Saildive - liveaboard in Azores

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moorish8idol

Contributor
Messages
158
Reaction score
184
Location
Switzerland
# of dives
200 - 499
Hi folks,

I am trying this again (I made a similar call-out a few years ago) - has anyone done a liveaboard in the Azores (particularly in August)? I like the idea of an intimate sail around these lesser known islands and mixing it up with some diving (with some sharks, mobulas etc). Saildive is a catamaran that does these trips and has availability early August but its very hard to find any feedback or reviews - anyone???

Thanks!
 
Hi,
I don't know that liveboard, however I would like to give some perspective from my own experience of diving in the Azores.

This 9 islands are in the mid-atlantic ridge, they are volcanic islands where just 200-300m from shore depth can be over 1000m. It's very easy to be open water diving with sperm whales in places over 5000m depth (don't drop your camera :).

Crossing from island to island , even in the summer, is not gentle. To have some perspective go to google maps and lookup "Farol das Formigas", beautiful place to dive, just a little speck of rock some 30Km from the island of Santa Maria. In that stretch of sea with good weather and in August the boat ride alone was very tough with 3-4m waves.
Any boat going around the islands will have to anchor in harbour for the night.

That said there is a place worth diving in "liveboard style" in Azores "Banco Princesa Alice" is a seamount about 3 hours boat ride from closest island, it's demanding both physically and diving. Boat ride usually starts very early (dawn), 3 hour boat ride followed by two dives and another 3 hour back to harbour, usually arriving at sunset.

The Azores turism is very supportive of diving activities, they have website I recommend Azores Scuba Diving with information of dive operators and spots. The local airline (for island to island and international) SATA is also very supportive with extra height allowance for divers Azores Airlines and fly from Toronto.

Hope it helps.
 
Somewhere on the saildive website they mention 12-14 dives, which seems on the low end compared to my experience with Caribbean or Red Sea liveaboards. I saw also this other operation Water and Wind-Diving and sailing Liveaboards and Charters - Azores Islands. It looks similar in terms of price, but maybe easier to book via travel agents, if that matters.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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