Entries about ships

Walking to mass in the morning. We went to the church up the hill, which is newly renovated and open for the first time in over 20 years.

The mass was very nice. Fr. Michael concelebrated, and was able to distribute communion and speak Portuguese enough to do so. An elderly woman in front of us had some health issues during the mass, which was a bit worrisome. The fire department came in and helped get her to medical attention.

Underneath the church is a very nice grotto. We went down and said a prayer for the woman who was having trouble during the mass.

Throughout Horta there are several monuments to this man, the Duke of Ávila and Bolama. He was born in the house next door to where we are staying.

Later in the day we went to Castelo Branco to see the church where Anthony’s grandfather Antonio Furtado was baptized. Antonio left Faial when he was thirteen years old and never went back.

We believe that this is the grave of an ancestor of that Antonio, maybe his father or grandfather.

We went to lunch at Peter Cafe Sport, where Katie and Anthony tried the tuna and linguiça sandwich. We played it safer: Catherine got a steak and Daniel got chicken curry.

We had been told that the procession would go by Peter’s, but we weren’t seeing it. Daniel went on a walk towards Porto Pim, but didn’t see any sign of the procession.

Then, we saw we had been looking the wrong way. The processions started at sea!

It continued on land. The priest from mass this morning gave a short homily in Portuguese, then they began processing with the statue and the marching band back towards Porto Pim. We watched for a while.

We then went to the Semana do Mar festivities. It was a lot of fun. Our last night in Faial is somewhat bittersweet, but we have had a wonderful time.

A delicious waffle and ice cream shop.

Enjoying the festivities.

Michael and Catherine convinced Daniel to wear all three of our commemorative Semana do Mar mugs, and then began to put coins in them.