Day thirtytwo, Wednesday 2nd March, Ponta Delgada, Island of Sao Miguel, Azores

We’ve had a really good day today.  We woke up to the view of the port of Ponta Delgada which is on the south coast of Sao Miguel, one of nine islands that make up the Azores.

Our first impression.......?  These people have got OCD!  That’s a bit mean, but this place is so different after the unkempt and disorderly Caribbean.  Everything looked so neat and orderly and in place.

We were on a tour today, so this morning we followed our escort out to the bus where “Connie” our Portuguese tour guide met us.  Lovely lady, very enthusiastic, loves flowers, English not brilliant, very cheerful and chatty.  She did our heads in after a while.  The tour bus took us first to a ceramics factory.  It did seem to be a working factory, but maybe not a very busy one.  Staff appeared in various rooms for the period of our visit, demonstrating the skills.  Hand painted really does mean hand painted in this case.  I have to admit, I would not have chosen to visit a ceramics factory ordinarily, but it was mildly interesting.

From there the bus took us through the countryside to the place Peter and I had wanted to see, the Fire Lake.  Interestingly, the countryside is very green and has loads of cows, (shades of England).  The bus climbed the 900 metres to the edge of the crater and stopped at a couple of sites giving magnificent views over the lake.  Glorious. 

Sao Miguel island is actually very long and thin, made up of 3 volcanoes in a row of different ages.  If I remember rightly, the one furthest east is 6 million years old, the central one is 60,000 yrs old, and the one in the west is 1.3 million years old (thereabouts).   From our viewpoints almost central on the island, we could see the eastern volcano/hill and both the north and south coasts.

The views were spectacular and our tour guide explained that the area was now all national park with conservation orders all over it, although all outdoor activities such as walking and climbing were being encouraged.

The bus then took us down to the small city of Ribeira Grande, where we were left to our own devices for half an hour.  A lovely, lovely placewith fantastic buildings and a lovely little central park, we could have easily spent a lot more time there.  Sadly it was time to leave, and we returned to the ship in time for lunch.

A quick meal, and then we dashed back out again to have a look round Ponta Delgada itself, which is the capital of the island and actually a wonderful city.  Everywhere we looked was a pleasure.  Like Madeira, the people used the volcanic basalt to create their houses and streets.  The streets and paths are made from basalt blocks and another cream stone in wonderful mosaics. 

The houses have ornate balconies and doors and are a pleasure to look at.  As were the churches and official buildings.  We were looking at the “old” city of course, we had seen the modern buildings of the “new” city further out during our tour this morning.  As we passed our fellow passengers they all said the same thing – “what a wonderful place”, most saying they wanted to come back.

Sadly we had to return to the ship which left the port at 4.30 this afternoon.  And that’s it.  The last port.  I’m slightly sad but also pleased to be getting home.  5 weeks is a long time, although I am certain then when I turn up for work Monday morning it’ll seem like I’ve never been away.

Day thirtyone, Tuesday 1st March, ANOTHER seaday.

We keep putting the clocks forwards as we make our way east towards the Azores and eventually, the UK.  Now we are only an hour behind British time.  This means that although we were dead lazy and got up at 10 this morning, if it had been 5 days ago, it would have been 7am. 

Amazon 17^th Feb Swallowtail moth onboard ship just as we were leaving the river.

Anyway, we woke up, and there was a distinct difference in the sea.  Not smooth, but definitely less rise and fall.  Everyone is feeling much better about it, and the sun even came out, so a lot more people were out on deck.  We still have the front of the ship and one deck closed off due to high winds, and the pools are still empty, because they just rock with the ship, create massive waves and flood the decks.  There is no way you can swim in them.

Today we watched the Can’t Cook Won’t Cook show which involved one of the chef’s and the two comedians.  I have seen this before on the Braemar, and it is fun to watch. We followed this with a coffee and a chat in the Iceni lounge, lunch, dozing in the iceni lounge and then Peter’s class.  Numbers have been down, but we had 42 today, and as usual they seem to enjoy themselves.  Then a cup of tea out on deck before the sun went in before coming to the cabin to chill.  We will probably not watch the show tonight, I feel a couple of episodes of  X-Files coming on.

Tobago 20^th Feb the Argyle waterfall again with Peter trying to get a better photo shot

Tobago 20^th Feb the stream from the waterfall.

Tomorrow we are in Ponta, on the island of Delgada, which is one of the islands in the Azores.  We have a tour booked which should be fun.  We were supposed to get there about 11.30, to go ashore about 12.30 and leave at 5pm.  Apparently there port staff want to go on strike, so now we have to get there earlier and leave earlier.  I think it works in our favour, and we get an hour or so in town after our tour.  We’ll see.

St Vincent 21^st Feb  Another view from the beach at St Vincent

St Vincent 21^st Feb Peter doing “the thinking man” impression

St Vincent 21^st Feb, a tiny little blue eyed gecko at the beach bar.

Day thirty, Monday 28th February, More Rough Seas

Now the captain promised us better weather today.  He lied!  The sea was described as rough to very rough today, not quite “A perfect storm” but enough to make the ship go up and down like a seasaw all day.  Humph! I am not liking it at all!  Seasick pills are being chewed as I type.

Today was dedicated to charity fundraising, the charity being an orphanage in the Philippines.  The first of the fundraising events was quite novel.  It is basically a line of coins started at the lowest level on the staircase. Passengers add their loose change and foreign coins and the line of coins climbs up the stairs.  The aim was to get it to the top floor (level 9) and back down again.  Well, by 13.30 this afternoon, it had already gone all the way up, and then back down to level 3.  So it was sent back up the stairs doing another circuit, I’m not sure how far it got, but there is definitely a load of money there.  Apparently all euro’s and pounds will be donated to the orphanage, and the foreign coins and notes to the RNLI.  We’ll find out later how much was raised.

As for the rest of the day - most of the normal entertainment was cancelled in favour of the “Country Fair” this afternoon in the Neptune Lounge.  There were loads of raffle stands and fundraising games.  Our favourite was the living fruit machine – 3 guys stood behind the bar with a bag containing fruit each, and one stood in front of it – he was the arm of the fruit machine- you lifted it and swung it down, and the three guys each pulled a piece of fruit out of the bag - 3 matching fruits and you won a prize.  Brilliant fun.  Although I nearly wrenched the guys arm off doing my “spins”.   Trying to get ping pong balls into brandy glasses also kept our attention, but we didn’t win.  

Peter did win a copy of the ships DVD in a raffle though, which is actually good, because there are clips in there that we haven’t managed to film or picture. 

The final event of the occasion was the auction.  There was a fantastic wall flower display made by one the staff, several photographs, two paintings by one the passengers, a painting by Peter of Boca Do Valeria, and a ship’s chart showing the route of this cruise signed by all the senior officers.  The last item was expected to be the chart topper and raise around £500.  As it happened, although everything sold well, Peter’s picture went for the largest amount of £420, and the map only managed £270. (How smug are we!).  And all for a good cause.   We will find out later how much the whole event raised.

More pics from the Amazon, except they are from the towns.  The first four are of the Opera House and surrounding building in Manaus – the area bears no resemblance to the rest of the city, which is teeming with people.  The last three are Parintins, the last place we visited on the river.  If you remember, this place does not have a dock big enough for the ship.  It was also the place we liked best – a cleaner, more attractive and more restful environment. You can play “where’s Peter” on two of them, but they do only show a back view. 

Opera House Manaus

I think this is a governers building or palace, Manaus

Parantins

Another Parantins street.  Bright and sunny 

Inside the cathedral, Parantins