On Thursday around 3:00 pm the 5^th of Nov. Nancy asked if I wanted to go to the Azores on Sat. morning for a week. I pondered it for a few minutes and said “why not”. We started throwing stuff in our travel bags as we needed to leave in 13 hours to make the 13+ hr drive to Baltimore where we would stay at the Ramada Inn near BWI airport for a 5:00am show time Sat. morning. We arrived at the hotel exhausted around 9:00pm, checked in, asked for a wakeup call at 3:00am and fell into bed.

   We made it to the airport next morning for the 0500 roll call for the MAC flight (now AMC for Air Mobility Command) to the Azores. We were two of 15 passengers aboard the 757 which was setup to carry cargo in the front 2/3 and 42 passengers in the aft section. Off the ground by 0900 with a 41/2 hour flight ahead of us we tried to get some more sleep. It was a great flight with a great flight crew which served us meals, snacks and drinks. We touched down in Lajes on the Island of Terceira at 5:30 pm Azores time and were through customs by 6:00.

   Fatima, our Air B&B host met us at the airport and gave us a whirl wind tour on the way back to Angra and informed us that the apartment had developed a leak in the kitchen so she was going to put us up in her son’s vacant rental house while the apartment was being repaired. She also apologized for the fact that she had to fly off to Lisbon the next morning for medical reasons and was lending us her car while she was away... horrors!

   We pretty much drove all over the island of Terceira during our stay. I have always loved the Azores, having been stationed there for short periods during my Navy tour and sailing over with Chris Morejohn aboard his 38ft sharpie in 2004. Nancy has now fallen in love with them as well and we are entertaining the idea of sailing over this spring and spending the summer. Most of the foods on the islands are locally produced and the prices are very reasonable. A beer costs less than a dollar and a glass of local wine can be had for a euro ($1.06 at the time). Our meals typically cost less than 15 dollars including wine, desert and coffee.

Click on the pictures below to enlarge

 A park up on the mountain

 Difficult to see but our apartment is the 4th from the left not counting the partial one

 Entering the park in Angra the following pictures were taken in the park

 Coffee break in park cafe

 Last picture of park

 Down town Angra

 Marina in Angra, Chris and I stayed here in 2004

 Stairway down to marina

 From the other side

 View from the house where we stayed for the first 5 days

 Most of the walls overlooking the water have these neat little seats

 Coffee break at the baths

 Musicians playing in the afternoons down town Praia de Vitoria

 Interior shots of the house we stayed in for the first 5 days

 Praia de Vitoria, this is where we will sail into, base is to the right

 Walls are the result of clearing the land for farming

 This little pony was in no hurry to get out of our way

 Trying to figure out the parking fees

 This was on one whole side of a building

 The beach at Angra

 The fishing village of Sao Mateus

 Park walkway, Sao Mateus

 Swimming area

 Bird of Paradise