Sao Jorge

A smooth overnight sail of some 135 miles brought us to the little town of Velas on the island of Sao Jorge. Jose, the very nice man in charge of the marina was already on the pier waving and welcoming Taniwani, he had seen us approaching on the Marine Traffic website, which tracks the AIS signals sent by all big ships and now also by an increasing number of yachts.

We were lucky, as another boat had just left the T-end of the first pontoon, which is long enough to accommodate us. The little can take about 10 visiting yachts and is quickly filled. The next T-end one pontoon in, which we had also used in the past is now occupied by the new pilot boat and all the inner berths on the long pontoon paralleling the breakwater are now assigned to permanent local boats. The good news is, that it is still possible to anchor outside, reasonably sheltered most of the time. Still, June is probably the only month in which the marina fills up.

Long before there was the marina, we had anchored at the coast of Sao Jorge, looked at the island and regretted that we couldn't leave the boat alone a explore the very interesting looking place.

Now, back in the new marina for the fourth time, we still love to get a car for a day and drive around the island. It is very pretty, with lovely sights and every time we discover something new.

Again we started by driving east on the southern side visiting places like Urselina and Calheta, the second, but less sheltered harbor on the island. Along the south coast, with the island of Pico just across a 10 mile channel, one has a feeling of being at the shore of a large lake. Sheltered by the whole length of pico, the south coast of Sao Jorge is milder and friendlier than any other in the Azores.

The eastern tip, called Toppo has a nice natural swimming pool, a freshly painted lighthouse and a flat round island just off the eastern cape. Pico isn't visible any more, but in the far one can see the island of Terceira. Turning back west again there is a road with magnificent views leading straight over the hilly highland with green meadows and happy cows.

Then over to the north side which has those beautiful "Fajas", flat land down at the sea, created by major earth slides many years ago. Many have only been accessible by boat, but now hard to maintain small roads lead down along the cliff sides. Down on the Faja, at a small restaurant, we hoped to have our lunch. All he could offer was a really very nice vegetable soup and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We didn't drive all the way to the western end, with its derelict army facility and damaged lighthouse. Just before that end, there is a nice little park and a hill with great view in all directions. That's where we turned around and drove back to Velas. Still we had done 130 km with the car, the island is quite long.