A few weeks ago I went on a dive vacation to the island Pico, which belongs to the Azores. A little island, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, far away from mainland,… the inspiration for this trip came from a photo show by a research diver which I watched and listened to a few years ago in Munich. On one of his research trips, he went to Pico to photograph blue sharks – which I found extremely fascinating at that time.

The trip to get there took rather long: Amsterdam – Lisbon (short overnight stay) – Pico. At the airport, I was picked up by CW Azores and driven to the dive center where I could unpack my gear and talk about my dive plan for the next few days. Then I walked to the hotel, which was located just behind the dive center where luckily my room was available for early check-in. From the balcony I enjoyed this view below – not too bad right? 🙂

The small harbour with the dive boats

View from hotel room

CW Azores Dive Center

The following 7 days I did 7 local boat dives, 2 shark dives and 2 dives at the famous dive spot Princess Alice Banks. While I had thought that the shark dives and Princess Alice would be the most interesting, I ended up liking the „normal boat dives“ best in the end. During these dives, we visited little caves and bizarre rock formations formed by lava streams in the past. If you are interested in underwater topography, Pico is a must see!

I also had some very special experiences, for example diving in a shrimp cave where streams of thousands of shrimps were „flowing“ around on the ceiling, ground and on the sides. It’s difficult to describe, but the cave was just covered in shrimps! Unfortunately no one took any photos either, so you will just have to take my word for it 😉 For me it was a surreal experience, and I can recommend this dive spot to everyone!! 🙂

Another great dive spot was Eagle Ray Cave. When we were coming out of the cave again, there were suddenly around 20-30 baby eagle rays swimming above us. Just incredible and really beautiful!!

On my last dive, I dived at the spot The Arches. This is a dive spot where the lava formed huge rock bridges, some higher, some lower, which you can dive through. This was also a really cool dive and a good way to log my dive no. 250 🙂

Dive spot „The Arches“

Spotted an Octopus 🙂

Eagle Ray Cave

Of course the shark dives were cool as well. You do get super close to the blue sharks, respectively the sharks are getting really close to you – and blue sharks are really cute!! But… of course the sharks are being baited. This means that they are being attracted to the boat by throwing in fish rests and blood from the boat, so they come up from the blue and circle around the divers who are „hanging“ on 2 ropes at different heights below the boat. You’re not really supposed to move away from the rope, all skin needs to be covered (hood, gloves, booties) and you are not allowed to wear anything bright and shiny. Of course these are all just precautions because sharks are still sharks and even if attacks on divers rarely ever happen, no dive center wants their name connected to one. For me, it took a bit the fun out of the dive, having to follow all these rules! Hanging on a rope at 5-10 m below the dive boat is just not „real diving“ for me. There are definitely dive spots around the world where you can see sharks much easier, just like that, during your normal dive. I thought this might still be the case on Pico as well (during the normal boat dives), but unfortunately not. The sharks do have to be baited here to be seen – and this seems to be working less well than in the past. While previously you could expect to see around 10-15 sharks at the same time, I once had 1 shark and once 2 sharks which were circling around us… I didn’t see any mako sharks at all during my stay there – apparently they have become very rare…

Blue shark

Blue shark

Blue shark

Princess Alice Banks was something that I don’t necessarily need to repeat. 3 h one way in a rubber boat to the sea mount. Yes, you are very for away from any land then, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean… THAT was an awesome feeling! But again we had to hold onto a rope (at least up to 40 m deep, but still) due to the strong current, to not be „blown off“ the sea mount. Princess Alice Banks is a sea mount which regularly sees big groups of mobulas (devil rays) passing by and we did manage to see them a couple of times. That was incredible!! But 6 h on a small boat without comfort and a toilet, again hanging on a rope,… I don’t know. There are places in this world to spot manta rays (mobulas belong to the same family) in a much easier and more comfortable way. Did I like it? Overall, yes. Would I do it again? Nope, it was enough as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Barracudas

Mobula

Group of mobulas

Originally I had wanted to explore Pico next to the diving above water a bit as well, but that didn’t really work out so well. First and foremost because I was actually quite busy with diving and second, because I was travelling by myself. At least I did still go and see the little wine museum – even if the view was actually prettier than the museum was interesting 😉

Wine museum – this is how the wine grows here

Wine museum

Wine museum

On Sunday, my no-dive-day (24 h before a flight) I wanted to go on a tour around the island, however I didn’t find anyone to share the high tour costs. That’s why in the end I signed up for a whale watching tour, something I had not been so interested in before, mainly also because I knew it was outside whale season and chances were low to spot a whale. And this also became true: unfortunately, no whale in sight – but we did spot 3 different species of dolphins: spotted dolphins, spinner dolphins and common dolphins. My favourite ones were the spotted dolphins with their cute spots! 🙂 Another plus of the whale watching tour was that because we didn’t spot any whales, we went almost around the whole island – making it in a way an island tour for me: from the boat, instead of from the car! 😉 We also got some amazing views of Pico volcano who was wearing a cloudy hat on that day. Next time I visit, I definitely want to do the climb up the mountain…

Pico volcano

Whale Watching Boat

Dolphins under water

Which already brings me to the conclusion: I will definitely come back to the Azores one day – but then to see more above the water than under. In my opinion, the island group is ideal for a 2-3 week island hopping program 🙂 Here you can see the rest of the photos.

Evening view from hotel room

Little church in Madalena

Pico volcano

Beautiful houses in Madalena

Streets of Madalena