Finally, ONE picture!...

Ponta Delgada, April 14, 2014

After seven days we get to walk on dry land the day before yesterday. Both Randy and I had the weird feeling of staggering just a bit since we’ve been at sea so long! I guess that’s what you call “sea legs.”

The island we visited is Sao Miguel, the largest of the nine Portuguese islands in the Azores. They are a part of the mid-Atlantic ridge (we think! I really miss being able to just do a Google search when I have a question about something. Aside: It just doesn’t have the same ring to it to say “Do a Bing search” but “Google search” probably sounded pretty lame, too, at first!) and the port is Ponta Delgada. Traveling here, the ocean has gone from 5500 meters in the middle of the Atlantic to 30 meters over the ridge and this is where we are most likely to see whales. They start their migration about this time of year. We have seen exactly none so far.

This was the first of our Cruise Critic private tours and it was great—except for when Dan (the organizer) tripped over a stone marker. He wasn’t badly hurt but it did break the skin and he has a lump on his forehead. It could have been a LOT worse!

The Azores are volcanic islands so we saw a lot of fumaroles and other signs that the volcanic activity is still there, not dormant! There is a town of Furnas that is actually built in the caldera of a volcano that last erupted in 1563 but still shows lots of signs of activity. I would be very nervous living in that caldera! Outside Furnas there are man-made pits dug into the ground and several restaurants and the homeowners cook their food there: they just lower the pots into the ground and let them simmer, using the ground heat, for several hours and then come pick them up and serve the meal. Pretty neat way to cook!

Other than Dan’s fall, it was not an exciting day, but it is a beautiful island and the weather cooperated nicely. And we got to go on land and so something other than stare at the sea or learn about computers!

Yesterday we had another party in our suite (told you we’d have to have parties!) with the special fillip of having Jorn Wagemans (Assistant Manager of the Dining Room) decapitate a champagne bottle! He didn’t have the traditional sword just a normal dinner knife but it had quite a bit of panache nonetheless and our guests were suitably impressed. As were we!

Today we get to watch Captain Timmers make Buenolo’s de Viento: Light as Air Spanish Fritters. He is really quite funny and while waiting for the water to boil and the oil to heat he bantered a bit with the audience. He was going to make a paella, he said, “but it involved the killing of small animals” so he decided to do fritters instead. I doubt that concern will stop the kitchen from making paella for us at least once while we sail the waters of Spain!

We will pass Gibraltar at 0200 so there won’t be much to see, but apparently there will be a party in the Crow’s Nest. I think Randy and I will be fast asleep! We do stop in the port of Gibraltar but we won’t see the Straits of Gibraltar on the way out either as we leave at 2300.

Tomorrow, Malaga, one of the oldest cities in Spain—or so the Captain says!