Cloud bound on Pico

A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Thu 4 Aug 2011 22:01
Although our island appears to be under a thick layer of permacloud, around whose edges the sun can be seen shining down, we're not allowing ourselves to become dispirited on Pico. Oh no.
 
Instead, we clambered aboard a local bus this morning to go to the island's second town: Lajes, home to the whaling museum. The drive was along 30 steep kilometers on the flank of the unseen volcano. Here, walls of loose lava and pumice divide vineyards into tiny parcels of a few vines, tended by hand. There is usually more wall than vine, and yields are pretty low. The co-op we visited yesterday has 220 members producing about half a million bottles of vino a year. Their best seller is a watery number that lasts for about 10 minutes once the bottle is open. We purchased one for wary sampling, but have yet to summon up the courage.
 
Anyway, we were on our way to the whaling museum. Though run on a shoestring compared to its Nantucket brother, this establishment boasts a much better display of whale killing equipment, and an incredible, grainy 1950s film of a whale hunt on the island. Sperm whales were the chief quarry here, but by the 50s there was so little money in whale oil that whalers all moonlighted as farmers, barbers and schoolteachers, leaping into action only when one of the island's spotters spied a beast. They used fast wooden sailing boats and harpooned the whale by hand in the old way. The boat's crew would tug hard on the rope attached to the spike in the whale's side to try to prevent him from sounding. And, when it resurfaced, they would repeatedly thrust a sharp lance at it until, pierced a hundred times, it would give up the fight. The hunt was apparently as much a proof of manhood and an antidote to boredom as it was an economic activity. It was desperately sad to watch.
 
In fact, I'm certain I spied a whale from afar as we bounced down the hill in the bus towards the museum. However, the sighting was unconfirmed and goes down as a question mark. In other exciting news, we supped on octopus last night in honour of Elise's 23rd birthday. After a suspicious start, she ended up thoroughly enjoying it. First Mate Biffle went for a plate of grilled limpets (unexpectedly good and expensive, presumably due to their exceeding reluctance to leave their rocks). Finding a local outlet of the excellent Portuguese Pingo Doce supermarket today, we have stocked up on lulas (squid) again, and I am plotting a grilled squid meal tomorrow night. Chris is already carboloading cereal bars in anticipation of a shocker...
 
Tomorrow we backtrack three miles to Horta, one of the biggest towns in the Azores, located just across the channel on Faial. We'll be arriving in time for the festival of the sea, which could be fun. Hopes are high for obtaining a hire car and driving up to the island's magnificent caldera. And by Saturday, the cloud should have blown away for excellent views of the volcano here on Pico that we can feel but not see. I would anticipate more cephalopod-based meals before we get back under way for the 1,200 miles back to Blighty on Monday.
 
Bent harpoon
 
Sperm whale jawbone
 
 
 
Back in Pingo Doce, with everybody's favourite dried cod