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The handwritten sign posted in the bar reads, “Experienced, energetic young Canadian couple will crew for you.”

Clearly, Café Sport is no ordinary bar. For decades, it has welcomed those who appreciate a cold beer, tasty nibbles like codfish cakes and creamy local cheeses and, perhaps most of all, a dry perch from which to set one's gaze on the verdant greenery and dramatic mountains of the Azores. On a warm late-autumn afternoon, a few patrons of Café Sport are taking a break in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean before sailing on again.

I'm in Horta on the island of Faial, one of nine dots on the map that represent the westernmost outpost of Europe, 1,300 kilometres off mainland Portugal. For centuries, these islands have been a port of call for pirates and priests, dreamers and schemers, all seeking refuge in a lonely part of the planet. The rugged landscape has also sent scores of locals abroad in search of a better life.

More recently, the Azores are being explored by visitors in search of clean and unspoiled vistas and the thrill of finding oneself in utter isolation, whether it's on a cliff high above the sea, trekking through fields of wild hydrangeas, swimming in warm tidal pools or standing on the edge of a volcanic crater.

It is a place full of surprises, with vistas I come to view as being a cross between Hawaii and Ireland. And wherever I go I'm reminded of the strong bonds these islands hold to Canada. Almost everyone here has a relative there.

A humid wind tosses the ferryboat across the seven-kilometre channel that separates Faial and Pico. It's a Sunday morning and a static-filled television onboard is showing a preacher in mid-sermon when a wave flows across the open back deck. Maybe it's a sign. Pico is a forbidding place where lava formed a ring of dangerous sentinels that could crush a boat on impact. High above the ocean and broken by layers of mist looms the island's namesake, a towering peak.

The trek up Portugal's tallest mountain (2,350 metres) can be made in about six hours from where the road ends at 1,200 metres above sea level. This steep, often inclement walk is a pilgrimage for some who spend the night in caves in a crater warmed by the still-active volcano's inner heat.

Instead, I return to the seashore to seek out the ghosts of an earlier time.

Whaling was the dangerous occupation of many men on Pico from the early 19th century until 1984, when Portugal banned the hunt.

The winches and cauldrons at the Museum of the Whaling Industry in Sao Roque have been untouched since the last leviathan was dragged onto the shore, carved up and boiled down to make, as the sign still proudly proclaims, “Vitamins, Oil, Flour and Fertilizer.”

Pico's coastal road passes swaths of hardened lava the islanders call misterios, an evocative name for an otherworldly landscape of dark, rocky soil. One is constantly aware of the volcanic origins of this, the youngest island in the Azores, where the landscape has yet to turn into the fertile pastures like those on neighbouring islands.

A hands-on lesson in vulcanology can be had at the Lava Tunnel, a five-kilometre-long cave that was discovered in 1990 by an entomologist out looking for butterflies and only recently opened to the public. For the guided tour, a headlamp attached to my helmet illuminates the molten swirls that formed along this rough-hewn passage as the lava cooled.

Back in Horta on Faial, I stroll past the colourful display of “calling cards” sailors are invited to paint on the quayside to tell of their journeys at sea. I look for a sign from the young Canadian couple. I don't find theirs, but I do locate a message from Idlewild, the Canadian expedition that first sailed the world via the Northwest Passage.

It's becoming clear the Azores are not only the sleepy, bucolic place my Portuguese neighbours in Toronto say it is, but also a cosmopolitan pit stop for the sailing and yachting crowd. In the early days of air travel, the giant flying boats of the Pan American Clipper line stopped here to refuel.

During the busy summer season, a car ferry connects the central islands of the Azores but off-season, the only way to get around is to fly. Sao Miguel is the largest island where about half of the 240,000 Azoreans live. Many first-time visitors stay put here.

Ponta Delgada, the islands main community, has European shops, a theatre and what comes closest to a nightlife scene with discos and clubs. Golf, whale-watching and scenic drives to lake-filled craters are a draw for some visitors, but I head for the thermal waters of the Furnas valley.

From a mineral-encrusted gash in the earth, cauldrons bubble, boil and send steam rising from the fiery depths below. The Caldeira de Botelho, or pit of hell, throws out a throaty rumble. This land of natural ovens is used by the Terra Nostra Hotel to cook a sort of pot au feu by placing a tightly sealed bag of meat and vegetables in the ground where it cooks for six hours.

The same subterranean heat steams me in an iron-rich pool set in a lush semi-tropical garden on the hotel grounds. I towel off and tuck into the tender, succulent flavours of this slow-cooked feast and have the native pineapple for dessert.

When I return to my hotel in Ponta Delgada, there's an e-mail reply from the Canadian sailors. Sarah and Pete have moved on and are now in Portugal's Algarve on the mainland. They crossed the Atlantic with Sarah's father in a steel-hulled schooner he built in his Ottawa driveway.

When they landed on the Azores after 26 days at sea, “it was like sailing up to paradise after the long salt-encrusted trip,” she writes. She echoes the sentiment of seafarers down the ages.

Special to The Globe and Mail