Advertisement
Architectual Details
The lighthouse in Lajes has impressive architecture and it was a great place to walk to you on one of our evening outings. The island of Flores is the fourth smallest island of the Azores archipelago and has only about four thousand inhabitants, making it the second least populated. We feel very fortunate to have made our first landfall in Europe on this island. Traditionally the island of Faial, city of Horta is where most sailors make their European landfall. However last year a new marina was opened on Flores which we had heard was very nice and well worth the visit. As Flores is farther west than Faial and we knew we would not be coming back to the Azores in the near future we wanted to explore this island. We are very glad we did.
The marina in Lajes is very new and is still in the process of completion, however, the docks are very good and each one is supplied with water and electricity (220v- luckily we have a transformer) The village of Lajes is located on a hill behind the port therefore if you want to go anywhere you must climb
UP. We were pleasantly surprised that even on the first day on land our legs did not fail us. After 3 weeks at sea we made
The school in Lajes
The local school in Lajes looks in quite good shape and even has a new gym attached. the climb with ease (well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch but at least we weren’t passed out on the ground when we got to the top).
We have been doing work on the boat each day, but we treat ourselves each evening to a lovely hike in the area. Sometimes the hike is to the next village to check to see if they have any vegetables (the ship hadn’t come in yet – we found out it is due tomorrow after a fortnight – 2 weeks), or just exploring the various roads and trails in the area. It stays light until 9-9:30pm giving us plenty of time for our evening constitutional. It’s amazing how hard the crossing was on the boat. Nothing major but a lot of chafed lines, broken boom vang, autopilot hydraulics and electrical line that controls the propane solenoid stopped working and needed to be replaced. Oh, I forgot one of the support brackets for the radar dome broke and needs to be replaced, one of our flag halyard’s separated and needed to be replaced, the oil needed to be changed and Janice just reminded me that the computer at the navigation station needed
A traditional whaling boat
Hard to believe they hunt whale in this boat – much too small for us to take out in the ocean! to be rebuilt, something we are still working on.
On July 3
rd we treated ourselves by leaving the boat projects behind and renting a car to explore the island. It truly lives up to its name of Flores (flowers) everywhere you look there are hydrangeas and roses lining every road and most of the fields. We just learned that the reason there are hydrangeas around each of the fields is that the cows do not like them and will not pass through them. The people here are quite the gardeners; every inch of ground that is not used for grazing is given over to vegetable gardens or flowers. The road system on the island is excellent, even the secondary roads are in great condition. Fortunately with the size of the island we were able to explore much of it in a day. We first headed to the west coast and went up to Faja Grande and on to Ponta da Faja. We hiked a portion of a great trail system along the coast where there were spectacular views of the ocean as well as numerous waterfalls. The island seems to have put lots of effort into promoting tourism as
Traditional Fishing Boats
We see these small fishing boats go out almost every day – some days are more successful than others. they have signage in both Portuguese and English and excellent marked trails. In the afternoon we traveled across the mountain road up to see the caldera lakes created by the volcanic activity eons ago. They are spectacular to see and each is different from the next. There are plenty of “look out points” along the road with incredible views. The problem is that we now have hundreds of photos to sort through for the blog. Hope you enjoy the “few” we picked out.
Wednesday we met an American couple and while talking we all realized that today was July 4 so thought it would be fun to get together and have our own celebration. There were 2 other American boats in the marina so we met up with them and decided we get together around 6 o’clock and have a cookout on the beach. Right next to the marina is a black sand beach where the government has built a pavilion and some really nice grills. We all decided we would bring our expired flares and have a little fireworks. By the time we got together we were quite an international group of Americans, French, Brazilians, Colombian, South Africans
Traditional Housing
Traditional stone houses that you see dotting the countryside. This one happened to be one of the first we saw as we arrived in Flores as you pass it every time you climb the hill into town. and Portuguese. All were either American citizens or lived in the US currently. Bob brought along his iPod and some external speakers and had a collection of patriotic music playing while Mark and Jennifer from Starlite brought a few spare American flags and in no time we had a first-class Fourth of July celebration. The weather was less than perfect with a cold drizzle coming in off the ocean but luckily we were under the pavilion cooking hamburgs. When it got dark we fired off our expired flares and reminiscent of our old days with the TYC had a visit from the local police who explained that in Portugal (the Azores are part of Portugal) it is against the law to fire off flares unless you are in an emergency. We apologized profusely and the police were very nice and accepted our apology.
Our original plan was to leave on Thursday, July 5th to go to the next island but when we woke up the sky was overcast, there was little wind and it was raining. We both decided we were not in that much of a rush and the day before the freighter had come in which meant
Red Clay Roofs Everywhere
Everywhere you look you see red roofs on white houses throughout the villages on the island of Flores. there would be fresh vegetables in the local supermarket. So we decided to stay for another day. Unfortunately the wi-fi in the Marina is no longer working so we had to go up to town to check our e-mail and find out what the weather looked like the coming few days. By the time we got back to the boat it was late afternoon so we decided to take a walk which just so happened to take us by the local bar which serves draft beers for a euro ($1.30) and has outstanding New York quality pizza. It also happens to be where most of the cruisers hang out in the evenings. Last week when we were there we met up with a very nice gentleman who played the Portuguese guitar. He showed up again and asked us if we would be interested in going to a rehearsal for an upcoming festival on the island. When we arrived at the rehearsal there were about 20 people, half of them playing guitars and singing while the other half were engaged in something similar to American square dancing. A very nice woman came over, Theresa, and explained that she had lived in
The coastline
You can’t tell in the photo but we were impressed by how clean the water is here. It is so crystal clear you can see to the bottom. the United States for 20 years (an extremely common occurrence in the Azores). She apparently has been very involved in the upcoming festival and explained that it was a festival for the emigrants. What we did not realize was that 30 or 40 years ago there were over 10,000 people on the island and as a result of significant emigration to the “New World”, United States and Canada the population is now well below 5000. For the past 20 years they have been celebrating the return of some of the emigrants in the hopes that this would encourage even more to come back. We had a great evening and had an opportunity to meet a number of the dancers. Jose, the guitar player gave us a lift back to the bar where he took out his homemade (very beautiful) Portuguese guitar and proceeded to serenade us with the help of several other local men. We got back to the boat well after midnight and decided that staying for the festival next weekend would be a great idea. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we are retired and the whole reason for doing this is to experience new cultures. Now
Bananas Even Grow Here
It was strange to look down from one of the bridges in town to see bananas growing in the gorge. that we’ve been here for 2 weeks we have met several local people and have developed some very nice friendships. We are definitely finding Flores to be a nice place to be. We also have met a few of the people that are now living here that had been cruisers years ago but decided to set down roots here – we do understand as the island has lots to offer with its beauty.
Hope you all had a nice 4
th of July celebration and will keep you updated with further blogs!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.121s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 9; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0586s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb