Horta, Azores, Portugal

 Horta was another pleasant surprise destination.  Our tour was called Discover Faial 4x4.  Faial is the name of this island in the Azores archipelago which has nine islands altogether.  Faial's population is around 15,000 with half of them living in the city of Horta.  The tour was a small one, but we didn't have to pay for a "small group tour", it just turned out that way.  I imagine it was limited because the tour company only has 2 Land Rovers holding 5 passengers each and a larger Renault van which holds 6, which wasn't used today.  Our guide was very candid about how little maintenance the company does on their vehicles.  According to him, they only fix something when it breaks instead of doing preventive maintenance.  He pointed out a couple of things on the other van in front of us and demonstrated how the windshield wipers on ours didn't work.  Fortunately, he did this when we only had about 10 minutes left of the tour.  It sounds worse than it is as he really was a good driver on those windy paved roads and the 15 minutes of really off-road driving that we did.  He used the standard transmission very well and didn't rely solely on the brakes.  He was a very likable young man and, surprisingly, had a vast knowledge of the ships that have called on Faial.  He could tell you exactly when each ship had been there and how big it was.

Anyway, Faial is a volcanic island, of course, and the most recent eruption that added land was in 1967-68.  It was pretty devastating to the local area and that started quite an emigration to the US, Canada, and Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony.  They lost nearly 1/3 of the population during that time. That finally ended in the early 90s and the population is once again growing.  The main industries are farming, cattle for milk and meat, and fishing.  There are more cattle than people and even residents right in Horta have small plots of land with a couple of cows on them.  We saw lots of goats and a very few horses.  Like San Miguel yesterday, this island is beautiful - so green and lush.  And the wild yellow ginger and hydrangeas here seemed even more plentiful.

Horta and our ship on the left

That vertical stripe just left of center looks like rocks but it's more hydrangeas.

This caldera was amazingly green and lush.

This is the "new" land formed in 1967-68.  No vegetation growing yet - it will take many more years for that.

Finally got a picture of the beautiful morning glories also found everywhere.

The Island of Pico as we approached Faial at dawn.

Trivia was a better performance than yesterday, but still out of the money.  However, the young lady from the entertainment crew who conducted the game commented that we seemed to be the group having the most fun and she found herself watching us while waiting for everyone to complete their answers, so that was nice.  We met Sarah for a cocktail at Galileo's before heading down to Sette Mari for a special Farewell Dinner for the Grand Arctic cruisers.  Donald, the maitre d' of La Veranda/Sette Mari said there were 104 invited and 98 actually attended the dinner.  The officers greeted us all as we arrived and they had the restaurant all decorated.  It was a lovely evening.  Michael teased Nino that since it was a "Farewell Dinner", did that mean that we were being kicked off, and should we bring our life vests?  Nino said "no need" as they would have the lifeboats all ready for us.

Captain Luksa told us as we were departing that there is a tropical system developing between us and our next port of Bermuda so we would be diverting a bit to avoid it and, while we should still arrive as scheduled, we'd have to be on full power which would mean a bit more of the vibration that comes with that.  No problem for us.  The departure was a little different.  We moved away from the pier sideways as usual, but then the bow started to drift back towards the pier while the stern was still pulling away.  Even the 4 workers on the pier came over to see what was happening.  The forward thruster was put on again and with not much room to spare by my observations, we started to move away from the pier again and backed up so we could turn and head out.  That's the first time I've seen that happen.  We have four sea days coming up before Bermuda.

When we got back to our cabin after dinner there was another gift for us - a nice sleeping mask with the Regent logo.  It's very soft and cushiony and should be comfortable.  My only thought is that it would have been more useful when we were cruising so far north that it never got dark at night, but no matter,  it's a nice gesture.  We also have a notice that Bermuda requires Covid testing for everyone before arrival, even if you don't plan to go ashore, along with our scheduled time for the complimentary testing on board.  I wonder what Bermuda will say if we have any positive cases, which wouldn't surprise me.  Will they prevent everyone from coming ashore, or only the positive cases?  And since we arrive in NYC just a few days later, will that be a problem?  Time will tell.