Blogs from São Miguel, Azores, Portugal, Europe - page 3

Ah, the joys of sailing! The last blog entry stated that we thought we would leave for Santa Maria on September 16th. Instead we set off at 7AM on the 17th, the winds were predicted to be better. It turned out to be not bad, we had enough wind to sail the 10 hours arriving in Vila do Porto at 5PM. The ride was rolly because the wind was directly behind us and the waves were hitting us on the beam (non-sailors, on the side), but it is much better than “on the nose”. This gave us more time to play tourist therefore as a result we have a few photos to show you from the last couple of days on Sao Miguel and our arrival on Santa Maria. Instead of going far afield the last ... read more

Sao Miguel is the largest and most populated of the nine Azores islands. The marina is in the city of Ponta Delgada which is also where the cruise ships come to therefore they are definitely accustom to tourists. Fortunately for us we have not seen any cruise ships in port as it must be out of season here. We just found out the other night that the cruise ships only stop in November and April when they travel between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean – lucky for us! The town itself has numerous historic buildings dating back to the late 1500’s. Most of the churches we have seen are in the architectural style referred to by the guidebooks as “Portuguese Simple/Manueline”, but there is nothing simple about these churches. They are primarily constructed of locally obtained ... read more

Yesterday we were in the Azores after almost a week at sea. We've had some pretty rough seas almost every day, with Force 7 - 9 winds, so the ship has been bouncing around quite a bit. Of course, this is to be expected since it is the North Atlantic and March. Ponta Delgada, Azores, was beautiful. From the moment we looked out the cabin window in the morning, it was obvious we were in a Portugese port. Every building was black and white. We had a tour in the morning which took us to the west end of the island where we saw the two lakes in the volcanic cauldron at Sete Cidades. Although it was a cloudy day, we were lucky that it was clear enough while we were there that we could admire ... read more

Day 19 By 7:45 am, we were getting close to Ponta Delgada on the largest island of the Azores-Sao Miguel. We were greeted by a pilot boat. There was another Celebrity brand boat already docked in port-the Constellation. We were off the boat before 10 am. We walked off the boat & walked along the dock to the city which was just 10 minutes walk. We could see a Marina & swimming area opposite the main dock. Went past the City Gates & Building with a Clock Tower, also passing the Immigrants Statues. ... read more

Our first port of call on the second circumnavigation, and a real delight, was the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores . We thought this would be a collection of volcanic rocks in the Atlantic, but it's really quite amazing. The Azores (officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores) is one of two autonomous regions of Portugal (the other being Madeira). The archipelago comprises 9 islands in the North Atlantic Ocean about 1,360 kilometres (850 miles) west of mainland Portugal, about 1,643 km (1,021 miles) west of Lisbon in mainland Portugal about 1,507 kilometres (936 miles) northwest of Morocco, and about 1,925 kilometres (1,196 miles) southeast of Newfoundland, Canada. Its main industries are agriculture, farming, fishing and tourism which is becoming the major service activity in the region. In addition, the government of the Azores employs a ... read more