Water and Wind

Water and Wind is a Fountaine Pajot Helia 44 Evolution sailing catamaran, registered in Lisbon and working the Azores. She is the only vessel in the archipelago run as a proper liveaboard: guests sleep aboard all week and reach offshore sites that day boats simply cannot reach. Owner and skipper Carlos Paulos also runs the Espírito Azul dive centre in the marina of Vila Franca do Campo on São Miguel, which is where every week starts and ends. The company holds a whale-watching licence for the Santa Maria area — the only one among Azorean vessels working with divers.

The boat is small, and that is the point. Four cabins, eight guests at most, three crew: skipper, chef and instructor. For individual bookings the operator normally sells no more than six berths, meaning three cabins; eight people aboard happens only when a group takes the whole catamaran. There is a floor as well as a ceiling: a departure is confirmed from five guests. If a week does not fill to five, the date moves — worth keeping in mind when picking dates at the very edges of the season.

The cabins are identical, each with a double bed that is split into two singles with a wooden insert if you ask in advance. Three cabins have their own bathroom. The fourth — the last one to be booked — shares its bathroom with the crew, but the bathroom has two independent doors, one from the cabin and one from outside, so nobody has to leave the cabin to reach the shower. Toiletries are not provided. One set of bed linen and towels is supplied for the week, and every guest is given a Water and Wind poncho to keep. Sockets are European 220 V, types C and F, plus USB; charging devices in an empty cabin is not allowed, only while you are in it. Hard suitcases do not come aboard at all: they stay in storage at the dive centre, so pack into soft bags.

The diving here is oceanic, not reef diving. The week is built around the eastern group of the archipelago: the Formigas Islets, Dollabarat Reef, Ambrósio bank and the D. João de Castro seamount. This is open Atlantic tens of miles offshore, and the whole logic of the week is to get away from the islands rather than run along them. The distances are Azorean: the nearest island, Santa Maria, is about ten hours’ sailing from the home port, so two or three islands is the realistic ceiling for a week and only a two-week programme sees more. The exact plan is announced at the briefing on arrival day and depends on weather, sea state and the experience of the group.

What people come for: mobulas and mantas at Formigas, Dollabarat and Ambrósio, big schools, caverns and arches, and whale sharks that show up more often south of São Miguel and Santa Maria. Whales and dolphins are usually seen on the daytime crossings rather than underwater — the dive sites are too shallow for them. The famous Princess Alice bank is not part of the one-week programmes: it is some 300 km away one way, and the operator says plainly that the same mobulas and mantas are found much closer to home. Blue shark dives are not offered either — the operator does not agree with chumming techniques.

The operator states its diver requirements bluntly and up front: Advanced Open Water level or equivalent and at least 50 logged dives. An SMB is mandatory, a torch strongly recommended. Less experienced divers are accepted on certain weeks, or within a group of similar level taking the whole boat, but then the instructor may close some sites to them, or a private instructor has to be hired. Divers must be autonomous: climb the ladder in full kit, deploy an SMB, giant-stride from the platform, get into a dinghy unaided. This is the North Atlantic: water from 18 to 24 °C, wind, swell and current — a 7 mm suit with an integrated hood is the norm here, not overcaution. If you bring your own camera you will be jumping in with it: the boat is nearly always under way and too high for anyone to hand it down to you.

The week runs like this: check-in from 3 pm on Saturday, boarding around 4 pm and, weather permitting, a check dive around 6 pm. Then two to three dives a day — the crew aim for three, though long crossings sometimes eat one. On Friday, the last full day, there is usually no dive or a single morning dive, to leave twenty-four hours before the flight. Check-out is Saturday at 9 am after breakfast. If the weather keeps the boat in port, guests stay aboard with all meals included and the company offers replacements — inland programmes or dives in sheltered water with the dive centre.

The money is unusually simple. A week costs €2,990 in June and October and €3,190 in July (from the 4th), August and September, taxes included. A non-diver on the same trip pays €2,690 and €2,890 respectively. There are no compulsory payments on board: port fees, marine reserve fees and the insurance covering diving and boating that Portuguese law requires are all in the price. On board you pay cash only, and only for rental gear, alcohol and merchandise — cards are not accepted at all. Transfers are not included: a taxi from Ponta Delgada airport to the marina costs around €40.

Besides the diving weeks the boat is sold whole for sailing charters — €2,500 a day and €16,500 a week in low season, €2,700 and €18,000 in high season, strictly Saturday to Saturday. Charters include no diving, but they do include that whale-watching permit: the boat may approach whales, and snorkelling is allowed with dolphins though not with whales. Sailing and snorkelling programmes run from April to the end of November; the diving weeks are a shorter season, Saturdays from late May to the end of October.