3. Wine, OAP dancing and karma for the French man!

It felt right that I sampled some of the the local Pico wine - only to find, to my delight, that they have started producing a rosé - so on my out for dinner the day of my vineyard walk, I treated myself to a glass. There are no sizes or measures here, you ask for a glass of wine, they take a fairly large glass from the shelf and fill it almost to the brim!

What I also discovered is that the big festival type party that has been going on this weekend culminated in a parade in the evening. I presumed it was another of the many Mediterranean excuses for a fiesta but it turns out this one is particularly special to this island and village in particular. This weekend was the feast day for Saint Mary Magdalene - the one from the bible who is Jesus’ friend. She used to a prostitute but then Jesus came along and ‘saved her’. Anyway, it turns out that the village I’m staying in (Magdalena) is named for Mary Magdalene and the church is hers too. So the feast day is a major celebration here. There is a stage set up in town (as with any good fiesta!) and also a giant marque where the locals party, in Jesus’ name, at night. The festivities are so important that almost all the restaurants and shops are shut and the old people carry their chairs out of their houses and sit and save their place as they line the route of the parade from early evening.

The parade for Mary the prostitute was due to start at 8.30pm with a motor bike ride, which obviously actually went by at about 9.10pm. It seems the idea was to rev and make as much noise as possible through the streets, a bit like loudly curb-crawling, quite in keeping with the prostitution theme. The parade then got underway at about 9.45 (due to start at 9.15pm). I was expecting a lot - carnivals can be pretty incredible in these regions…. It turns out the one they put on for Mary was a little more am-dram meets OAP ballroom dancing convention. It begun with a group of ‘dancers’ in ‘traditional’ style costumes who sang and danced an excellently child like routine, not unlike that that I’ve seen y6 children come up with in a PE lesson, while a band (which was quite cool and much more impressive) walked along behind them providing the music. Once they’d gone by and moved up the route, you then had to stand about for another 15-20 minutes while you waited for the next dance group and band to come by performing a very similar routine but in a different colour of polyester costume. I politely waited out 3 sets of these occurrences and then decided I didn’t have the boredom threshold or motivation to wait for any more and headed home (along with a number of other non-locals who perhaps had a similar impression as I did!). It’s nice that they give such time and effort to celebrate the biblical prostitute. Seems much more inclusive than I remember the bible and Jesus being, according to the catholics. It’s was then a local holiday on Monday so they could all rest and recover.

Diving Princess Alice

After a lovely relaxing day by the pool, I tripped off down to the dive shop on Monday evening to hear the dive brief and info for the trip the following day to Princess Alice Bank - a sea mount that rises up from the 2000m deep sea bed up to around 40m below the surface of the water, 48 miles of the coast of my island. It is so named because around 100 years ago, the Prince of Morocco set sail to discover new waters to fish and found it on his boat named ‘Princess Alice’, the name of his wife. It’s likely that fisherman had discovered and been fishing it for many years previously but they were neither rich nor important enough to have been allowed to officially discover it!

Anyway, 6 divers and a snorkeler congregated for our dive brief then set up all of our equipment ready for the early morning start (6.30am meet for 7am boat leave so not that early really but it was still dark!). Unfortunately, our dive guide was a right dickhead. His name was Anthony and he was the classic stereotypical, arrogant, rude and a bit misogynistic French man. He told ‘horror stories’ of previous mishaps with dives presumably to make us understand the importance of the rules for the dive, claimed to be willing to answer questions but did so rudely and without actually being helpful and then when I asked for some advice / help on which tank to use (we were allowed to choose between 3 sizes), he just ranted about how I could have any tank I liked but didn’t actually give the specific dive site related advice or information I was after to help me decide. I got myself sorted anyway and headed home via a little taverna for a yummy tuna steak dinner. Although when I had to ask if it could be cooked a bit more than raw in the middle, I thought the chef was going to throw it straight back at me. I was upsetting all the nationalities of men!

On the morning of the dive, I decided to head down slightly early as I was not fully confident in my gear choice and set up and that made me feel a bit apprehensive and I didn’t want to have troubles on the dive. On arrival, Anthony informed me I was very early and I explained I wanted to change my gear. He obviously, helpfully left me to it but the other guide in the shop was much kinder and helped and realised I was a bit fed up with the French idiot. The other lady due to dive didn’t come as she wasn’t well so it was just to be me and the boys, all of whom had a different tank to me and I was worried that would change the circumstances of the dive. I dared to ask Anthony if that would be ok and got another earful. By this point the other nice dive guide had noticed, helped me again and I think must have told Anthony I was upset …. So he came into the shop and asked for a word, where he proceeded to give me a hard time again that was totally unfounded. I initially tried to explain what my concern was and why I’d asked for some advice, he ranted about how I’d asked too many questions and he was a right dick….so I had stand up row with him and walked off in the end having said I was very sorry for expecting a dive professional to behave professionally and daring to sk questions which he said many times we were welcome to ask. Nothing more was said but the other few divers did come and check up on me, help me with my gear and express their feelings that he was being unreasonable and that it did seem it was only me he was unwilling to speak to politely.

I just ignored him, sorted out my gear so I was happy with it and got on with it. Anthony didn’t say anything more about it although he did then suddenly become all cheerful and exited about diving once we’d set off. On our boat trip (3 hours each way), we stopped and watched so many pods of dolphins, the fin of a massive hammerhead cruising through the the water and a minke whale out at sea, as well as so many of the Cory’s shearwater birds which fly and glide along just above the surface of the water, presumably looking to pick out some lunch!

Fortunately, the sea conditions were excellent and flat calm so the boat ride was most enjoyable, if a little long. On arrival to the dive site - found only through coordinates as the buoy is 10m underwater and no obvious sign of anything above sea level - we got into out wetsuits (7ml thickness full suit, socks, boots, gloves and a hood for me!) and in we went. We did 2 dives there, each time into the water, getting to the anchor line and then descending, holding on to the line throughout so as not to get swept away in the current. There was actually very minimal current so it was largely unnecessary but a worthwhile safety precaution as currents came swept by out of nowhere in the open ocean. The Frenchman obviously didn’t stay on the line and tended to swim off into fish he wanted take photos of. We weren’t allowed to. It didn’t matter as the mobula rays we’d really gone to see were up close and curious so tended to swim around near us to have a look at the weird creatures hanging on to a rope and waving in the sea like funny flags! For once, the aggressive trigger fish were my friends (there was a little clan of them who decided to guard the anchor line and claim at is their own). They tend to prefer to go for skin and did bite and leave marks on the hands and forehead of the Scotsman in the group. He’s used to the cold so had less protection on - the only skin visible on me was the 1cm around the edge of my mask and regulator (breathing tube) and my hood so they didn’t seem to bother with me although they did swim up a few times for a good look. The French man was covered in wetsuit and exposure layers too, but Mother Nature had heard what an arse he was so she set some of them on him. I enjoyed watching and taking photos of them….

Anyway, twatty Frenchman aside, I had a great day, am pleased I have dived another world famous site and got to see so much. Fortunately the great white shark that made an appearance at that dive site two days ago (first time ever seen and recorded in the Azores) didn’t come back - I assume the trigger saw him off too!).