One Week on the Camino

Well, the blisters upon blister have finally healed, and walking is pretty good. 25 kms per day are easy now, which is about 15 miles. I got my backpack down to about 10-12 lbs I think and life is good. I shipped almost 4 kilos (8 lbs) ahead to Santiago–my large camera and all my electronics and wool hat and socks, which I now miss since it´s been raining cats and dogs for two days straight and muddy as heck. AND I am not even in rainy Galaicia yet.

Tonight I am in Belorado, and we´re in wine country. La Rioja is the wine capital of Spain, and a good bottle is about 3-4 Euros. I am taking full advantage. There is a saying on the Camino “Con pan y vino se anda el Camino”…with wine and bread one walks the Camino. Yeap, plenty of bread here. Taking full advantage there too

The days are full and I am loving it.

In between groups I took a walk up the hill to the Faial Botanical garden. It was a loveley place to spend an afternoon, and I got to see many of the species endmic to Faial before the settlers came and started importing all the plants. The coolest part by far was the wisteria-covered trellis leading to the dreamy water fountain. I could have stayed there forever! Another cool feature was the replica-caldera, like the one on Faial, displaying the typical plants that grow in such an ecosystem. The one in the botanical garden had steps leading into it so you could get up-close and personal with the plants.

Today I am flying to Spain (Pamplona) to begin another chapter in my European adventure. Tomorrow morning I will start walking the Camino de Santiago, a 750+ mile pilgrimage across Spain, but while I get settled on the trail I’ll keep posting the final chapters of my time in the Azores.

05 May
(Written for Biosphere Expeditions)

Slot three participants proved to be a terrific team in the last two days. Despite the rough seas and strong winds on theAtlantic, and an ever-bouncing Physeter, we recorded data and captured ID pictures on several loggerhead turtles, fin and blue whales. It was quite gratifying to see team members helping each other, particularly when Friday’s photographer Olga began bounding around the front deck and Yvonne helped by holding her in place on the railing during the animal encounters.

Thursday we were treated to two schools of striped dolphins North of Faial, and numerous sperm whale sightings. Again we were treated to calves suckling on the female whales. Friday brought us two large blue whales swimming together, and then the unusual (yet not unheard of) experience of a fin whale and blue whale swimming together. And to complete the blue whale experience for slot 3, we were able to make quality ID pictures on a blue whale swimming with an adolescent, most likely a calf from last year.

Sightings for team 3: sperm whale – 27 encounters, 55 animals | minke whale – 1 encounters, 1 animal | blue whale – 4 encounters, 6 animals | fin whale – 1 encounter, 1 animal | common dolphin – 10 encounters, 158 animals | bottlenose dolphin – 1 encounters, 4 animals | Risso’s dolphin – 5 encounters, 25 animals | striped dolphins – 2 encounters, 55 animals.

Thanks to all the team members who made this research possible by donating their time, energy and money to this very worthy alternative to sitting on a beach with a book for their holiday.

Thanks to all our volunteers, we were able to make several sperm whale matches to whales seen here in theAzoresin previous years. Slot one identified a whale also seen here in 2010. In Slot 2 we matched two: one to a whale seen in 2004 and another in 2010.  Slot 3 matched whales to 2005, 2007 and 2008.

We also were able to match two 2 blue whales – Slot 1 matched a whale to 2006 and Slot 2 matched one to 2010. We don’t have any information yet on info on the blue whale matches from slot 3 because the registrar is currently out of the lab.

Lisa also sent off the Rissos dolphins photos, and from Slot 3 the mother and calf from the north are recognized animals. And another group of 4 known animals and had been seen further down the coast of Pico the day before.

Thanks as well to Lisa and our skipper Nuno for helping us take part in this important research. They are some of the best cetaceans spotters in theNorth Atlanticand their expertise led us to seeing more animals than anyone else in the harbor—including other research vessels!

Slot Three group photo

Fin Whale (swimming alongside a blue whale!)

I am leaving Horta today and flying to Lisbon. I have a few more things to show you on Faial, so those posts will keep coming for a few more days.