All sorts of ships sail/motor into the Horta harbor because of the location of the archipelago – 1000 miles off the coast of Europe (Portugal). It’s an ideal stopping-off point for ships transiting from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean or from Europe to the Med or from the Caribbean to the Med. Some ships are obviously from seasoned travelers (as evidenced by the variety of wharf paintings) and others are exceedingly posh. Here are a few of the posh ones taken over the time I’ve been here.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Lexy, sailed by a fellow named Steve that I became friendly with. He was giving a ride to another Frenchman needing a lift back to France, but they were stuck here in Horta waiting out some bad weather. This made me quite happy to have some friends in town and I often went by Steve’s boat to chat and drink wine on the deck of the Lexy. She’s a beauty:

 

 

 

And here’s Steve doing his wharf painting (which happens to be about 20 meters from the Biosphere one, and we were painting them on the same day.)

 

And there’s more posh boats:
(I didn;t get any private tours of these–MOST disappointing!)