Where to swim on an island with almost no sand: imported beaches, black pebbles, lava pools and municipal lidos.
The Azores are volcanic islands, so the coast is cliffs and boulders rather than sand. What they have instead is three different kinds of swimming place, and knowing which is which decides the afternoon: bays of black volcanic sand, natural pools that the Atlantic fills and refreshes, and built lidos with ladders into the open sea. A coast facing the swell closes often; the sheltered side of the same island is calm on the same day.
José Luís Ávila Silveira/Pedro Noronha e Costa · Public domain
Piscinas Naturais de Santa Cruz das Ribeiras
Lajes do Pico
Natural pools
The south coast's main bathing area, pools and platforms at Ribeiras.
A set of pools and concrete terraces in the lava below the village, with a slipway, a bar and a good deal of flat rock to sit on. This is the sheltered side of the island for most of the year, so when the north coast is closed by swell this is where the island swims.
Worth knowing: Twenty minutes from Lajes and on the road to the whaling museum, which is the other reason to be in this corner of the island.
A tidal pool beside the harbour at Lajes do Pico, in the middle of the town.
The pool is built into the rock on the seaward side of the Lajes waterfront, a minute from the whaling museum and the harbour the whaleboats used to work out of. It is small and it is urban, and it is the only swim on the island you can walk to from a hotel.
Worth knowing: Lajes is where the whale-watching boats leave from on the south coast; the pool is what to do with the two hours before one sails.
Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0
Zona de Banhos da Furna
São Roque do Pico
Natural pools
Lava pools at Santo António on the north coast, with a campsite behind them.
The Furna pools sit in the black rock below Santo António, with steps and ladders in, a deck, a bar and the island's campsite immediately above. It is the busiest bathing place on the north side of Pico and the start of the PRC20PIC circuit. The water is deep off the ladders and clear enough that the snorkellers outnumber the swimmers.
Worth knowing: Facing north, so a northerly swell shuts it; on those days the south-coast pools at Santa Cruz das Ribeiras are the opposite side of a narrow island, half an hour away.
A single walled pool at Prainha de Baixo, on the north-east coast.
One pool cut into the lava at the bottom of a lane, with a concrete deck, a shower and nothing else. It is the village's own swimming place rather than a visitor attraction, which is most of what recommends it: on a weekday in June there is nobody there at all.
Worth knowing: No bar, no lifeguard and no shade — bring water. The lane down is narrow and there is room for about six cars at the end.
Madalena's own bathing area: black pebbles and rock, with Faial across the channel.
A short stretch of dark shingle and flat rock just north of the ferry port, in front of the wine cellars of Areia Larga. It is the nearest swim to the Madalena harbour and the one place on Pico where you can be in the water twenty minutes after getting off the boat from Horta. The channel view is the reason people stay past six.
Worth knowing: It is a five-minute walk from the ferry terminal, which makes it the right stop for a day trip from Faial with time to kill before the return crossing.
Facilities and lifeguard cover follow the municipal bathing season, which runs roughly from May to October and varies by council. A red flag is a closure, not a warning: it means the sea is beyond what the lifeguards can cover.
