Category: Island
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Whaling Industry Museum
Pico, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) The last whaling factory in the Azores operated at São Roque do Pico, from the cais (dock) along the waterfront. Whalers killed and harvested their prey in local waters. Then they delivered carcasses to the dock, where workers extracted oil and processed flesh and teeth. During its heyday,…
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São Roque do Pico
Pico, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) São Roque do Pico (map) appeared in the distance from the cross-island road. This photograph gives a good perspective of the steep descent from the interior. Then, down below, towns could be observed on the relatively flat coastal plain. Of course, this placement also offered excellent oceanfront access.…
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Porto do Cachorro
Pico, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Porto do Cachorro meets the sea on Pico’s northwestern coast (map). It is an old, traditional town with narrow streets along a rugged coastline of rapidly cooled lava flows. When people settle the island they naturally used locally available building materials. For Pico that meant charcoal-black volcanic rocks.…
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Madalena
Pico, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Madalena, on Pico’s western coast, is the principal town on the island (map). It is also a vital transportation link to the island of Faial via ferry from the nearby municipal dock [see my Pico – Faial Ferry page]. The most impressive building in Madalena is undoubtedly the…
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Horta Street Scenes
Faial, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Faial played an important historical role as a stopping point between Europe and the New World. Whaling ships paused for resupply and took men along with them when they departed, building immigrant communities in North America. Steamships rested here to take on new supplies and provide a respite…
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Horta Waterfront
Faial, The Azores (Açores), Portugal (March 2001) Wealthy transatlantic yachters adopted Horta as a convenient stopping point between Europe and North America in recent decades (map). Their graceful sailboats line the town’s marina. While there, their crews also leave colorful graffiti on the harbor barriers to commemorate their oceanic voyages. The mosaic of color on…
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Icelandic Adventures
Iceland (September 1999) For a country as small as Iceland, the capital city of Reykjavík and its suburbs felt much larger than one would expect. Hallgrímskirkja, a tall church sitting atop a hill, dominated the otherwise low-slung skyline. Corrugated iron protected historic homes near the harbor from cold rain and steady wind. Tjörnin (literally “the…
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Exploring the Mitten, Part 3 (Gladwin)
Michigan contained a lot of square-shaped counties within the Mitten. Surveyors laid them down neatly like that for settlers in the mid 19th Century. Gladwin County fit the same basic definition, with rolling farmland eventually replacing much of the forest (map). Not much differentiated it from surrounding counties although it had some nice lakes. We…
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Apostle Islands / Bayfield Peninsula Index
Index of Pages from the Visit to Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands (2007) Few areas can rival the natural beauty of the Apostle Island and the Bayfield Peninsula. The state of Wisconsin borders Lake Superior only briefly but this mighty wedge takes full advantage of its limited coastline. The islands are a national treasure full of rocky…
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Mawikwe Sea Caves
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore; Bayfield County, Wisconsin, USA (August 2007) Sea caves adorn several points along the Apostle Islands and the nearby mainland shore of Lake Superior. Sailors, sea kayakers and other adventurers flock to northern Devils Island, Swallow Point on Sand Island, and Mawikwe Bay along the Bayfield Peninsula, to explore these natural wonders…