Flores

Many of the Canary Islands are pretty and they are certainly all different. From the black lava fields of Lanzarote to the spectacular mountain range of Gran Canary on to a Gomera that shows two faces one might think to have seen most of the imaginable spectrum. But nothing prepares you for the difference of sailing a few days to a completely different world. This is Taniwani's fourth time in the Azores, and so we should have been prepared for a small surprise, yet picking the one island we had not yet seen made all the difference.

Like the Canaries, all Azores islands are different, but in its consistent beauty, Flores beats them all. Wherever you turn your eyes it is just a pleasure that one cannot describe, so we will let some of the many pictures we took try to convey our impressions.

Green is dominating, but there are so many flavors of it. The bands of Hortensia hedges from the far look like silver streaks, and then the many lakes, all of different color. Or the the steep walls of Faja Grande, again green and only disrupted by a hundred waterfalls.

That is one side of the island equation, that other is that is is still quite remote with only around 3000 inhabitants. There is simply not much going on, provisioning is basic and fresh supplies rare, as the small super markets get their stuff from the weekly ferry, the rest people get from their own gardens. The tiny new marina has brought some new life into town and probably extended the season that yachts visit by a month. Previously only yachts coming from the west, typically returning from the Caribbean, would stop by, weather providing. Now several boats come from the middle group, like us on summer trips to the Azores. Add to this that the marina is still not officially open and that it is for free this year, one can easily see why several boats have been staying for 6 or 7 weeks.

Studying the weather patterns one can eventually see the down sides: The islands of Flores and Corvo are so far to the north west, that they get much earlier effected by low pressure systems tracking towards east-northeast and so the good season is probably a month shorter than at the islands in the middle group, whereas Santa Maria, some 300 miles east-southeast would have an even longer nice period.

The first such depression was moving in and prompted us to leave to leave a day before the worst, providing us with a fast spinnaker run to Horta. Several other boats did the same and so it emptied out quite a bit in Lajes.

But Flores will now definitely be on our list of places to return to.