São Jorge is famous for its fajãs, its cheese and the cliffs that drop straight into the sea. Fewer visitors know that the same steep coast made the island hard to anchor at for centuries, and that the results are still on the seabed: lost anchors, a burnt Royal Navy frigate, the remains of one of the last slave ships of the Atlantic, and a Second World War patrol boat.
This guide covers four historic dive sites on São Jorge, with the story, the depth and what you can expect to see. The history comes from the Guia do Património Cultural Subaquático dos Açores (Guide to the Underwater Cultural Heritage of the Azores), published by the regional government, which draws on archive documents, island chronicles and the newspapers of the time.
Depth: 18-25 m · Level: Advanced Open Water or equivalent
Our company started in Urzelina in 1998, under the name UrzelinaTur. Urzelina is also home to one of the best historic dives on the island.
The small port of Urzelina was built in 1647, by order of the Velas town council. It is open to the south-east wind, and when a south-easterly storm arrived, ships anchored there had a choice: stay and risk being wrecked, or cut the anchor ropes and run for open water. According to the official guide this happened at least five times. The anchors stayed behind.
Today four anchors remain (there were once five), of different types and sizes, dating from 1647 to the early 20th century. They lie near the Urzelina islet: you pass through the arch of the islet and find them between 18 and 25 metres, where the rock meets the sand. The swim through the arch is a highlight on its own.
The port has darker stories too. In the 19th century ships loaded oranges here for England. In January 1866 the English schooner Tamar Queen left Urzelina in a storm with the local harbour pilot, Amaro José Soares, still on board. Days later her captain and a sailor were found murdered with an axe. The surviving crew blamed the pilot, who was tied to a mast; on the way to England he too was killed, and the crew claimed he had fallen overboard. An investigation in England found that the mate and a sailor were the real killers, and both were hanged. The island chronicler José Cândido da Silveira Avellar recorded the case in 1902.
Depth: shallow, suitable for snorkelling and scuba · Level: all levels
HMS Pallas was a 36-gun frigate built in 1757 at Deptford, England, the first of a new class of fast British frigates. She was experimental: one of the first ships with a copper-sheathed hull and among the first in the world to carry iron ballast instead of stones. She fought in the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence.
By 1783 she was old and leaking. Storms in the North Atlantic left two and a half metres of water in her hold. She tried to reach Horta, on Faial, on 10 February 1783, but contrary winds pushed her north-east towards São Jorge. After two more days at the pumps, with the officers bailing alongside the crew, Captain Christopher Parker ran her aground in the middle of Calheta bay. Her keel was almost gone. Once the cargo and crew were ashore, he set the ship on fire.
The wreck was relocated in 1998, at between 5 and 20 metres inside the bay, and excavated in 2000 by archaeologists Paulo Monteiro and Ana Catarina Garcia. They found pottery, copper sheathing, gun flints, bronze bolts and coins. The cannons were recorded, studied and then placed back on the seabed in a more sheltered, shallow spot, where they can be visited today by snorkellers and divers. The other finds are kept at the Museu Francisco de Lacerda in Calheta (visits by appointment).
Depth: about 12 m · Level: Open Water or equivalent
In the same bay, on 9 June 2016, archaeologists identified the remains of another wreck among shallow rocks: three Admiralty-pattern anchors about 1.2 m long, two together and one apart, at about 12 metres. Their style dates them between the second half of the 19th century and the mid-20th century.
The most likely candidate is the Mont-Ferran, a large French barque that grounded in Calheta in early May 1864, in calm weather, after anchoring in the wrong place. A local priest wrote that the whole town ran to the harbour, leaving the court room empty. The ship carried linseed, but also weapons, iron collars and shackles: she was a slave ship, using the linseed cargo as cover. The guide describes her as one of the last ships of the transatlantic slave trade. The spilled linseed washed up as far as Faial, and some of her salvage can still be seen at the Solar dos Noronhas in Calheta.
It is a short dive, but a powerful one when you know the story.
Depth: 4-12 m · Level: all levels in good conditions
On 12 November 1945, the British patrol vessel Eriskay ran aground in a storm near Fajã do Negro, east of the port of Manadas. She was an Isle-class naval trawler, built in 1942 in Paisley, Scotland: 50 metres long, 545 tonnes, with four anti-aircraft guns. Records suggest she served in the Portuguese navy in 1943-1944 as "P8", during Portugal's wartime neutrality. Newspapers in Ponta Delgada and Angra reported that the crew was rescued with the help of ropes.
The site was relocated about 70 years later. Much of the ship was salvaged by islanders for iron and bronze, but parts of the outer hull remain among the rocks at 4-8 metres, showing how she struck the coast. In the sand at around 12 metres, winter storms alternately cover and uncover more of the wreck, so every season is a little different.
São Jorge's historic sites are not only about the past. The anchors and wrecks are covered in marine life: groupers, moray eels, amberjacks and schools of small fish. On the same trip you can add a classic reef dive. Our favourites run along the coast from Baixa dos Rosais in the west to Ilhéu do Topo in the east, with volcanic formations, caves and walls.
A good plan for a history-lover's day:
| Morning | Afternoon |
|---|---|
| Urzelina anchors + islet arch (advanced divers) | Reef dive near Velas |
| HMS Pallas cannons, Calheta (all levels, snorkel friendly) | Museu Francisco de Lacerda (book ahead) |
São Jorge Dive & Sail Center is a family company that has worked at sea around São Jorge since 1998. Tell us your certification level and travel dates and we will build a dive plan around the sites that interest you.
Contact: sjzdiveandsail@gmail.com · +351 915 106 268 · Porto de Velas, São Jorge
Main source: Guia do Património Cultural Subaquático dos Açores (Governo dos Açores / Visit Azores).