Diving Pico Island in the Azores by Cathy de lara
We decided we needed a break, but didn’t want to travel long haul, we wanted interesting
diving but couldn’t find a Red Sea liveaboard that did what we wanted to do, so we ended up
in the Azores. There are nine islands to choose from but we picked Pico, mainly because the
dive centre there is the only one to offer technical diving and had rebreathers for hire so we
didn’t even have to take much kit with us!
Pico Island is only 46km long and 16km wide so nothing is very far away but you really need
a car as public transport is pretty much non-existent! There are really only three main roads,
one goes all the way around, one goes East-West and the other North-South, the rest of the
roads are generally single track with interesting pot holes and lots of cows (although we did
meet a couple of herds on the main roads too!)
October is end of the tourist season and the weather was mixed, 20-24c during the day with
90% humidity and yes there was rain too, but being an island, even if it’s a bit windy there is
usually somewhere to dive.
We dived with Twin Peaks dive centre, the owner Gary is a BSAC instructor so understands
British divers. Water temperature was 20/21c, we took drysuits but our guide was in a
wetsuit. All the diving we did was shore diving (and yes, ALL the sites we did had clean
public toilets, showers and a hose connector so you could wash all your kit on site!) So, what
did we see? Lava scenery, Morays, fishy things, weedy stuff, lots of little flat fish, a couple of
rays, black coral (which isn’t really black) Trigger fish, and John made friends with a little
school of juvenile Amber jacks which insisted on following him around on two of the dives!
So, what is there for the non-diver? Lots of hikes, a lava tunnel, a few museums and whale
watching (we saw whales and dolphins), you can also take a ferry to the nearby islands.
All in all, we had a fab time, it’s not Red-Sea pretty but the diving is interesting, would we go
back? Probably.
