Day 09 - Sunday, 11/17/24 - Ponta Delgada Day 2

 Overnight there was no motion to the ocean as we were docked in Ponta Delgada.  We were up at 6am to prepare for our 7:15 report time in the World stage for our HAL shore excursion to the Furnas Valley & thermal pools.  There were 3 busses waiting for us and we left promptly just before 7:30am in darkness for a drive east through the city.  The roads here are amazingly narrow and our driver, Joseph, skillfully navigated the roads with the large bus.  Marco was our guide for the day and he also is a volunteer firefighter.  He spoke virtually nonstop all day with lots of information and other commentary.  With a bus load of all American tourists he asked if we wanted the distance in kilometers or miles.  All responded, "Miles!"  So he jokingly gave it in kilometers.  After a couple instances of this we caught on and answered kilometers which amused him and miles were then quoted.

I'll not cite all of the viewpoints we visited, but we visited a number of them before reaching the San Miguel National Park where the thermal pools were located.  Part of the group elected to soak and the rest of enjoyed the scenery and visitor center.  I hiked to the very pretty upper falls which was red stained from the iron content in the water.

After the park visit we stopped at the Correana tea plantation.  What was particularly interesting to me was the use of second hand tea processing machinery built prior to the Industrial Revolution!  Some of the machinery was driven by a live overhead jack shaft powered now by a small electric motor.  We sampled the Christmas tea and green tea, but didn't find it much different than what we can purchase at home.  It was still interesting to see how tea grows and processed.

Following a brief stop at some thermal fissures in Furnas, we ate a lunch at the Terra Nostra Casino restaurant.  All of the food was cooked geothermally and we were supposed to see the cooking process, but didn't for some reason.

After lunch we drove by the caldera's lake at Furnas which is home to rainbow trout and carp and is only about 14 feet deep.  We made a final stop at a viewpoint to see a nearby island (Isla de Vila) that is home to a special breed of birds that only flies at night.  Human travel to the island is limited to certain times of the year when the birds are not there and only 200 people in the morning and 200 in the afternoon are allowed on a daily basis.  

We made it back to the ship at 3:25pm which was 5 minutes before the All Aboard time.  There were only 13 people still to board after we boarded.  Once on board, we went up to the Crow's Nest to watch the sail away.  Captain van der Wal came on the PA system and advised that the weather conditions would be severe for the first 24 hours and to be prepared.  He also indicated that we would be doing a high speed exit past the recently arrived Norwegian Prima before making a hard right turn out to sea.

            Our route

As soon as we left the harbor the rough sea conditions were experienced.  The ship shuddered and moved around extensively when buffeted by the waves and wind.  The evening entertainment by the Repertory Company was switched to the chellist, Andre Cavassi.  He even had sand bags to secure his feet from sliding around.  The auditorium was only about 25% full and the performance was wonderful despite the frequent motion of the ship and the crashing waves against the side of the ship.  The crashing sound was extremely loud.  

We adjourned to our stateroom and discovered that our Seahawks were on TV and we watched the game until the end.  The Hawks won in a last second play beating San Francisco.  The extreme weather conditions continued but we fell asleep easily.  Hopefully, we'll wake up to much better weather.