We woke up a bit sore from the 14km walk up and down from the caldera (550m) in Corvo yesterday. Looked like today would just be on as level ground as possible.
It was pretty crowded at the breakfast area in the hotel, with about a dozen other guests.
After breakfast we checked in with reception, to see about boats to Flores on Sunday. Originally I had planned for us to take the ferry, but it’s still early in the season and it only ran Sat-Tue-Thu. It didn’t look good for the fast boats either, as they originate in Flores and are typically used by day trippers to Corvo.
We also were running out of things to do in Corvo. There are a couple more treks we could have done, if we were younger and didn’t wreck our knees / ankles etc on the first day’s trek up to the caldera.
So we decided to cut our time short in Corvo, and leave a day earlier on the Saturday ferry. Luckily our place in Flores was available for the extra day too. I was able to book the ferry online. The 9am ferry was sold out but we got tickets for the 4pm one. (I also hadn’t realized when planning that the ferry could sell out). I also called the car rental folks at Ilha Verde and our car was available early too.
With our revised itinerary sorted out, we started touring around Vila do Corvo. Most of the things we wanted to see were around the runway, with limited elevation changes. Good for our knees and ankles.
First up was an art installation by Bordalo II. He is known for his murals made from recycled trash. Near the west end of the runway, there’s an image of a grouper on the side of a beached boat. It’s somewhat hidden unless you’re actually looking for it. (Or you can just go to Google Maps like us, which is how I found out about it). It was pretty cool. He has another installation in Corvo on the outside the Community Sports Centre which we saw yesterday.
Around the south side of the runway are a three moinhos (windmills), so we took some pics.
We went back to BBC for lunch, and tried their bifanas. These were okay, we preferred the special yesterday. After lunch we wandered through the old cobblestone streets overlooking the docks. The streets rise sharply from the water up the slopes of the faja. It’s very picturesque. The steep streets weren’t helping our joints though.
We watched a fast boat loading passengers in the harbour. It was bobbing up and down in the waves, making it hard to embark. We
then watched them boucing around as they left the harbour. We were glad we had booked on the ferry, and not the fast boat.
We got back to our hotel just in time for me to get an alert from the ferry company that tomorrow’s (Saturday) ferry was cancelled due to high winds :(
This did not bode well. We looked at other options to get off Corvo. The next flight with availability was leaving in a week’s time, the next ferry on Tuesday was already sold out, and the fast boats weren’t running for at least a couple days due to the high winds. We could be stuck on Corvo for a week! :( Also, there was a dance festival in Corvo the next three days and all the (limited) accommodation on the island was sold out. So we could be stuck with no place to stay :(
We reached out to anyone we knew in Corvo. The restaurant folks from yesterday suggested a boat person based in Flores. I sent them a WhatsApp, and they were willing to pick us up this evening if we bought out all the seats on the boat. The cost was not much more than flying, and would get us to Flores before the storm hit and shut down all transport for at least a couple days, so we agreed.
We rushed to pack up in less than an hour and were at the dock by 6pm. The winds had already picked up and it wasn’t guaranteed that the captain would make it from Flores to Corvo if he decided the weather was already too risky.
The nice folks from the restaurant (who had recommended the boat folks and were good friends with them) came down to the dock to wait with us and make sure we connected.
The boat rounded the corner into the loosely protected harbour, where the waves were over five feet high. I was nervous about loading our suitcases on to the bobbing boat, but the captain was excellent and everything was loaded safely.
We were just about to board ourselves when the couple that sat in front of us on the plane to Corvo ran up to the dock. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they were in the same boat as us (ha ha), facing the option of being stuck on Corvo for a week. They asked if they could join us, and the captain said if they could be ready in fifteen minutes he’d wait. So they rushed off and packed and were back in less than ten minutes (very impressive).
And then we were off! It’s 21km to Flores, and it took us about an hour. The waves out in the open ocean were about 20 feet high. Our boat felt tiny in comparison. The captain was excellent, navigating through the waves without thumping. The seats were optimal too - it was like straddling a pommel horse with a seat back. We had a full view of the horizon, and never felt seasick at all, which was great. The winds were up to 40km/h blowing into my side of the boat, and I was soaked. We had dressed to get wet, with all our base layers. So I was wet but not cold. Heather had gloves but I didn’t, and my hands were freezing by the time we crossed. (It was about 14C, not sure of the wind chill). It started raining about half way through, which hurt like sleet in our faces. Luckily we knew enough to have worn our sunglasses, so that we could keep our eyes open to the horizon.
Anyways it was quite the adventure to get across. We finally got to the harbour in Flores, which was better protected from waves. We disembarked and unloaded our suitcases with frozen hands. The boat folks had connected us with a transport service, so we had a ride to our hotel.
The taxi guy was really nice too. It was too late to get in anywhere later to eat dinner, but one of his friends was the chef at a popular restaurant. So our taxi guy called his chef friend and arranged for take out to be picked up in an hour. We got dropped off at our hotel (really a bnb) and changed into dry clothes (I was soaked in salty water so had a shower too). Our driver came back in an hour and drove us to pick up our food.
It was hard to believe that a few hours ago we were looking at being stuck in Corvo for a week with no place to stay, and then through the kindness of the restaurant folks, the boat folks, the taxi guy, and the chef friend, we were now eating a fancy dinner in our bnb in Flores.
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