Ilha do Pico

Testing the waters

Normally one would not want to swim in a harbor. There is the boat traffic, there are oily substances released by the boats, etc, etc. However, in Lajes do Pico the water is impeccably clean.  In fact, as we were pulling in, there were a few people swimming in the water right off the quai and I remarked that it was insane to do so in the middle of the channel. Once we looked around (and below), we noticed that there were fish swimming under Salty Ginger, so now we realized that it wasn't that insane that these people were swimming in the channel that leads to the main part of the marina. The water was lovely!

We had steaks and lots of other food aboard, so it didn't make sense to go out. Instead we hung out on the boat, had a tasty dinner and talked till late at night. Oh, and there was the late night entertainment by the birds, but I'll describe that later.

Madalena

Irina got a number for a local taxi and when we called them in the morning, Luis was very happy to send a minivan that could fit all 7 of us to bring us to Madalena. It's rather ironic to be driven almost as far west as we sailed east the day before, but since the guys in Horta sneered that Madalena was too small for Salty Ginger, it seemed that the only reasonable way to get to that "port of call" (for whom?) was to take a cab from Lajes (which is not a port of call!). The woman who drove us was not in a mood to talk. Her English was not great, but she seemed to understand us well. Nevertheless, she mostly preferred to answer yes or no questions, and would either give terse (unhelpful) answers or shrug her shoulders to the rest.

Madalena was peculiarly empty and yet clearly a living town. We walked down one street, found a playground/garden with grapes. There was a sidewalk, but mostly there were cars that drove by us and not that many people on the sidewalk itself. The garden was overgrown with grapes and the grounds had, let's say, pagan sculptures of heads that looked as if they could be wooden or made out of lava stone. Opinions diverged on which one of the two materials were used...

"Conveniently" enough we forgot the "Azores top 10" book on the boat, so our primary ways of discovering the town were our own eyes and Google Maps. We saw that there was a museum of wine up the road, but given that it was only 11, the timing seemed wrong to head that way. Instead, we walked to the commercial harbor and to my surprise saw four vessels anchored in the harbor. Ok, either I can't read, I cannot trust what I read, or the guys in Horta kind'a lied... Yes, there was the big terminal for the ferries and of course the ferries do inevitably throw wake onto the anchored boats. BUT there are maybe 3 ferries that pull into the port! Duly noted, we can anchor there should the need arise.

Along the shore there were a few potentially interesting spots to explore, like the natural pool, an old light house and a "viewpoint on Faial". Given that Faial was already picturesque from pretty much any point in town, it seemed like an exaggeration to have a proper viewpoint.

Nevertheless, it was worth it!

Lunchtime is lunchtime, and choosing a restaurant is an ordeal in itself. This time we chose very well! Undoubtedly, after a walk everyone was hungry, but all the dishes hit the right spots in everyone's tummy. And the view of Faial was outstanding.

With more than a few calories ingested, we needed a walk. And while it wasn't very hot, it was hot enough to get me to buy a hat and for Natasha to buy a hat for Adam, who happened to leave his hat in the cab. We enjoyed the view of Mt Pico on our way to the wine museum.

And then there was this Burger King on the way...

The way back through the vines

The walk to Museo do Vinho clearly demonstrated that Pico island is not made for exploration by foot. The sidewalk was narrow and then nonexistent, but realistically, the distance was quite large. The vines separated by fences made of lava rock were beautiful and clearly demonstrated the amount of work that went into establishing them. The vines were decorated by an occasional pineapple plant. Finally being able to enjoy the view from the shade made it that much more enjoyable.

The museum itself is informative, but contrary to our expectations, did not have any wines for sale. That duty was delegated to local shops. We called Luis who said that the same van will come to pick us up and drive us through the other side of the island, a somewhat longer route, but new to us. And he said that the driver will be ok stopping in different places for pictures.

The same woman came back to fetch us. She had Adam's hat. That was a plus. But she had absolutely no suggestions or ideas for a scenic drive. Irina came to the rescue. First we drove through Madalena to the UNESCO heritage site of century-old vineyards.

Then we drove back through Madalena towards Sao Roque (the long way to Lajes). Along the drive Irina asked the driver to take a left onto an unmarked road. There were more vines on the sides of the lava rock fences which almost got the van stuck, but it was worth the view of Sao Jorge.

Now the woman kind of got the jist of what we wanted and out of her own accord stopped at a viewpoint with an outlook platform. We had Mt Pico on one side and the island of Sao Jorge on the other.

Then up we went to the pass that now was the shortest pass to Lajes. The road was decorated by flowers and then suddenly by cows who were crossing the road.

It seemed that the driver was finally warming up to us asking her questions, but before too long we were dropped off at the marina.

Second evening

Lajes means rock. I can only guess which one of the rocks was chosen as the landmark for the town, and (per my guess) in its direction from the marina there was a natural pool which we went to discover. Now, the Azores are not like the tropical waters, but there is enough diversity of fish to make it worth snorkeling. Walking along the shoreline we also saw crabs, and for the first time in our lives, we saw a crab jump between two rocks separated by some 20cm.

The plan of going out to a restaurant was changed to having dinner aboard, which in some way is also relaxing because we don't feel like we have to rush anywhere. Yes, the dishes need to be washed, but it's a small price to pay.

As the night fell, the "late night entertainment" came back. This time we gave them the Salty-Ginger-scientific name of wacka-wacka-bird. The creatures would circle the harbor and shout at the top of the lungs, clearly trying to communicate something to one another and making a lot of noise in the meantime. They would go "awacka-wacka", "awa-awa-awa" and many more variations on the theme that kept us entertained for a long while.

The whale hunt

We decided to spend another night in Lajes and spend the day sailing around to the whale watching grounds. A German-speaking lady already told us that there was a whale watching platform about 45 minutes away from the town, so that would have been the first logical step to figuring out where we could find the beautiful sea creatures. From up high not only could we not see any whales, we could not even see the whale watching boats. We could hear a guy in the tower saying something in Portuguese, but we couldn't understand any of it. Then I realized that most likely marinetraffic.com would show some of the whale-watching boats. Indeed, there were 3 of them hanging out a the easternmost tip of the island, which seemed good enough for us: we would head offshore against the easterly wind and then "chase" the whale-watchers at the tip of the islands.

Assi, Natasha and Galya took dramamine before the walk back to the marina in hopes that this would help them to be less seasick. Adam could not swallow the pill and kind of hoped for the best. We left the port at 12 with the expectation that the harbormaster would hold our spot till 5pm. The other part of the bet was that at 2pm, the whale watching boats would do their second round, so we could see where they were headed.

By 2pm we were 9 miles offshore. We saw a few dolphins who crossed our bow but were not interested in Salty Ginger (we've had such encounters on the passage too). At 2:30 we saw that the boats that had the AIS transponders were a short distance off the shore, perhaps 4 miles away from the harbor. We change our course from heading east to heading north. The boast go east. We take northeasterly heading. They go west. We get on a northerly heading. We see a turtle! We sort of catch up with the whale watching boats... They go south. We jibe and head south. We see no spouts. The boats with 300-HP engines run here, there, everywhere... We give up and go back to port. Might as well take a swim.

One of the remarkable parts of this sail was that Adam was hungry for pasta! I jokingly said that he reached "level 2" in his sailing achievement. His parents were totally comfortable with level 1, while his sister was sleeping and had no idea that there were levels.

The music of the sea

This evening we were determined to have someone else cook dinner for us. There was a snag: the restaurant we wanted to go to was staffed with one cook. The waitress gave us the Japanese-style no: "I can seat you, but it will be a while before we give you food". Ok, what's "a while?" "You see, there is a big table, and then we have a party of 5 coming in, and then the kitchen closes at 9". It was already quarter to 8, so we got the hint of the gentle "go elsewhere" suggestion and ended up at a very simple place. The food was pretty good. Vinha da casa not so good, but other wines quite alright. We ordered "Lapas" for everyone to try. I ended up eating all of those. By the end of the night, somehow I ended up finishing so much food for different people that I was proud of myself that I didn't order a main dish for myself.

As we walked back, we heard what appeared to be live music, but the people who were getting ready to dance were in a big room, so the music must be coming from a speaker. But the drums were too real to come from a speaker... But where is the music coming from? While we were trying to figure out an answer to that question, an older guy signed to us to go up to the second floor and keep quiet. There was an orchestra practice! The conductor was working through difficult passages with the orchestra, explaining how different instruments were supposed to accentuate the piece at different times; doing all he was supposed to do to get the piece to be grand. And they were already great!

Assi, who is a very good musician, remarked that it was much more improbable to hear a band rehearsal on the Azores than to see a whale!

When we were back aboard, it was expected to see and hear the wacka-wacka birds, and they did not disappoint. Their music came in full force. A dissonant orchestra without a conductor. If there was one, we couldn't identify her or him. Different beauty and yet absolutely exhilarating.