Sailor’s manual

Everything you need to sail the Azores, from your first fish to Atlantis. The game teaches as you go; this is for when you want to read ahead.

Your first voyage

You begin at Ponta Delgada, on São Miguel, in a little dinghy with a few coins. The first mate, your one guide, suggests what to do next at the top of the screen.

Your first voyage is one short checklist: sail to the practice buoy, catch a fish, visit Ponta Delgada, make a delivery and sight a second island. Finish it for 300 gold, and the sea is yours.

You play as a guest at once. Save your captain to an account, with your email or Google, to keep it safe, to play on other devices and to chat.

If sign-in or an email change fails, you can retry the same link while it is valid. Once it succeeds, the link cannot be used again.

Days, weather and wind

Everyone shares one clock. A whole day takes about forty minutes: night passes quickly, daylight slowly. Each game day is one season for the island’s wildlife, so a year of whales and birds passes in an evening, and the moon waxes and wanes over eight days.

Weather changes every few minutes, island by island: calm, breezy, windy, showers. Sailing with the wind is faster, and gust lines on windy days give a burst of speed. Two nights in eight are fog nights, when you see little beyond your own bow.

Named storms cross the islands every few hours, with a warning first. Harbours in their path close for a while; Horta and Ponta Delgada never do.

The sea today

Every day has one headline at sea, the same for every captain, and the first mate tells you as you set out: a rogue wave, a boiling sea, an earthquake or a day of shoals. That day’s sea goal in the logbook follows it.

Mar de leva: once every game day a rogue wave sweeps across the islands, with a minute’s warning. Turn your bow to it and ride over it for gold; met any other way, it knocks you down and some fish wash overboard. Harbours, the water close under a coast and your own harbour are safe from it.

Mar a ferver: an underwater vent erupts off one of the islands for most of the day. Pumice rafts float out, worth more the nearer the vent you scoop them; lava bombs land where red rings warn a moment before, and the water right over the vent scalds the hull.

Earthquake day: four times the ground shakes, and each time one of São Jorge’s fajãs comes down into the sea. The first hull through each barrel, crate or sack takes it.

Cardume: the shoals of chicharro boil twice an hour instead of once. · Opens at Mate

Harbours and island exchanges

Sail close to a harbour and press E to visit it. There you sell your catch and basket, repair your hull, take deliveries, buy timber or stone where the island cuts it, dress your boat, and step ashore.

Ashore you walk the island: milk cows and pick hydrangeas for your basket, and take the island quiz at its exchange. Answer sixteen of twenty questions and the island counts you as a friend.

On your walks you also find the islands’ volcanic landmarks and climb the old whaling lookouts. · Opens at Mate

Boats and upgrades

Every boat is optional: build the next class in your own harbour’s shipyard whenever you have the gold and the timber and the shipyard is high enough. A bigger boat is faster and stronger, carries more fish and has room for more crew and guests.

Each boat has four upgrades of three levels: sails for speed, hull for strength, cannons for damage and reload, and tackle for fishing. A new hull starts fresh. Your harbour fits them: the shipyard the hull, the armoury the cannons, the sail loft the sails and tackle. Guns and bow guns are cast in your harbour’s armoury and stay with you.

Captain Points and ranks

Captain Points come only from doing things: deliveries, catches, discoveries, rescues, races, festas. They are never spent. Repeatable things share a daily allowance; first discoveries always count.

Points raise your rank, and each rank opens more of the islands’ adventures, so a new captain is never overwhelmed. You can turn this off and see everything from Settings.

The trophy in the top bar opens the rankings, the one place every board of captains lives: Captain Points, kilometres sailed, fish caught and shots fired, of all time, this month and this week; the fastest regatta times on each course by boat class; the best rounds of mini golf at the golf course; and the builders of the harbour projects, of every island or one.

You can read every Rankings board while aboard another captain’s boat.

Fishing

Slow down, press F to cast, press F again the moment a fish bites, then hold to reel while keeping the line in the middle of the tension band. Sell your catch at any harbour.

After 3 successful catches, take a 2-minute fishing break. The allowance is shared across the ocean and all island lakes. Missed bites and broken lines do not count; 2 minutes without a catch reset the count. Changing spots or reconnecting does not reset it.

A blue shark may grab the fish you are reeling: let go while it runs and hold to pull while it tires.

Once an hour a shoal of chicharro boils up in open water for a few minutes: fish inside its ring for quick bites and bigger fish, and those catches skip the fishing break. · Opens at Mate

Everything about fishing →

Deliveries

Every harbour’s board offers three crossings: a short one, an island voyage and a long passage, each carrying the island’s own speciality or, on the islands that cut them, timber or stone. The harbour supplies the cargo; sail it across and it delivers itself when you dock. The pay is shown before you accept, and cancelling costs nothing.

Sail beside your flotilla for a bonus, and deliver to the festa island for extra gold.

Hot orders

Opens at Mate

Every quarter of an hour one harbour posts an urgent delivery for double gold, marked with a gold star on your chart.

The chart and discoveries

Open the chart with M. The coasts you sail past are inked in as you go; chart an island all the way round for a reward. Question marks hint at places nearby you have not found yet. Click or tap the chart to plot a course.

Captains’ harbours show on the chart too. The chart has no key: every mark speaks for itself. Pirate sails show only within sight of your harbour’s lighthouse.

Regattas

Opens at Mate

Seven courses around the islands, from the Faial–Pico channel to the Volta à Terceira. Sail a time trial whenever you like against the ghost of your best run, or join the races that start every twenty minutes and race other captains in your class.

The regatta rankings show your current captain name and boat colour, even while you are offline.

Festas

Opens at Mate

One island celebrates each day. Bring bread, meat and milk to the império for the Holy Spirit sopas, carry hydrangeas for Santo Cristo’s carpets, fish for Sanjoaninas, ferry festa guests, or escort the procession boat in Semana do Mar.

The festas and their days →

Treasure bottles and the daily riddle

Opens at Mate

Bottles drift near captains at sea. Sail into one to start a trail of three clues to harbours and lake shores, and reach each place to find its fragment. Bottles you find during a trail wait in your journal, up to two, and the next opens when it is done. Every day there is also one riddle for everyone: solve it by reaching the place it describes.

Whales, dolphins and birds

Opens at Mate

Photograph whales and dolphins from a respectful distance; each species has its seasons and hours, and the golden hour makes better pictures. Spot the islands’ birds, climb the old whaling lookouts to see every surfacing whale on your chart, and later take tourists whale-watching from Horta, Madalena or Ponta Delgada.

Whales, dolphins and birds →

Rescues

Opens at Mate

On autumn nights cagarro chicks fall dazzled near the harbour lights: carry them in your box and release them at the shore. At sea, stay alongside a turtle caught in a drifting net until it is free.

Harvests, rock pools and cooking

Opens at Mate

Each island grows its own crop, from Gorreana’s tea to Pico’s grapes, and its rock pools open at low tide. Cook in the islands’ own ovens: cozido in the hot ground of Furnas, alcatra on Terceira, queijadas on Graciosa. The first harbour you reach each day greets you with a treat.

Crew and the island dog

Opens at Mate

Hire a sailor at each island’s tavern; every one has a story that unfolds as you sail together, and your crew fishes while you are away. Adopt a dog to ride at your bow and sniff out places you have not found.

Island finds, lighthouses, jumps and trails

Opens at Skipper

Collect azulejo tiles, sit at the miradouros, and climb Pico for the sunrise. Light the lighthouses at dusk, jump from the cliffs at Biscoitos, Vila Franca and Varadouro, and run each island’s flagged trail against your own ghost.

Mini golf

Opens at Mate

Walk up to the golf course on São Miguel’s north coast and press E at its flag to play ten holes of mini golf across the nine islands: over the bridge between the lakes of Sete Cidades, up on a Furnas geyser, across a whale’s back off Santa Maria, through Graciosa’s windmill, off a São Jorge clifftop and up to the summit of Pico. Pull back anywhere like a slingshot and let go to putt: the ball goes the other way, and dots show where it will roll. Drag with the right mouse button (or two fingers) to turn the view. The fewest strokes go on the course’s own leaderboard, of all time, this month and this week.

A short dropped connection keeps your round and the score of a hole already counted.

Legends and the sky

Opens at Skipper

Sabrina’s cinder islet rises from the sea now and then; plant the first flag. Lava balloons bubble up off Serreta, and on full-moon nights the phantom island of São Brandão shows its lanterns. Chase rainbows to their end and wish on shooting stars.

Sea roads and dolphins

Opens at Skipper

Currents run between the islands: ride one for speed and chart it. A course you plot rides one when that gets you there sooner. Sail fast past a pod of dolphins and they escort you, faster still.

Ships at sea

Opens at Mate

The mail packet loops between the big harbours with sacks to carry on. Fishing fleets work the banks by day; fish in their shoal for bigger catches.

Alongside the mail packet while she is under way, press E to race her to her next port: in before her pays gold and Captain Points.

A tall ship crosses every hour: sail alongside, or wave, to salute her. On fog nights a ghost ship sails; the whaling canoes of Pico and Faial race anyone; and the India ship runs for Angra with raiders on her heels. · Opens at Skipper

Contraband runs

Opens at Skipper

Once a day after dusk a contact waits in a rowing boat off Lajes or Santa Maria’s old airfield with a crate of American goods. Take it and the Guarda Fiscal’s launch gives chase: if she stays close too long, or you run into a harbour, the crate is seized. Shake her off and land the crate at its hidden cove after dark for triple pay; land it with her still behind you and it pays the usual price.

The giant squid

At night a giant squid lurks in one deep channel, a different one each night, and the first mate warns you when the water turns dark. Stay and it grabs your hull: fire your broadsides at its arms, let other captains help, or hold out until a sperm whale breaches and drives it off. Escape and you keep its beak, worth a fortune. It squeezes your hull and steals fish, but it never sinks you, and it strikes each captain once a night.

The cursed chest

Opens at Mate

Once a day a cursed chest washes up somewhere off the islands, and the first mate hints where. Sail past to take it aboard: after a short grace every pirate in sight hunts you, and a ghost ship rises astern. Carry it into Angra’s harbour and the bells of the Sé break the curse, for big gold and Captain Points. Sink, step ashore anywhere else or leave the game, and the chest floats where you were, for anyone to take.

Pirates, corsairs and captain fights

Pirate crews prowl the open sea and some island waters. Fire broadsides with Space, turn to aim, and take a beaten ship as a prize when she strikes her colours. Captains may fight one another in open water, never inside a harbour, never their own flotilla, and never a captain on a first voyage, towing, racing or held by the giant squid.

Famous corsairs appear when captains sail together far from harbour. · Opens at Captain

Floats at sea

Lifebuoys float ahead of your bow, a few at a time, and sail into one to take it. What floats follows the water: gold anywhere (worth a little more on a bigger boat, and double near pirates, in a storm, on a fog night or by the boiling sea), repair crates by a damaged hull, rapid fire, triple shot, heavy shot, Long Tom and smoke pots near pirates, a Fair Wind inside a gust line, St Elmo’s fire in a storm, boathooks among wreckage, copper sheathing where blows fall, and a whale call where the sperm whales swim.

Fight floats wait aboard until their moment: rapid fire, triple shot and Long Tom light with your next volley, heavy shot lasts four volleys, copper sheathing lights at the first blow and halves every blow after. Smoke pots light by themselves when a pirate has your hull below half, so the pirates lose you; a whale call sends a sperm whale to breach into the pirate on your tail, or to drive off the giant squid. A Fair Wind puts the wind behind you on any heading, except in a race. Sinking loses every float aboard, waiting or lit.

Sometimes five small casks lie in a curve: take them all in one run for a bonus. Now and then a gilded cask runs away along the sea, nearly as fast as you: catch it before it sinks for extra gold and a bonus.

Friends, flotillas and coming aboard

Add friends from their captain card. Sail as a flotilla of up to five: you share a chat and your positions, your shots pass each other, and deliveries sailed together pay more. Invite a captain aboard your boat and sail as one, guests firing and fishing from your deck.

Chat and emotes

Press T to chat. The Sea channel reaches every captain online; each island has a harbour channel for those ashore or near its harbour; your flotilla has its own. Typing needs a captain saved to an account. Emotes are for everyone: a wave, a laugh or a whale over your boat. Mute or report anyone from their card.

Postcards, mail and bottles

Opens at Mate

Press P for photo mode and turn any moment into a postcard. Send it to a friend, carried by other captains from harbour to harbour, or enter it in the postcard of the week.

Cast a message in a bottle and find others’ adrift. · Opens at Skipper

Harbour projects and Atlantis

Opens at Mate

Each island builds a great harbour landmark with gold given by every captain; give and fly its pennant.

Everything the fleet does together, lighthouses lit, coasts charted, rainbows found, raises Atlantis from the sea once a season. · Opens at Skipper

A harbour of your own

Every captain can anchor a floating harbour of their own. Out at sea, press E or choose “Anchor here” on the banner, and your harbour gathers round your boat if the water is free: clear of harbours and shores, sea roads, race courses, the whales’ loops, the fleets, the ships’ routes and other captains’ harbours, with room for the whole ring. To move it, press “Move your harbour” in your harbour or on an island’s Harbour page, sail to new water and drop anchor: it is towed there, ring and all. A harbour moves for nothing, then stays a week. If its ring ever stops fitting where it lies, it is towed to free water nearby and can move again at once. Your harbour floats at its true size, its mouth toward the island, and every captain sailing past sees it; while it is out of sight a soft glow on the edge of the screen shows which way it lies. E by your harbour steps in (not straight after a hit), and your boat lies moored there, out of every fight: nobody can fire on it, it neither fires nor fishes, and any guests aboard go back to their own boats. Inside, drag to move round the ring, and zoom in on a building with the mouse wheel or by pinching; drag with the right mouse button to turn the view and tilt it, or slide two fingers up or down together to tilt it; press C to look straight down.

Your harbour is a ring of floating pontoons round a lagoon. It starts as a quarter of the ring: the Harbour master’s house, a warehouse and three yards hanging off its outside, which cut timber, cut stone and land fish every hour, while you sail and while you are away, up to what the warehouse holds. Raising the Harbour master’s house to levels 5, 10 and 15 opens the next quarter, three more plots and three more yards, until the ring closes. You choose what stands on each plot and what each yard works. Every building and yard climbs to level 20: each level costs timber, stone and gold and takes real time to build, from seconds at first to hours near the top. Your builders work on one thing at a time, two from the Harbour master’s house’s level 10, and calling a build off pays it all back. Some buildings need others first: the shipyard needs the Harbour master’s house and the warehouse, the armoury and the sail loft need the shipyard. The warehouse pays first, then your hold, so whatever timber and stone you bring home can build.

Hulls, upgrades and guns are made in your own harbour, not at the island harbours: the shipyard builds your next hull as far as its level allows and fits hull upgrades, the armoury casts broadside and bow guns and fits cannon upgrades, and the sail loft fits sail and tackle upgrades. Hulls also take timber, and guns stone. The market buys your timber, stone and fish, swaps timber for stone, and pays more than any exchange for the catch in your hold: choose Sell catch on the harbour bar. The lighthouse shows bottles, wrecks and pirate sails on your chart, and the shipyard mends your hull for nothing whenever you step in. Paint any building, walls and trims, in an island’s colours once you have passed that island’s quiz at its exchange; painting is free and changes any time.

A plot that holds no building takes a garden or a landmark instead: hydrangea walks, a basalt fountain, a calçada compass square, or a landmark earned elsewhere in the islands, from a whale’s skeleton to a little império, and each season’s piece. One is laid at once for a little timber, stone and gold, and clearing it is free. Some gardens wait for fame, which visitors bring.

Timber is cut on São Miguel, Terceira, São Jorge and Flores, stone on Pico, Faial, Graciosa and Santa Maria. Their exchanges sell it for 75 gold apiece, and any exchange buys it back for 40. Each takes one slot in your hold, and it unloads into your warehouse when you step in; storm wrecks sometimes leave timber rafts. At sea one timber patches a quarter of your hull, and timber and stone count as gifts to an island’s harbour project.

E by another captain’s harbour pays them a visit; sign the guestbook, once a day. Every captain who signed in the last week hangs a little flag in their own flag colour on the bunting over the harbour, up to 24, and when 3 different captains sign on one day the harbour holds an arraial from the next dusk until dawn: the bunting lights up, fireworks burst over its lagoon for every boat nearby, and it gains 5 fame. Captains inside the same harbour see each other’s boats: a visitor’s tender, painted in their flag colour, ties up at the quay and their ship rides at anchor in the lagoon, beside the boat its owner sails. Every harbour shows on the chart.

On autumn nights the lit lanterns of your harbour bring down a dazed cagarro chick, one a night. Tap it and it hops to the edge of the ring and flies off low over the water: 15 gold, and it counts as a cagarro rescue. One that came down while you were away waits in a little SOS box by the warehouse; tap the box to set it free. Yellow-legged gulls sit along your roofs and take to the air whenever a building reaches a new level.

The logbook and seasons

Three goals each day pay gold and points, and when a week ends “Your week in the Azores” sums it up as a card. Seasons last some weeks, each with its theme, gold at each milestone and a lasting title for every captain who reaches the last one.

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