.