Monday Morning, 22 May 2023
Sailing from the Azores to Ireland

Still sailing toward Ireland on another sea day after another  time change in the middle of the night. Before Covid, HAL and Cunard did their transatlantic time changes at two in the afternoon rather than at 2am. Losing one hour during a long sea day is not much of a sacrifice and sure beats losing an hour of sleep almost every night. Unfortunately, HAL has returned to the 2am norm. I asked the captain about this at a reception and all he could tell me was that it was company policy.

Yesterday morning all passengers on ms Zuiderdam had brief face-to-face meetings with Irish immigration. I even received a stamped-visa in my otherwise virgin passport. Jim McParland gave an interesting talk on the White Cliffs of Dover, which we will see as we transit the English Channel at the end of the week.

But now it’s back to the Azores.

Saturday, 20 May, 2023
Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores

This morning the Zuiderdam is in Ponta Delgada, largest city on the largest island in the Azores, São Miguel. We will be here from seven in the morning to five this afternoon. 

This is my second visit here. On my first transatlantic cruise on HAL’s Eurodam in 2009, this was the first port after seven days at sea. That’s when I first learned about the happy cows here. Because the weather is so felicitous, the animals stay out in the fields all day and night. On some farms the workers even bring the milking machines out to the cows in the fields.

In 2009 I went on the most interesting of the ship’s shore excursions--a visit to Sete Cidades on the eastern side of the island. Click on this link to see the blog page of that visit [https://lflatsea.blogspot.com/2009/05/sunday-3-may-2009.html]. Prior to this cruise, I booked an 8-hour tour of the northeastern part of the island with Viator, an online booking site that specializes in tours in every corner of the planet. Very often these tours are more comprehensive and less expensive than what the cruise lines offer.

At 8am, shortly after docking, our driver and guide, Pedro, arrives to pick up me and six other passengers from the Zuiderdam in his Ford mini-van. The timing of this tour has been specially arranged to make sure we are back at the port well before final boarding at 4:30pm.

The tour begins with a short drive through the center of Ponta Delgada itself, before we head east along the southern shore of the island.

Ponta Delgada Historic District

Remaining Part of Town Fortifications

Ornately Decorated Cathedral

Before turning inland and northeastward, we stop at a popular ocean outlook in the hills just outside the city.

Viewpoint Santa Iris Overlooking the North Atlantic Shoreline (Below)

Pedro drives along excellent roadways as we pass bucolic countryside and small town scenes--everything perfectly neat and orderly.

We reach the north coast at Ribiera Grande and continue eastward, passing magnificent sea views to the north and mountains to the south. We reach our most important point, the city of Furnas (fur-nósh), as we turn southward to the center of the island. We will spend several hours here, visiting two sites created by the volcanic history of the Island, and enjoying  a very special lunch.

The first site is outside the city on a peaceful lake. Surrounding the lake are violent hot fumaroles (just like on the North Island of New Zealand), belching smoke and gas as the water bubbles and boils.

However, this is not just for geologists; it's also for cooks and foodies. This is where local restaurants, and home cooks, prepare the island's most famous dish, Cozido das Furnas. Pieces of chicken, beef, pork, and sausage are placed in a large pot, along with root vegetables, carrots, onions, cabbage, taro, and two kinds of potatoes. No liquid is added. The pot is buried underground in the fumaroles and then covered with cones of soil. For eight hours the mixture boils and bubbles as natural liquid oozes out of the contents into the bottom of the pot. After eight hours, specially-trained workers remove the pots and deliver them to local restaurants. Each pot can serve up to 16 people.

And then we enjoy a leisurely lunch at a local restaurant that Pedro claims has the best food in the area, where they serve us the results of that underground cookery. Not bad, indeed!

The Tour Group Enjoying Lunch

After lunch we visit a second set of lava pools, these right on the edge of a residential neighborhood. I guess they have learned to live with smell of sulphur. Here, guests can taste and drink several different kinds of mineral water from a number of fountains. Pedro has brought along paper cups so members of the group can taste the different waters--after having had a beer at lunch, I decide to become a teetotaler and decline the offered samples. Others in the group do some tasting, resulting in rather sour faces.

Our Guide, Pedro, Is on the Right

We continue our drive eastward along the coast to the very end of the island and the town of Nordeste, where there are wonderful views over the edge of land. We make a final stop at Parque de Ribeira Dos Caleiroes, a national park with several waterfalls and many scenic trails.

This is the last tour stop of the day and we now head back along the same route we traveled earlier, only this time at a much higher speed, since it is getting close to the 4pm deadline that Pedro has promised to meet. Fortunately, we didn't tell him that actual final boarding time is 4:30pm, and we make that deadline with fifteen minutes to spare.

It has been a great small-group tour and I am glad I booked it. I am also glad that we made it back on time. Now I have two sea days to recuperate, before hitting the next five ports in a row before Rotterdam. But I will save that for the next blog.