Azores - a travel report

I was on the island of Pico for about two weeks in August and September of 2025. We just stayed in one place and did nothing else beside diving. Our dive shop was Pico Island Adventures.

On the day of our arrival we learned that a hurricane passed the Azores a few days ago and that the sea is still rough. The check in at the dive center was pretty shocking for us, because they cancelled a two day trip to Princess Alice, because their boat broke down. That was a huge bummer, because we were thrilled to do this trip and they could have told us earlier. Also due to the weather a lot of dives were unsure and postponed to the 2nd week. The first few days we did check dives, shore dives and a few very nice boat dives to caves full of young eagle rays. After that the weather got better and we could do all our planned dives, like 4 shark dives, a day trip to Princess Alice and some night diving. It was absolutely stunning. Especially the shark dives were great. I was lucky to have a line for myself almost all the time, so I could change my vertical position quite easily. Diving was a 8/10.

On the last day we did some hiking (of course after 24h ;)) to visit some lava caves and the foothills of the volcano. The infrastructure and climate of the island was great. It wasn't too hot, but almost every day we had sunny weather and hardly any rain. There are for sure better islands for families with kids, because there is nothing else to see on Pico except for diving and the volcano. Getting there was easy: we took our flight from Vienna to Lisboa and then directly to Pico. It was without a doubt a very nice and relaxed trip and I can recommend it without hesitation.

Here is a short video from our shark diving days: https://vimeo.com/1153335617