São Miguel, the largest island of the Azores, sits about 100 nautical miles south east of the central group of Azores Islands (Faial, Pico, São Jorge, and Terceira). It is the largest of the Azores, and lies at the eastern end of the islands – which makes it an ideal jumping off point for the passage to mainland Portugal.
We headed to São Miguel after only five days in Angra do Heroismo. We had hoped to stay longer, but there was only space in the marina until June 19th – as Mike mentioned in an earlier post, the Sanjoaninas Festival was starting on the 21st, and there were at least two flotillas booked into the marina for the event. Our initial plan was to move over to the anchorage for a few days, but we soon noticed that the winds, which had been light all week, were about to disappear altogether. Either we sail out of Terceira with light winds on the 19th, or we’d be stuck in the harbour for another week waiting for the winds to return (100 nm is a looooong way to motor if there’s no wind). We therefore used the final hours of our car rental for a stop at the hypermarket (aka giant grocery store that wasn’t in walking distance of the marina), and readied the boat for a Wednesday departure. We headed out around 8am, and were able to sail for 70 of the almost 100 nautical mile journey.
Ponta Delgada is the largest town in São Miguel. The large man-made harbour serves as both a commercial port and the local marina – as we sat in our cockpit in the afternoons, we could watch them load container ships on the breakwall just opposite. There is also a military base at one end of the harbour, built inside the 16th century Forte de São Brás. Many of the boats in the marina are transient – internationally flagged sailboats travelling to and from mainland Europe. The marina was full while were there, but you definitely get the feeling that it is mostly empty in winter, when long ocean passages aren’t possible and the island is left to the locals.
We spent several days wandering around Ponta Delgada, sometimes en route to a specific place, and sometimes just for fun. The population of São Miguel is noticeably larger than the other islands, and you can tell that it is a popular tourist destination. We didn’t see any cruise ships while we were there, but Mike’s mom told us that she once visited Ponta Delgada on a repositioning cruise from the Caribbean to Europe. I can only imagine what the influx of thousands of cruise ship passengers would do to this little downtown area!
We also took a day to rent a car and explore more of São Miguel – as on the other islands, public transit seemed limited, with buses timed to suit business commuters instead of daytime travellers. We started the day by driving to the north side of the island, and then worked our way eastward. We tried to begin with a drive up to the Caldeira Velha, an old volcano crater that is now filled with a lake, but they have blocked the road to tourist traffic during the day. A bus service has been set up instead, but it takes several hours to ride up, go exploring, and then ride back down. We opted to make use of the time elsewhere, and came back when the road had reopened at 7pm. As we drove up that evening, the bus service instantly made sense – the road is windy and narrow, and the viewpoint parking lots were quickly overrun with cars. Much better to have the bus service in place than have tourists stuck in a mountainside traffic jam all day!
We drove up the north side of São Miguel, stopping at viewpoints along the way. For lunch we stopped at the Parque Natural da Ribeira dos Caldeirões, which features a series of 16th century mills built along a steep section of river. A series of natural waterfalls made this the perfect site to set up water-driven flour mills. The buildings have now been restored, and incorporated into a small park with a museum and café. There also seemed to be a small house to stay in, should you feel the need to overnight in a tourist-filled little park.
We also stopped in Furnas, a town built inside of a giant, collapsed volcano. The steep hills that surround the town are the walls of the crater; a small set of hills divided the area, with the town on one side, and a small lake on the other. In several areas, steaming fumaroles bubble up through watery pools, with temperatures ranging from 20° to 40°C. Furnas is also home to the bolo lêvedo, a small bun that looks like an English muffin, but is sweeter and a little bit softer. We have become big fans of the bolos lêvedos – I’m really hoping we can buy them on the mainland as well!
We got to Furnas in the late afternoon – we weren’t hungry for lunch, but it was too late to stick around to have dinner. We visited the fumarole fields and took a walk by the lake, and then stopped at a viewpoint on the crater edge on our way out of town. We then headed off towards Caldeira Velha to take our evening drive up the volcano. We were able to get a beautiful view of the lake before the evening clouds rolled in over the hilltop.
Our last week in Ponta Delgada was mostly spent preparing for – and then waiting to depart on – our passage to mainland Portugal. We had a number of boat repairs to do, including taking down the inner forestay to replace some rivets, and fixing the mast slider webbing on our mainsail (its a 25 year-old sail, so we are nursing it along until we can replace it this winter!). While Mike did those jobs, I spent several days preparing food for the passage. I decided to make enough meals for the whole trip, so I wouldn’t need to do any chopping or meal prep while underway. The winds off the coast of Portugal can make for very rough weather sometimes, and I don’t like having to do a lot of meal prep when the boat is rocking all over the place. We were still ready to go a few days early, so we spent some time just relaxing and keeping ourselves busy. I know I have spent many days doing nothing while living on land, but somehow on the boat it makes me feel really lazy to just spend time sitting and knitting. I think it’s part of that ‘travel ‘I’m on vacation’ mentality, where you feel like you need to be doing an activity all the time, to make the most of your time away from home. I just have to remind myself that I’m always at home, so I should be able to take a day off any time I want! 😉