Angra do Heroísmo is a UNESCO World Heritage city, and most visitors explore it on foot: the cathedral, the Renaissance street grid, the fortress on Monte Brasil. Fewer know that part of the city's history lies just below the surface of its bay. Two of the first dive sites on our list, the Lidador wreck and the Cemitério das Âncoras (Cemetery of Anchors), are inside an official underwater archaeological park, a few minutes by boat from the harbour.
This guide explains what you will see on each dive, the story behind them, the depths involved, and the rules that apply inside the park.
The bay of Angra was the main port of the Azores for centuries, and also a dangerous one. Approximately 74 shipwrecks are recorded in the bay between 1522 and 1996. When a strong wind blew from the south-east, ships anchored "outside the fortresses" had little protection. Locals called it the "vento carpinteiro", the carpenter's wind, because after each storm the timber of wrecked ships washed ashore and was reused for building.
To protect what remained, the Regional Government of the Azores created the Parque Arqueológico Subaquático da Baía de Angra by Regional Regulatory Decree 20/2005/A of 12 October 2005 (amended by Decree 19/2015/A). The park opened to the public in 2006 and has two marked sites that can be visited: the Lidador and the Cemetery of Anchors.
The Lidador was an iron-hulled steamship built in London in 1873 by William Walker & Co. It was 78.67 metres long, with two steam engines made by the well-known firm J. Penn & Sons, plus two masts for sail. It belonged to the Brazilian Companhia de Navegação Transatlântica, was registered in Rio de Janeiro, and carried passengers and emigrants between Brazil, Portugal and the Atlantic islands.
At the end of January 1878, under the command of Captain Augusto Borges Cabral, himself an Azorean from Santa Maria, the ship called at Horta, on Faial, to take on emigrants bound for Brazil, and then sailed to Angra. On the evening of 6 February 1878, while passengers were still boarding, the wind picked up and turned to the south: the carpenter's wind.
In the rush to escape the storm, the crew could not recover the anchor in time. The ship swung around its mooring and, shortly after midnight on 7 February, struck the submerged reef that extends more than 200 metres off the point of the Fort of São Sebastião. The hull was holed, water flooded the engine room and a boiler exploded. Without power, the Lidador drifted towards land, hit the British sailing ship Jane Wheaton and finally sank parallel to the Figueirinha quay, less than 50 metres from the shore, in about 7 metres of water. The passengers were rescued by boats from the other ships and the city's launch.
For more than a century the wreck was known to local spearfishers only as "o barco do sal", the salt boat. Its name and history were recovered between 1993 and 1998 by the team of the National Centre for Nautical and Underwater Archaeology in the Azores, working through local, national and international archives.
The hull is crushed and broken up, but still recognisable. Look for:
At around 7 metres, the Lidador is a shallow, easy dive, suitable for newly certified Open Water divers and a great first wreck. It is also a good choice for a second dive of the day, and for divers who want long bottom time to take photographs.
The same carpenter's wind created the second site. When the weather turned suddenly, many ships anchored near Monte Brasil had no time to raise their anchors: the only way to escape to open sea was to cut the anchor line and run. Over the centuries, dozens of anchors were left on the bottom of the bay.
The first dives of the 1997 campaign identified, among others, the Admiralty pattern anchor, developed in England in 1841 and one of the best-known anchor types in the world.
The site lies between the Fort of São Benedito and the eastern edge of Monte Brasil and is marked by two surface buoys. There are about 40 anchors from different periods, mainly between the 16th and 20th centuries. The dive starts from the northern buoy, at around 16 metres, on anchor no. 555, resting on a large rock. From there, the route continues south-west past anchors of different ages towards a vertical wall near the shore. At around 35 metres there is a huge inverted anchor.
Between the rocks and the sand, the site is also a good reef dive, with the fish life typical of Terceira's south coast.
Depths range from about 22 metres (rocky area) to 32 metres (sandy area), so this is a medium-difficulty dive. Currents are usually not strong, but the site is inside the port control area, with regular boat traffic, so diving is always done with a boat and a guide. An Advanced Open Water certification is recommended (or equivalent experience), and good buoyancy control so that you do not touch the anchors.
The park is open to any duly certified diver. Because the sites are protected cultural heritage, a few simple rules apply:
Our diving centre is in Angra do Heroísmo, so both sites are just a short boat ride from our base. A good plan is to dive the Cemetery of Anchors first, as the deeper dive, and the Lidador second, on a relaxed shallow profile.
To book, contact us at information@deepblueazores.com or call +351 962 772 199 / +351 919 795 390. Tell us your certification level and number of logged dives, and we will plan the right dives for you.
Can beginners dive the Lidador? Yes. At around 7 metres, it is suitable for Open Water divers.
How deep is the Cemetery of Anchors? Between about 22 and 32 metres, with one large anchor at around 35 metres.
Do I need a special permit? No. Access to the park is free for certified divers. Diving with a local centre makes it easier to deal with the buoys and boat traffic in the port area.
Sources: Regional Regulatory Decree 20/2005/A (12 October 2005), amended by Decree 19/2015/A; Visit Azores, "Guia do Património Cultural Subaquático dos Açores".