TFTA - The Domain of the Wind God

Now, it is 'young' José who runs the business. His father, the elder José, puts in an appearance daily, but his son is in charge. All male members of the Azevedo family seem to be called José, just as they are all known as Peter to the rest of the world. This tradition started in the war, when a US warship captain 'adopted' the young José, saying he was the image of his son Peter. My favourite aspect of the café is the scrimshaw museum above, maintained by the Azevedo family. This is dedicated to the intricate carvings on sperm whale teeth that were popular during the sailing ship era. Now that whaling has stopped in Europe, the supply of teeth has dried up; but divers sometimes find them on the sea bed near old whale processing factories. One of the few remaining artists in this medium lives on Faial.

The harbour wall paintings

The harbour walls are famous worldwide among sailors for their artwork. It's bad luck to leave Horta without painting a motif for your boat, on a wall somewhere. The walls, ground, and any other available space are covered with colourful paintings featuring boats, crew, or occasionally aliens who have visited. Some of the art is really very fine, and is obviously the work of professional artists and graphic designers. Some work features purpose-mixed paints with many subtle shades; others are based around 3D effects using real objects epoxied onto the wall. Generally, in terms of quality, the French boats seem to have the edge in creative ability and skill of execution – but this is probably only since they are the largest number of boats passing through, of course.

This painting for s/y Silurian was done by the BBC crew who chartered the locally-based sailing vessel to make the wildlife series 'The Blue Planet'. All nationalities are represented on the walls, and it's interesting to see a lot of paintings from countries like Finland; and the former Russian states are here as well. My favourite, though, is the one by the Martian visitors.

Square-riggers

One very fine aspect of harbour life in Horta is the large number of square-riggers that may be seen there, on their way through to their home ports or further afield. During the season, from April to November, at least one will probably be in port; and sometimes three or four can be seen. It's not impossible to get a photo with three of them in, especially toward the end of the season. Occasionally, the extremely rare sight of a ship actually sailing from harbour can be seen. If you have seen square-riggers leaving port, you'll know that they never, ever, set sail until well clear of land, since they all have auxiliary diesel engines now, and the value of the ships is so high that they cannot be risked in close-quarter sail manoeuvering. Sometimes, though, in Horta, they will deliberately make the effort, if the wind is right. This is the spiritual home port of these sailing ships, so they are willing to go the extra mile. There are some excellent photos here of this sight so rare that even those who ship aboard square-riggers will never see it.

These vessels are now used extensively for sail training. Although most are old, and maintained with loving care and attention, sail training is now so popular internationally that new ships are even being built for the purpose, at the cost of millions of pounds each. The newer ones sometimes have roller-furling on some or all of the yards, which may seem like a bit of a cheat; until you remember that disabled crews don't really want to be treading the footrope a hundred feet up and twenty feet out.

Pico's hats

The central group of islands is Faial ('gorse bushes'), Pico ('mountain'), Sao Jorge ('Saint George', for the saint's day it was discovered on), Graciosa (the discovering ship's name), and Terceira ('third', as it was the third island to be discovered). The most outstanding of these is of course Pico, which has the highest mountain in Portugal. It's right next to Faial, and good snaps can be taken from Horta. This is especially true when the mountain is showing its Sunday Best hat – or a lenticular cloud, to give it the correct scientific name. Once in a while you might see a double lenticular, a truly amazing sight, which could be mistaken for a UFO after a hard lunch in Peter's.

The World Centre of lost anchors

There are people who just go sailing to find somewhere new to surf or sailboard, so there's usually someone out hunting for a good wave. This isn't the best place in the world for it, as the islands, being volcanic, rise straight up from the sea, with little in the way of beaches. One thing it is definitely the best for, though: it's the world centre of lost anchors. Make sure you trip yours (set a backing-out line on it), if you cruise the islands, otherwise you may be saying goodbye to it. Even then it may be irretrievable, jammed up in rocks, without a trip down with a scuba tank. Apparently, when you think that your anchor is jammed in the rocks, in fact many times the chain has jammed instead, wedged in hard between two rocks.

A poor skipper crying over his beer in the Café Sport may provoke a lone diver to try and raise the expensive lost ground tackle; and after he or she fails to make any impression on the jam, a party of divers will usually succeed after much hard work with wrecking bars. The captain's resulting bill for cerveja (beer), aguardiente (fiery grape spirit), and bagaçeira (home or local 'illegal' brandy) might make him weep even more.

Everyone knows how to distil spirit from the local grapes, winemaking having been a local industry for hundreds of years; and copper stills are for sale in many shop windows. The laws are virtually the same Europe-wide nowadays, but Britain of course is one of the very, very few places – and perhaps the only one – where they are all strictly enforced. In the Azores, no one would dream of stopping people home distilling, a practice which is almost a national sport; and that, despite the increased numbers of policemen you'll find, the further south you go.

The oriental or eastern group of islands comprises Sao Miguel (Saint Michael), Santa Maria (Saint Mary), and the Formigas ('ants') rocks. From here to the mainland of Portugal, across the Atlantic, is around 900 miles, although if you're sailing it will no doubt be a thousand or so. The weather in this region can be poor, despite the presence of the Azores High for much of the summer; as an example, a 70' schooner sailing in autumn 2001 took seventeen days for this trip, and had their bowsprit carried away amongst other damage. The Atlantic between the Azores and Portugal can be decidedly unfriendly – especially so, since you will choose good weather for the passage, when suddenly: wallop! The Wind God decides to flex his muscles.

A truly terrifying Navtex picture

In the winter, lying-up in harbour and reading the Navtex for fun can be educational. At one time I counted reports of six yachts abandoned and one upturned catamaran, all floating around in the area of the Portugal - Azores Atlantic, which, although a common event there, was the highest total at any single time noted. This confirms three things which one might already suspect: the boat is almost always going to be stronger than the crew, so step up to your liferaft; don't choose the wrong sort of boat to go offshore sailing in; and lastly, that passagemaking isn't always a walk in the park.

The continual winter Navtex reports are from ships of containers lost overboard, gales, huge logs that no doubt weigh tens of tons (one reported as twenty metres long by one and a half metres in diameter), containers sighted floating, forty-foot waves, shoals of smaller logs and assorted baulks of timber, trees, abandoned and floating fishing nets and other gear, storms, abandoned yachts, assorted flotsam and jetsam, upturned multihulls, abandoned trawlers, inter-island ships lost in heavy weather, hurricanes, floating upturned dinghies, fishing vessels on fire, huge seas, a ship with all engine power lost and abandoned, floating dead whales, a crippled and leaking oil tanker, and a whole lot more of the same. One might consider it altogether best to stay in harbour until summer comes around; unless, perhaps, you have a seagoing salvage vessel of at least 10,000 tons; though even a Smit Tak skipper might find safer employment...

The Azores are a group of islands way out in the Atlantic, and a long way from the European mainland. Nearly a thousand miles west of Portugal, they were discovered by ships sent by Prince Henry the Navigator, who suspected their existence. Later, many Flemish people also came to the islands. There is a western, a central, and an eastern group of islands. The western or occidental group is comprised of Flores ('flowers'), and Corvo ('the crow'), which is the most north-easterly of the islands. The wind god, who used to be called Aeolus, probably lives on Corvo, which therefore gets the most weather (and a lot more of it than most places you can think of). Now most likely called Corvo, his gentle presence or fierce wrath can be felt worldwide. When he's at home and feeling playful, strong gales blow through the Azores, from a clear blue sky and the barometer strangely high at 1020, as if in the tropics. When he is angry, hurricanes beat the islands and whip the seas into a frenzy, with the baro down in the 960's. It's the only part of Europe to suffer from genuine hurricanes; either new ones spawned down by the Cape Verde islands off Africa, or old ones recurved back from the Caribbean.

The word Azores is the anglicised version of Açores in Portuguese, and is pronounced there something like 'ajorsh', with the 'j' soft tending toward a 'sh'. It means roughly 'soarers', and refers to the birds of prey resembling buzzards which can be seen soaring on the updraughts, ridge-riding on the windward slopes of the islands.

Generally, pronunciation in Portuguese is much easier and more logical for English people than that of the Spanish language – there is no strange lisp or weird pronunciation of the letter 'j', for instance. The common name José is pronounced 'joesay' in Portuguese, exactly as you might try it in English; whereas in Spanish it would be 'hosay'. The island of Sao Jorge (Saint George) is 'Sow Georrge' in Portuguese, not far off an English effort at the name. In Spanish, 'San Horgay' is a long way from any try by an English speaker unfamiliar with the language. Portuguese and Spanish are certainly not the same language, though similar and with the same root.

Atlantic central

The locals insist that the Azores are in the centre of the Atlantic, which seems hard to accept looking at the map; but they will insist on it loudly and stubbornly, especially when fuelled by Sagres or Aguardiente, the local beer and spirit ('burning water'). All conversations in Portuguese are conducted at 100 decibels in any case, even at a distance of two yards. Perhaps they are the last of the flat earthers – old ways die hard here; they only stopped whaling in 1987 (or perhaps later). Officially it was in 1985, but the officials are a long way away in Lisbon. The whale boats still sit ready and waiting down on the quayside, perhaps waiting for the world to come to its senses and let them go back to the old ways.

On the other hand, to reinforce their argument, if you saw the excellent film The Perfect Storm then perhaps you will remember the name of the ocean banks where some of the action took place, called the Flemish Cap. This is nearer to the Azores, than to the homeport of the swordfish boat in the film, on the eastern seaboard of the USA.

This is a land of volcanoes, earthquakes, and high winds. That would be on a bad day, though; when the sun's shining and the wind is light, with the Azores high in evidence, it will seem that there's no finer place on earth. At least, so it's claimed by many round-the-world sailors, some of whom stop here, sell their boats, buy a house, and swallow the anchor. There can't be many places where people can just park their cars and leave the keys in; where motorbike helmets are left on the seat all day long; where whales and dolphins can be seen from the land, and if you want to make the effort you can go and swim with them; where the marina charges are £3 a day for a thirty-foot boat; and where a beer is 20p (the most important, of course).

Vulcanologists come from afar to see the smoking fumaroles and heaved-up landscape, and shattered houses are constantly being rebuilt. There is some comfort in living onboard there – if things get desperate, you could probably just set sail and decamp rapidly.

Café Sport

Many offshore sailors are familiar with Peter's Café Sport in Horta, the main harbour on the island of Faial, in the central group. You're not a real sailor til you've got the T-shirt, so they say, and compared to UK prices their T-shirts are a bargain. Mind you, it cost enough to get there in the first place...

It's been the world's most famous rendezvous for long-distance sailors, delivery skippers, and transatlantic race crews since the fifties, as you can't get there without sailing a thousand ocean miles. You'll be pleased to hear that he can now serve decent food, as a dispute with the local chamber of commerce has been resolved (being a bar, he sold drinks and snacks, and other businesses, being restaurants, sold meals; many were jealous of his success and didn't want the Café Sport to function as a restaurant as well). It's one of the few places where you can get chips; baked beans are still a bit scarce, though. No British sailor can possibly exist without beer, chips, and baked beans. If one of these is unavailable, increased quantities of the others have to be consumed, in order to compensate.