Where to swim on an island with almost no sand: imported beaches, black pebbles, lava pools and municipal lidos.
The Azores are volcanic islands, so the coast is cliffs and boulders rather than sand. What they have instead is three different kinds of swimming place, and knowing which is which decides the afternoon: bays of black volcanic sand, natural pools that the Atlantic fills and refreshes, and built lidos with ladders into the open sea. A coast facing the swell closes often; the sheltered side of the same island is calm on the same day.
The island's only sand, on the flat southern tip between the village and the airstrip.
Corvo has one beach and this is it: dark volcanic sand shading to red, on the sheltered side of the southern platform, with rock offshore that stops the swell before it arrives. Concrete steps take you in, and the campsite next door is where the toilets are. In high summer the water gets to about 24 degrees, which is warm for the archipelago.
Worth knowing: Ten minutes on foot from anywhere in Vila do Corvo, and there is no shop at the beach — the village is the whole supply line.
The old landing on the east side, a cobble shore with a concrete slipway into the water.
Porto da Casa is where the island's boats came ashore before the harbour was built, below the old quarter of Vila do Corvo. It is a bank of round grey stones with a slipway running out from it, and islanders swim off the slipway rather than off the stones. There is nothing there but the ramp.
Worth knowing: It faces east, so it is sheltered when the Praia da Areia is not, and it takes the morning sun first.
Facilities and lifeguard cover follow the municipal bathing season, which runs roughly from May to October and varies by council. A red flag is a closure, not a warning: it means the sea is beyond what the lifeguards can cover.
