Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
As the weather forecast had predicted, it was an overcast day with rain showers in the distance, but it remained dry where the ship was and that was in port today. After 6 very good days at sea. The Great circle that we had been travelling on came to an end just under the West point of the island Sao Migual (St Michael) on which Punta Delgada is located. A Great Circle line with a bit of a hic-up in it due to our deviation towards to Bermuda. Just West and South of the Azores is a bank, called the Alice Bank. This is basically an Azores island, a mountain top like the other islands, but one which did not make it to the surface. According to the chart there are a few shallow spots there, so we had to make certain that our course went just under it. From there it was one straight line to the pilot station.
The Azores are, although in the Eastern part of the North Atlantic, still 740 miles way from the European (Portuguese) mainland. After their discovery in 1427 they have been part of Portugal. Due to its strategic location, as a sort of gate keeper for Europe, it has always played an important part in connecting the Western and the Eastern hemisphere. For the cruise ships it is very often a stop during the bi annual migration of the ships from the Caribbean Sea to Europe. Although since the European cruise market has started to develop rapidly, more and more ships are calling here all year around.
In the past, read before the 1990’s, the Azores where mostly called at by sailing yachts on the way across the Atlantic and cargo ships. Several tugboat companies had tugboats stationed here for call out, if ships would get into problems on the North Atlantic. Very famous is Café Sport in Horta; that for years was the home base of the tugboats of Smit International, the world famous Dutch salvage company. This café became such a Dutch stronghold that even the Portuguese owner spoke Dutch (and was an avid fan of Feijenoord the soccer club of Rotterdam). Punta Delgada had in those days less of a connection with sailing, as it was located further to the South.
