Sailors’ Paintings on the Harbour’s Wall

Horta is the largest city on the island of Faial, which is one of the five central islands of the Azores, and home to half of the island’s residents. It is situated on the eastern side of Faial and faces the island of Pico. In fact, you can get an amazing view of the Pico volcano from most points in Horta.

The town was ‘started’ by a Flemish nobleman named Josse Van Huerter in 1467 who came through Faial on an expedition, landing at Horta Bay. From there, he built a small chapel which served as the focal point of the community. The name ‘Horta’ is thought to come from his surname. Nonetheless, ‘Horta’ also means ‘orchard’ in Portuguese, which could also be the origin of the town’s name.

We drove to the old fortress that was built in the 16th Century. Right now a hotel has been built inside it but the old walls are still in good shape.

We heard a story about hundreds of paintings that decorated the harbours walls. Nobody knows how the painting of the harbor walls first began. But one day, many years ago, the crew of a sailing vessel anchored in the harbor wanted to leave a souvenir of their visit to the island in the docks.

This first painting was followed by others, gradually occupying the whole sea wall, which has been transformed into a brightly-colored mosaic of drawings recalling the many yachts that have stopped off in the marina.

A superstition began circulating among residents that vessels which, for one reason or another, failed to leave a record of their presence, would suffer a serious accident.

So as not to tempt fate, every sailor now uses his brush and paint to sketch a drawing and some words that refer to his vessel or voyage, and a giant mosaic of vivid murals has thus been created over the decades by countless crews.

We spent at least an hour looking at these paintings and trying to find the ones were from Canada.Read more