Hot Spring in the Sea??

Maria Concordia, one of the ARC rally boats finally made it to Sao Miquel.  The skipper had lost his crew in Bermuda and ended up sailing his Catamaran across the Atlantic Ocean solo.  He did manage to pick up crew in Horta so he was no longer alone by the time he reached Sao Miquel.  Bernard and his crew member were telling us tales of a volcanic hot spring in the ocean.  We have seen them inland but never in the ocean.  The yellow bus tour does not visit the ocean hot spring so Bill, Michael and I set off to find it.  Emanual had wanted us off the boat so we rented a car and a house in a little village called Santana. Our plan was to take Bill to see the Island and for Michael and I to see the things that we had missed. That ended up being a mistake as the phone service was poor and Emanual had tried to reach us all day long.  All work had come to an end as there were questions about how to actually get the engine in the boat and we, sadly, could not be reached.  But we found the hot spring and as it was just off the coast in the ocean we had to walk down to the ocean from way up the mountain.  That was not so bad but all the way down we were well aware that we also had to climb back up.  Michael is good with walking all day so long as it is level ground!  All this mountain climbing has ruffled his feathers.

We made it down and sure enough there is a little spring right there on the coast.  They have a ladder to get down into it and there is line run from one side of the spring to the other.  Folks were holding on to the line so they did not get washed out to sea with the tide.  You can see the volcanic rock all around - pretty rugged terrain.  We did not have swim clothes on so again I cannot say how warm the water actually was.  

 I was trying to get down the ladder to just put my feet in and test the temperature but there was such a crowd around the one ladder I couldn't even do that.  

You most certainly know that you are on a volcanic island from the terrain - black volcanic rock all around.  After the long hike back up the mountain we headed back to Ponta Delgada to see how things were coming along with the engine installation- finger crossed that all was going well.