We lost Jim this week, returning home to London on Wednesday. He joined us on a few days’ exploration of the town and the island for which we hired a car, and we toured around looking for interesting things.

As we have said earlier, Angra do Heroisma is a fine place, made up of well-built and handsome houses that have been well maintained. Other villages are equally pleasant, and there is a palpable sense of pride in the civic areas: the squares, the pedestrian streets, the waterfront and the public gardens.

Typical Angra Street

Angra Square

Around the island, the places that Jim found most interesting were the fantastic sea scapes and anywhere he could swim: we found a fine facility that had been carved out of the volcanic shoreline, with swimming pools and diving platforms, where the sea coursed around the jagged rocks. There was almost nobody around, though the parking areas could cater for perhaps 250 cars, but the weather was cool and it was mid-week. Jim could not help himself, and given a bit of privacy, he took full advantage. It was too cool for us….

Inland, the “highlands” of the island are on the western side but were sadly covered in low cloud for much of the week. We found the same phenomenon in the Canaries and to a lesser extent in the Caribbean: the mountains are often hidden from view, which is a real shame.

Notwithstanding this, we drove up through thick cloud to visit one of the most interesting attractions, deep underground!

Homage to Vulcan (finally)

Till this point, we had failed to properly investigate a volcano, apart from viewing some of the flooded caldera, so it was really interesting to visit one of the most unusual kinds on Terceira. Apparently there are only 4 “Empty Volcanoes” in the world, of which this was one: a volcanic cavity that stretched deep into the mountain but was clear of lava. Normally the craters are full of volcanic debris, but the lava from the second eruption had slumped back down to leave the crater free. A very long series of steps had been built into the side of the crater, and subdued lighting provided.  

This allowed us to climb down to the bottom of the hole, where there was a fantastic pool of very cold and clear water.  Jim needed to be restrained; otherwise he would have found it impossible to resist another submersion!

Coming Home…

We are still awaiting the return to normal operation of the travel hoist, to allow us to lift the boat out of the water. The marina berths here are too vulnerable to allow us to leave her safely in the water and return home, so we are stuck until they put it back in commission, and then shift the backlog of boats: seven want to be put back in the water (which would leave room for us) and seven want to come out (thankfully small local boats, so still space available).

If this were a busy UK yard, they would clear the backlog in a day, but the island mentality is that this is just not on, and they will only work at their normal pace. We will just have to wait patiently till it is our turn…

Count to ten….

Watergaw