On the eve of our much anticipated day around the island the replica whaling boats typical of the Azores were out racing each other in a brisk wind. Many years ago when I was on the Stavvy in Horta the local Sea Scouts, who made up much of the watch crew on that particular voyage, were invited to compete against the other watches in rowing races on these same boats and it was both a privilege and lots of fun to be the cox in one of the boats, steering our craft to a small victory. At the end of the voyage my watch gave me a beautiful wooden model of one such boat complete with sails, oars and harpoon and I treasure it to this day.
The day of our excursion dawned amidst magnificent calm blue, one of the best days yet, and we met with Leandro just before 9.00am. The other couple coming by ferry from Pico for the tour had cancelled so once again it was just Rob and me on the trip.
On the map, Horta is on the bottom right of the island and we were driving in an anti-clockwise direction for the day; except for the very first part that took us to Mt Guia to view the beautiful double caldera, which is now out of bounds to humans for the sanctity of the wildlife there.
Then northwards we climbed up the Ponta da Espalamaca to the viewpoint beside one of the many windmills on the island, mostly now abandoned. We looked northwards to the beach at Almoxarife, our next stop where a lady golden Labrador was having a wonderful swim with her two male companions.
On the 9th July 1998 there was a severe earthquake on this corner of the island which ruined the church and lighthouse at Ribeirinha. The Azores islands owe their existence to the seismic activity in this area of the Atlantic where three major fault lines; the Mid Atlantic (up which we sailed more closely than we realised before now!), the Eurasian and the one that has slipped my memory at the moment, change the geography of the sea-bed on a regular basis.
With tell tale signs of the way of life of the four keepers and their families in the form of four concrete loos and four concrete clothes washing basins it was easy to imagine their lives in this exposed spot. The building were going to be demolished once but now there are plans to restore the site in the interests of history and heritage. I wonder if they will preserve the elegant stone spiral staircase you can just see in one of the photos.
We left the spiral staircase of the lighthouse and the coast and climbed the steep roads towards the heart of the island; the Caldera do Faial. Old windmills are now superseded by modern, towering wind turbines that produce 22% of the islands electricity and we left tarmac roads for the red ochre colour of the dirt track upwards.
When the Portuguese first came here in the 15th century, 1427 to be exact, they saw the same dark feathered birds soaring high above their heads and thought they were eagles, hence the Portuguese name; Azores. Well that is one theory. The other is a derivation of the word Azzure, or blue, which would certainly have been a suitable description of the sky and sea on the day of our tour. The birds are in fact a local version of the common buzzard found all over the northern hemisphere and Eurasian area. The local ones have a darker plumage and are slightly smaller and are, as their name suggests, common. We saw a few pairs, high up riding the thermals.
While I remember, the third fault and plate associated with the seismic activity is the African plate, as you may have guessed.
The beautiful and quiet Caldera, with its many hues of green and over 30 % of the island’s endemic flora present, used to have much more water in it, but a small crack appeared during one earthquake and the water drained away. The caldera is 400,000 years old and has formed in active stages during that time. The caldera is 2km wide and the highest point of the rim is 1040 metres. Many people were happily walking the rim in the lovely clear warm weather and some will have walked from the beach we had just visited on one of the well marked trails.
After a few minutes admiring the silent majesty of this central basin we descended the track once more, leaving above us the white clouds that had masked the peak of Pico, and headed for the viewpoint overlooking the Faja at Ribeira das Cabras. This flat (Faja) area created by lava flows cooling on contact with the sea is the youngest part of the island, formed in the last 10,000 years, the most recent activity being in 1672 and 1957/8 and the view looking down on the rollers breaking onto the shore was quite special.
You may wonder why we stopped beside the road to take the last photo which appears to show the apex of a roof at ground level? Well that is the remains of a home that was buried when the pyroclastic cloud from the 1957/8 eruption fell back to earth and buried the north west part of the island causing immense destruction and a permanent change to the way of life on the island. More about that in the next blog.
The Capelhinhos volcanic eruption when I was five
Leandro drove us down the road to the Capelinhos car park, past what was once the whalers village; all that is left now is the roof tops. We walked down to the old slip that you see in the old photo and I started to remember that I came here many years ago and I believe before the impressive new subterranean museum was built.
In the photo of the slipway you can see three types of boats. Small rowing boats in the foreground, the long elegant skiffs just behind them that were the whalers boats used in the pursuit of the leviathans and inside them are the oars and the sails are wrapped around the spars lying on the seats. If you remember I included some photos of them sailing in a recent blog. Many of these, or replicas of the same are enjoyed today for racing and rowing, as I have mentioned before. Then offshore, moored in the water are the longer motorised craft used to tow the whales around to the whaling factories in Horta. There are two well preserved vessels on the quay in Horta, photos to follow!
The picture of the fisherman and the rock pools shows the area around the base of the slipway and in calm weather people flock to swim in the relatively protected water of what was once the anchorage. The rock pools teemed with young fish, guppies and crabs.
The first major seismic event on this island in modern times was back in the 17th century; then on September 27th 1957 when I was a fresh five year old, the whalers set off towards the sight of some bubbles bursting on the sea surface they thought was a whale one kilometre offshore. As they approached the heat and smell told them this was an eruption so they turned about face and sped back to raise the alarm. The undersea, Surtseyan eruption lasted for seven and a half months with sporadic massive explosions as the lava sped upwards through the water, detonating jets of black ash high into the sky and forming three islands the first two of which were short lived.
In May 1958 the eruption moved location and became a terrestrial eruption maximising itself on the 12th to 13th May when pyroclastic clouds of ash, lapilli (rock fragments), bombs (shaped into rounds and ovals on contact with water), blocks and splatter projectiles, which may well have been when the buildings to the north were buried.
The lighthouse keeper on duty at the time was a very talented Tomaz Pachacho da Rosa (pictured) and he acted not only with great bravery at the time but also with a sense of posterity. He grabbed a coin, pushed it into a slurp of molten lava and cooled it off in the sea, presumably using a shovel or something similar, and that is what you see in the photo, a unique souvenir. After the seismic activity settled down and nearly half the population left for the USA, thanks to the help of Senator John F Kennedy and John O Pastore, Tomas was integral in the development of music on the island, the church choir and a philharmonic society.
I remember the lighthouse buildings being half buried in volcanic ash and only being allowed to walk around the outside of the buildings. Today a visit to the museum is a must because the concept of its design is extraordinary. The area in front of the buildings was excavated down to the level of the original floors so that the museum was built on the land side of the buildings, with subterranean display areas and corridors that emerge into the ground floor of the old living area. Then the ash was replaced so the buildings are once again buried, on the outside, to the original height, thus preserving the post eruption impression of the place. Clever stuff. I included the two photos of the 3D models of the area really because they are an example of objects created using a 3D printer. The use of modern technology in the presentation of history. I like it.
Next Leandro had another one of his delightful surprises for us.
Wandering around inside the living quarters of the lighthouse was fun but when I asked if one could climb the tower these days Leandro’s positive reply was a mini revelation. 140 odd steps, and lots of shiny stainless steel later and we emerged into the new glass cupola with a whole set of new panoramic views over the area.
I liked the way the spiral staircase looked like the inside of an ammonite shell; and Leandro was so much better at selfies than I am, I left him to it!
I was going to call this blog, ‘Oh deer, our tour with Leandro is coming to an end’ but I thought that would be just too corny!
The photos I took within the Parque Florestal do Capelo, a much loved and well tended area that has been a favourite picnic and relaxation haunt for locals and visitors alike for many decades.
Man made grottos and picnic shelters created from the local volcanic rock make the area look as if the ground formed the structures just as it provides the raw materials. We walked on and I wondered where Leandro was taking us when we emerged in front of a paddock which was home to an extended family of fallow deer, some still in the making judging by the broad tummies of two does. We fed them on a non endemic weed which despite its infamy was relished by the pretty and healthy deer as they munched the succulent stems with relish. They looked very healthy with their shiny coats and long eyelashes and were quite contented.
Along with the deer there were lots of play things for children and the park was full with secret areas ideal for hide and seek. How our grandchildren would love this place.
One more stop near Horta was the rock and tunnel just like our own Durdle Door in Dorset, a reminder of home.