First day on Sao Miguel Island

Still no baggage for Greg, which destroyed our plan about getting into the water in the early morning. So we decided to look for some "Cozido das Furnas" at the Lake of Fumas. This is one of the most emblematic dishes of the island of Sao Miguel. Cooked in the earth next to Lagoa das Furnas. Several ingredients are mixed in one big pot, which is buried in a hole in the earth. It takes about five hours to bake them by the natural heat that seeps up, produced by volcanic activity. Unfortunately we had no "Cozido das Furnas". Maybe we will prebook it in the next couple of days.

On Our way through Furnas, I noticed that 50% of the houses have some religious, nice painted tile on the front (no I'm not getting religious, but they are nice paintings). As someone told me, it is very common that you have painted on the tiles, what you professional do or to what you be related to.

Supermarkets are very interesting for me in country's were I've never been before. Every time you will explore some local cuisine. Highlights from Ponta Delgada:

No baggage, but its itching to take a look under the water, Hero of the day for ~25min at 19°C ;) 

Lisbon

Arrived in LIS at 8:10am, we first tried to catch our exit row seats for the connection flight at the transfer desk, because online check-in for the SATA flight did not work. At the desk, the first evil tidings. We have to pay extra for your sporting equipment outside at the ticket counter or it will be guaranteed that it will not be ransferd to PDL, although this was booked as a TAP flight, just operated by SATA and we already "payed" for it (trouble at the TAP counter in ZRH and we got this for free ;)) After some back and force, we had to pay 91€!!! for our extra baggage. This hurt's. Next time no diving weights!
After finally doing all the paperwok, we took the metro to Lisbon Center on our way to Belém

The famous Café Pastéis de Belém

Ordered some Pastel de Nata, Bolas de Berlim (portuguese version of our "Berliner") and a choclate Éclair (could't wait)

Éclair: As it has to be, cold crispy choclate on the outside and creamy on the inside, perfect
Pastel de Nata: The custard covers the whole surface of the tart. The tart it self was very flaky with a warm and creamy inside (don't know what it was). Cinnamon and powdered sugar are provided for sprinkling at the table. With Cinnamon it was a killer, really delicious.
Bolas de Berlim: A flop! The pastry was as expected, but the creamy stuffing looks better than it was. Enough eating for today, still some hours left to enjoy Lisbon by 34°C

What i most liked during walking through the streets of Lisbon, are the nice coloured glaced tiles at the frontage of many houses.

At the early evening we hit back to the Airport and took our delayed flight to Ponta Delgada. Actually expecting a A320-200, but because of some overbooking on the flight back next morning, the changed the aircraft to an A310-300. As you can see, a lot of leg space ;) Nice flight, meal, service and crew. What you want more? Way better than the TAP flight in the morning. Slim seats and a disgusting sandwich.

As I wrote before, "first evil tidings", here comes the second one. As I expected that our extra baggage will be missing or my fins, which were in there, were broken, we both were surprised when Greg's bag did not show up. Delayed flight, more paperwork and also have to find our accommodation by nite ... yeah!
Time for some sleep



 

Pastel de Nata

Pastel de Nata

Ready for the Azores...

... at least mentally for a long time ;)

Tomorrow my friend Greg and I will take the plane to Lisbon, doing a small sightseeing and hop-on at the evening flight to Sao Miguel.
Stuff is nearly packed...

And Except my paranasal sinuses (not the best for two weeks of an intense "training/freediving/spearfishing"-trip) everything looks good. On Tuesday the maximum depth was 2,4m! and i hope till Sunday morning it will be fine  again. Thats just not possible that Greg will shot his new Speargun before I  can get a chance ;)

What do I expect?
Mh, freediving with blue sharks (Prionace glauca) and hopefully mako sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus) on Condor Banks. Apart from that, freediving with mobula rays (on Princess Alice Banks) and whales/dolphins (there are more than 20 species of cetaceans around the Azores including Orcas!), developing better  spearfishing skills and preparing my own catch ;), some freediving improvements and of course, enjoying the volcanic influenced nature. What I've seen so far, seems to be like the cold version of the South Pacific ;) We will know in two weeks

Our Route will be:
ZRH - LIS - PDL - PIX - TER- LIS- ZRH











Zurich - Lisbon - São Miguel Island - Pico Island - Faial Island (Ferry) - Pico Island - Terceira Island - Lisbon - Zurich

Flying with TAP Portugal and SATA Air Açores, with which I've never flown before. It can't be worse than flying Lufthansa ;) Both are 3 Star Airlines (http://www.airlinequality.com/) It's one less than Lufthansa, but for me 4 Stars for Lufthansa, compared to e.g. Malaysia Airlines (5 Stars), Oman Air (4 Stars) or Bangkok Airways (4 Stars) are definitely overrated.

Back to the roots...
Except the training, this trip will be a kind of a test trip, preparing for my RTW-Trip starting in November 2013. Travelling
with an extra bag just with Spearfishing/Diving equipment to see how it works and how to take all stuff with me, preventing damage during travel.

Enough for today

A good day to start...

... but the wrong blog title for this post.

I guess in a couple of weeks, the post's will hopefully fit. ;)

Whatever, what should I say? Awesome!

HB-RSC in Altenrhein

Actually it was one of my dad's childhood dreams and maybe depreciated till I made him a gift. A membership of
Super Constellation Flyers Association. Old man, old aircraft, absolutely clear, he can not fly alone ;-)        
So I also bought a membership for me, to get the opportunity to fly with SCFA Super Connie HB-RSC.

Qantas Connie VH-EAG (hugh distance) or maybe in 2013/2014, the upcoming Lufthansa Starliner will be some
alternatives, but no guarantee that they will fly and you will get a ticket as well.

Last year we booked the flight from BSL to BER ILA, which was cancelled, after metal chips were found in the
oil screens of one engine. Long story short: No flights in 2012, new engine, double check, airborne again in early
2013 and now we are on our way to Altenrhein (.ch)

Route: BSL - Dummy City IATA (Altenrhein) - BSL


















And of course, flames! ;-) (Tim Taylor grunt)










Big thanks to Super Constellation Flyers Association for this very well organized trip. Usually I have
something to whinge about, but they took perfectly care of everything.