Twin Lakes: Lago Azul and Lago Verde, Sao Miguel, Azores
The last ice age started about 115,000 years ago. The exact reasons for the cooling are still debated but likely are related to the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth due to a wobble in the Earth’s tilt, the Milankovitch cycles; just like a spinning top, the Earth’s tilt changes. When the axis tilts away from the Sun, the northern half of the Earth gets less sunlight, and water freezes more quickly. About 11,700 years ago, that changed again, allowing more sunlight to hit our northern hemisphere, and the glaciers that covered much of North America and Europe receded, and large amounts of ice melt flowed into the Atlantic that brought about another cooling which was called the Younger Dryas lasting about 1000 years and causing a rise in sea level.
It was Plato, the philosopher, who instigated the legend of a vast land west of the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar). In his dialogues Timeus and Critias, written around 360 BCE, he describes a wealthy island empire, Atlantis, that existed 9,000 years before his time and sank into the ocean in a single day and night of earthquakes and floods. Plato’s grandfather had traveled in Greece and heard the story from the Athenian statesman, Solon, 300 years before, who had traveled to Egypt around 590 BCE and heard the story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests who had translated ancient records. But give a few hundred years here or there, and that places the disappearance of Atlantis around the era of the Younger Dryas. Perhaps Atlantis did exist and would be located in the Atlantic somewhere near where the Azores now exist and possibly are the remnants of that mythical place.
I spent 26 months on Tercera in the Azores, where I was stationed there by the Air Force during my military obligation. It was one of the best times of my life. Tercera is the third largest island in the nine-island Azorean archipelago, a virtual paradise. The Azores were the first place Christopher Columbus stopped on his transoceanic trip to discover the Americas. The church where he prayed for guidance still stands and was the site of many a picnic we had with our Air Force friends. Angra de Heroísmo is the largest town of about 35,000 inhabitants. Frédéric Chopin also stopped there during his search for a place that would be better for his lungs, which were besieged by the Tubercle Bacillus. I even sat at the piano and gave an impromptu concert for Angra. If you ever get to Angra, you must try the regional specialty, “Alcatra Regional,” a beef stew cooked in an earthen pot on charcoal, which is absolutely outstanding. Our base was composed of about 4,000 troops, mostly Air Force, but there were also Marines who did the security, the Navy who surprisingly did the flying, and Air Force who did the support, including the hospital. I “fought the war” for the next two years on a semi-tropical island doing health care for basically healthy young people. We bravely kept every Viet Cong from making landfall there. I didn’t know it then, but it was a magical time for me and my wife. I was young, full of energy and enthusiasm. There was a lot of time to pursue hobbies. I learned to work with wood in their wood hobby shop. Mary and I built shelves using wood from an Acacia tree, the hardest wood in the Azores, that was split just for us. We also built a copy of a 15th-century Savonarola Florentine chair. I became a more sophisticated photographer and even learned to Scuba Dive to look for treasure. Lobster was plentiful in the Atlantic, just for the taking, and we did. The harbor near our house had been the scene of great battles between the English and Spanish, with treasure ships laden with gold that were sunk by Sir Francis Drake. All we ever found was a few barnacle-encrusted cannons and the occasional shark that lost its way. But unfortunately, no sign of Atlantis!