June 5, Horta, Azores, Portugal

Today is the first of only two days on land for this 11 day cruise. All the other days are sea days crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We have never been to the Azores, about 7 Islands way out in the Atlantic Ocean, a part of Portugal. We docked at the Island of Horta. Our ship had never docked there and the captain had said with the winds and weather that we may not be able to dock. It looked like a difficult docking and we had to back in and make sure to avoid all the small boats anchored in the harbor.

We boarded a tour bus for an Island drive. Such an interesting island, of course small narrow roads most of them goin either up hill or down. Lots of cows, green fields and budding blue flowering Hydrangeas. This island is called the Blue Island as many roads are lined with them and because of the soil, they only flower blue. They are just starting to flower so we are too early to get the full effect.

We drove to the old light house on the other side of the Island. When the volcano erupted in 1958 it started off with steam and a small amount of ash. The people took pictures of it and lots of tourists came. By the next year, most houses on that side of the island were buried and people had to leave that part of the island due to the smell, houses being destroyed by ash and being unsafe. The light house was buried in ash about half way up. As time has gone on, the wind blew the ash away and now it is exposed again. The interpretive center is build next door to it and has lots of information about all types of volcanic eruptions including that one. You can walk out to the light house and up the hill in the sandy volcanic ash. Not easy. The views from there are amazing. We continued around the other side of the island back to Horta. Each community has an elementary school but everyone has to go to Horta for the Middle School and High School. I thought we were on nice white tour buses but really they belong to the island and they use them for school buses and transportation for everyone to get around the island.

We got off on Horta’s Main Street, next to the water and the towns marina and walked back to the ship. It gave us time to see the town and buy a couple magnets. Beautiful town as we arrived from the ship. The captain made an announcement at 6 as we were getting ready to leave. He told us how difficult it was to get in to dock and said we only had 3 to 4 feet of water under the ship. He also said it would be difficult to get out as well. He also told us that there had been a passenger that was let off the ship in Horta due to poor behavior toward crew and other passengers. He said poor behavior wouldn’t be tolerated and that now that person had to find his own way to where he wanted to go. There is a small airport and at least 2 ferry routes but it is not easy to be 1/3 of the way in the ocean to Florida. Too bad for him. Later we heard he was posting how terrible the ship was and saying lots of terrible things about the passengers (old, dull etc.). He complained about the lack of a night life so someone asked him why not go on Canival…. He said he couldn’t as he was banged from there. Sad for him and all that came in contact with him. The captain was so happy we made it into the Azores or else he would have had to have him on the ship for 4 more days. Shocking, I’ve never heard a story like that before.