Easter on Azores

The Azores is a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km from Lisbon and about 3,900 km from the east coast of North America. The Azores consist of nine large islands and 8 small where Sao Miguel is the main island with the capital Ponta Delgada.

Put in surfing terms the Azores is situated in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in deep water which pretty much ensures swell all year around. Having the golf current passing just by, even in the winter the water temperature never goes below 17-18 degrees C. All put together this is the Atlantic Hawaii



From all the guidebooks and surfspot internet sites, spring is not season for swell, even though we had swell every day ranging from 1.5 to 3 m from different directions. The swell season is August to October where the swell should be southerly. Besides the swell we had nice weather most days with 20 C. and lite cloud cover.


South coast
Most accommodation on Sao Miguel is on the south coast near Ponta Delgada making the surf spots around here the most crowded, even though the crowd here is really small. Most spots on the south coast is beach breaks with a large swell window. The most exposed spots picks up swell from V to NE making it very consistent.

Populo is probably the best beach break on the south coast. The wave is quite powerful and there are a couple of nice peaks on the stretch.



Populo is just outside of Ponta Delgada with hotels all around, even though there is no real crowd . All the beginners are on the inside in the whitewater and the remaining 10 people share the outside peaks, Sweet...











Aqua de Alto aka "Gammelt vand" or "Højt vand" is a beach break like Populo 20-30 min. drive from Ponta Delgada but with no people around. It tends to be a like a foot bigger than on Populo but the wave closes a bit faster, even though it's a fun wave with plenty of power.


This is from our first day at Sao Miguel with NE swell and a hauling N wind (direct offshore). There was shoulder to headhigh waves and only two dudes in the lineup, us.


Later on the wind took off and the swell switched to S-SW with a ground swell of 2 m and a wave period on 12-14 s. This was just epic compared to danish conditions. The locals was quit relaxed about it and kept saying "this is only a small day".






After a good day of surf there is nothing better than watching the sunset with a beer or two.

North Shore
On the North shore the waves are more powerful and tends to be bigger than on the south coast. There are two beach breeaks on the north shore, Monte Verde and Santa Barbara. We only tried Monte Verde both with NE and NV swell. The best condition is NV swell and S-SW wind which we had one day, even though it was a bit messy and the current was freaky.

It's hard to see on this photo but the waves are overhead high.








Mosterios
The most western point of the island hold a little village Mosterios which beside surfing offers little. There are a few spots around the village, all reef breaks.


This is Praia dos Mosterios, a righthander lava reef break. We never surfed it but it sure looked nice with the waves wrapping around the point and peeling off the reef for 100 to 150 m.

This is a local dude that knew this wave pretty well judging from the takeoff zone which was filled with lava rocks popping out of the face.

Whale watching
Besides surfing the Azores are known for it's magnificent marine life. The diving should be world class but we never got time to explore that. There is a quit good change to see different kinds of whales. We chartered a boat and went whale watching one day and saw both fin whales and Cachalot whales.

Fin whale

Cachalot whale

Common dolphins

More pics here

Aloha from Azores....