At Sea
Are the Azores in Europe? Politically, the answer is affirmative: as an integral part of Portugal since they were first settled in the fifteenth century, the autonomous islands now benefit from full membership of the European Union. But geographically-speaking we might be more circumspect. Lying some 800 miles to the west of Portugal’s most westerly point, Cape St Vincent—itself the most westerly point of continental Europe—the Azores lie further from the mainland than any other Atlantic archipelago. Geologically-speaking, they do not really belong to ether Europe, Africa or America but consist of the peaks of immense volcanoes, issuing sheer from the ocean bottom.
The existence of the islands was known to mediaeval navigators; they are marked on a fourteenth century chart as a hazard. Prince Henry, known to his compatriots as “The Navigator,” harnessed the learning of both Christendom and Islam to propel his country from a backward province of the Mediterranean world to the status of a world maritime power within the space of a few generations. In 1431, from his naval school at Sagres, he sent Gonçalo Velho Cabral out into the western ocean to chart the archipelago. Cabral incurred his master’s displeasure by charting only the nearest island of Formigas, and was duly dispatched west again the following year. Following a series of voyages, by 1457 the entire archipelago had been charted and claimed for Portugal. Small towns and prosperous farms grew up. A template for a colonial empire that came to spread around the globe from Brazil in the west to Goa and Macau in the east.
We are following in the wake of those early explorers as we sail west from Lisbon to the Azores, two days sailing aboard the Endeavour sailing through azure seas in a long swell. Plenty of time to prepare ourselves for the expedition ahead by attending presentations from the staff, reading in the library, relaxing in the sun on the pool deck, or checking the charts with the Third Officer on the bridge.
Are the Azores in Europe? Politically, the answer is affirmative: as an integral part of Portugal since they were first settled in the fifteenth century, the autonomous islands now benefit from full membership of the European Union. But geographically-speaking we might be more circumspect. Lying some 800 miles to the west of Portugal’s most westerly point, Cape St Vincent—itself the most westerly point of continental Europe—the Azores lie further from the mainland than any other Atlantic archipelago. Geologically-speaking, they do not really belong to ether Europe, Africa or America but consist of the peaks of immense volcanoes, issuing sheer from the ocean bottom.
The existence of the islands was known to mediaeval navigators; they are marked on a fourteenth century chart as a hazard. Prince Henry, known to his compatriots as “The Navigator,” harnessed the learning of both Christendom and Islam to propel his country from a backward province of the Mediterranean world to the status of a world maritime power within the space of a few generations. In 1431, from his naval school at Sagres, he sent Gonçalo Velho Cabral out into the western ocean to chart the archipelago. Cabral incurred his master’s displeasure by charting only the nearest island of Formigas, and was duly dispatched west again the following year. Following a series of voyages, by 1457 the entire archipelago had been charted and claimed for Portugal. Small towns and prosperous farms grew up. A template for a colonial empire that came to spread around the globe from Brazil in the west to Goa and Macau in the east.
We are following in the wake of those early explorers as we sail west from Lisbon to the Azores, two days sailing aboard the Endeavour sailing through azure seas in a long swell. Plenty of time to prepare ourselves for the expedition ahead by attending presentations from the staff, reading in the library, relaxing in the sun on the pool deck, or checking the charts with the Third Officer on the bridge.
