Never Leave on a Friday

X-ing File #2_Madeira to Canaries

For the second time this season we’d gone against nautical favour and deep superstition by leaving port on a Friday.  We wondered if Captain Cook, who also visited Madeira but in 1770 & 1801, would roll in his grave at our audacity!  Weather reports looked favourable, so we set sail after a somewhat challenging refuelling.  Katabatic gusts blew directly onto the marina fuel dock.  Thankfully, our bowthruster earned its keep, yet again.

Once away from the island, the seas were mild and winds light.  Our path took us past the dark and mysterious Ilhas Desertas, now home to endangered monk seals and a warden.  Deserted and desolate, we could only speculate on a lonely life.  On dusk we were joined by a convivial pod of dolphins ready for a little bow chasing.  After mum called them home, a pair of sea birds chased our wake combing the twinkling phosphorescence for tasty morsels.  We discovered a baby cuttlefish on deck the next morning…

How can you read at a time like this?

Finally, decent winds set in and the Cap’n poled out the genny; even so we kept the engine on as swells were confused and unruly.  Conditions degenerated from there.  We sped past the Ilhas Selvagens (Savage Islands) rocketing along with both headsails wing on-wing (challenging on a B&R rig & set up by Cap’n Smarty Pants), rather pleased that we had not arranged for a permit to visit them.  There was no way we were stopping.  Winds changed again and the swell increased, so even if we had decided to head for the eastern group of Canary Islands (rather than a direct drop to Gran Canaria), it would not have been a pleasant bash.  It was not pleasant now.

Goose Wings

Life at Sea: with "James" (really it's Bert), steering,
only Tahiti's off course this time

Finally, our third crew member, the auto pilot, decided enough was enough and left the Cap’n no option but to helm.  For 5 hours.  Dodging cruise ships and freighters off Tenerife in the dark added to exhausting conditions.  Finally, day broke and we had plenty of light to negotiate Gran Canaria’s vast man-made port complex, Las Palmas.  Luckily it was Sunday too, so traffic was minimal and we safely made it across the paths of monster ships into the one & only vacant, very snug berth in this vast marina.  It’s taken us two days to recover from the 2 ½ days at sea and we’re only just beginning to eat real food again.  GS can at last sleep without having a bucket within reach.

So, here we wait, at the mercy of the weather yet again, dreaming of idyllic conditions awaiting us in the Caribbean and wondering if a couple of tattoos (each at least, as they're supposedly talismans) might help get us there!  Or maybe I could just find a suitable ship’s cat?

A complete rainbow arc.  Some things are nice at sea...

Ongoing Risky Business

Funchal, Madeira

After 3 long days of lockdown on board due to yet more passing storms, the Motley Crew decided it was time to shake out the land-legs with a day out.  So here then are a few more of our “touristico” undertakings in pleasant downtown Funchal:

#6.  Eat Unusual Things

During our wanderings we stopped to breakfast with Prince Charles (actually a café serving local snacks and that shot of strong coffee we so badly needed).  We also tried scabbard fish, crumbed then served on a sweet potato bread roll with a hit of chilli.  (We instantly thought of Galata Bridge fish sandwiches, Istanbul.  Not quite the same!)  Never having eaten roasted chestnuts, they were on our list too.  And off it immediately – they must be an acquired taste! 

Roasted Chestnuts. Not for everyone....

A stroll through the Mercado dos Lavradores (market) perked us up however as we watched fishmongers chop huge tuna steaks and came eye to eye with the razor-toothed grin of black-skinned, scabbard fish.  Further in, colourful displays of tropical fruits (tamarillos, custard apples, gooseberries and philodendron fruits) set amidst curtains of drying chillies competed with buckets of showy flowers, handcrafted embroidery and Camacha wickerwork.

Cherries for HOW much?

Adding traditional colour & song to Christmas Market festivities

The Christmas Market was another matter entirely.  It became our favourite last stop of the day.  Tasting four varieties of Madeira wine was essential, washed down with a local beer.  The best sedative for the bus ride back proved to be the much-loved poncho.  A shot of this lethal brew, made from distilled cane sugar juice (white rum?) mixed with honey and a healthy shot of fruit juice, burned our throats and chilled us out rather nicely, thank you. 

#7.  Look to the Past

Funchal offers museums a-plenty, so finally GS settled on visiting one, enchantingly titled “The Universe of Memories”.  Full of nostalgia and memorabilia, this well cared for and very elegant 19^th C townhouse, was once home for Joao Carlos Abreu and his family.  It now houses the many and rather eclectic collections amassed by Abreu on his world travels.  Collections are sensitively displayed through-out the house, keeping each room’s basic function in mind.  Ties almost overpower you in Abreu’s dressing room, ancient Chinese pottery or Indonesian carvings offset modernist paintings in the sitting room and horses, a definite passion, monopolise space in a cluster of small upstairs rooms.  (No photos allowed inside, hence the long-winded description. Photos on this local Madeira blog though.)

Garden Fountain

Cobbled Entrance to Abreu's Townhouse

After a quick pot of tea and a scone (served in cute, vintage crockery) beside the fountain in the Tea Lounge, it was off to walk the historic core of Funchal.  After a brief stop at the old City Gates, we crossed into the 15^th C Old Town with its narrow, cobbled streets and ancient buildings.  Many doors down on Dom Carlos & Santa Maria, are painted (some rather better than others) adding to the quirky ambiance of the area and uplifting the rather extraordinary, yellow painted, Sao Tiago (Saint James) Fort.  The fort, on its rocky foreshore, starkly reminded us of Madeira’s remoteness.  The area now, is packed to the hilt with restaurants.  Running the gauntlet of staff, well accustomed to soliciting attentions to their finest dishes, made us appreciate our quiet marina even more. 

Sao Tiago Fort

Happy Snappers

#8.  Dance with the Devil

Funchal’s Cathedral dates from 1514 and is one of the few buildings remaining from Madeira’s early colonisation.  Inside this Gothic delight, a dark and gloomy interior allows the carved and gilded figures of saints above the choir stalls to shine like stars.  Again, this chunky building speaks volumes of Madeira’s remoteness and survival during those heady days of the Portuguese Age of Discovery.  (Wealth from the spice trade in later years allowed development of a more exotic Manueline style; a showy architecture, Eastern influenced and very Portuguese version of the Renaissance and more readily found in Lisbon.) 

Fresco outside the Madeira Cathedral_another way of hiking perhaps?

#9. Take a Hike

In an effort to cultivate the island’s steep slopes, early settlers had to construct terraced gardens and levadas, irrigation channels, to ensure adequate water supplies.  In all, the levada system runs some 1400km over an island barely 57 x 22km.  Paths beside them provide ready-made hiking trails and if you’re keen, a good day’s workout.  Having suffered the Cinque Terre in Italy, the Cap’n baulked at the thought.  So did GS when she realised this was hiking for the serious.  Of the four recommended walks, only one was described as easy; the greater challenge was having to travel to the remote upper island by bus, a feat in itself.  Another offered a path “very narrow in places and not recommended for those susceptible to vertigo”.  Stories of cows rolling down hills in Flores during high winds (Azores) came to mind and the risk seemed just too high.

#10.  Christmas Lights & Delights

Now, do I really need to explain why this is risky??

Merry Christmas to family, friends and those brave souls who check in on our boating life & adventures.  We wish you all the best for the festive season and only ask that you save us some left-overs from that fabulous Christmas feast you have planned.  Baby Dexter has timed it just right to hang up a Christmas stocking and Santa’s on his way, Miss Phoenix!  We’ll miss you all.

Risky Business

Funchal, Madeira

So, just when does the fun actually begin?

Life in Madeira is more exciting than you might think.  We’ve compiled a list of our favourite “Risky Things”, just in case you ever find yourself in need of a more stimulating life:

#1.  Take A Local Bus

Now, I’m not talking a Funchal city ride.  The one out to Baia da Abra, the extreme east of Madeira, is sufficient.  Boa Viagem and all that!  Snaking, narrow roads, vertigo-inducing cliffs and passing an airport runway built on stilts.  And bus drivers whose ambition is firmly set on Formula One.  We survived the 1 ½ hour trip (several times), but not without some trauma given the smell of burning breaks.  Locals don’t even flinch.  At the Airport, a car hire firm advertises: "MadeiraRent, Drive like a local".  On board the bus, tourists can’t help but snigger.  Every time.  Locals must wonder but WE have badges of merit now – local bus tickets.

Super Glue your car to the roads in Madeira

#2.  Walk in the Sky

OK, so this is not going to be one of those Extreme Sports, but taking a walk over the glass floor of Europe’s highest Cape (and the World’s second highest I might add), certainly sends a chill up or two down your spine.  There is nothing but a sheer 575m drop down and if the clouds lift, the views are spectacular.  As are most of the views as you travel around Madeira.  We took a wild train ride up.  The roads were even narrower and steeper than #1 above.  Yes, our train driver must be related to Jack Brabham too.

Trying very hard not to look down_Cabo Girao

#3. Couch Surfing

Monte is uphill from Funchal.  We took the bus, but it is possible to take a Cable Car.  It’s a pleasant hill resort area and departure point for the wicker toboggans, famous since 1850, for getting locals downhill fast.  Two Carreiros, suitably dressed in traditional costume and straw boaters, use their shoes as brakes in a stunning 2km slide downhill on a very steep and well-polished track.  It looks so very touristy but it was the most fun we’d had in ages (and no comparison to sliding down breaking waves on the trip over). 

Ride a Wicker Basket.  Looks sedate enough....

Tell me there really are brakes on these things...  Oh dear, nooooo!!

#4. Build a Sand Castle

I’ve mentioned deep water.  We can’t seem to see any life in the clearly visible depths below, other than a few scrawny crabs.  The shores are black (volcanic) and the grains are hefty, water washed stones.  The Cap’n didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with the GS’s vision of an ocean-front, 3 bed, 2 bath castle with a moat.  Even if Churchill was rather fond of the place.

Pretty seaside village, Camara de Lobos, named after the rare Monk Seals
 (called sea wolves) found on nearby Desertas Islands

#5. Natural Defences

In Albania we discovered cactus had once been used as natural barbed wire.  Aside from everything else, anything prickly seems to grow with much enthusiasm here in Madeira too.  From Monte, we took a Cable Car to the Botanical Gardens.  It’s a great trip high over forest burned out by bushfires (2012) and we debated whether it was eucalypt, an oily, ticking bomb.  The Gardens were extremely lucky to have not been engulfed by the fires too.  The Cactus Garden especially, is a visual, prickly feast and the Galley Slave, along with many other photographers, snapped like crazy.  The orchid gardens are also inspiring and the Cap’n quickly moved her along, promising a stop in the Lovers Cave (oh, sure!), before she had too many gardening ideas for Dangar.

A prickly customer indeed..

A Dot in the Ocean

Madeira

Porto Santo (Holy Port) was famously discovered by shipwrecked sailors in 1418.  At the time, Prince Henry the Navigator had ambitious plans to develop the Portuguese Empire, so was quick to take up the advantages this tiny island off the African coast offered.  Less than 80 years later, Christopher Columbus, on-route to discover the Americas, spotted its potential (strategic position) as well.  Given that we’ve read Madeira’s highest peak is visible from 40km, we couldn’t understand how early settlers could have missed noticing it.  Instead they reported “heavy black clouds” to the south and on further inspection, found the island of Madeira underneath them.  Strangely enough, that’s just how we found it too - Porto Santo, bathed in the afternoon sun, and hovering, dark gray clouds a further 20 miles on. 

Taken from a bus window ....

Our charts reveal staggering depths close to Madeira, hence few “anchorage” options, but a cloak of cloud concealed steep hillsides (and lots of hiking Germans).  Even more surprising, are the terraced gardens, more Nepal than Europe, and the Islanders’ notoriety as agriculturalists, eking out a living on a volcanic cone that rises some 6km from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.  (The last volcanic activity is said to have been 6,500 years ago, so we feel ok about being here…)

Madeira means “wood”, although little is left of that 1.8 million year old indigenous forest.  The island’s climate has three distinct zones, depending on how far up those hills you are prepared to climb.  Just getting from the marina (at sea level) to the nearby bus stop outside the resort is all the exercise we need.  Australian gardeners would certainly recognise many of the plants, especially the vines (for that famous drop, Madeira) and bananas.  Another home-grown world-wide export is Cristiano Ronaldo.  For those who don’t know, he’s a famous soccer player, although one has to wonder where they found enough flat ground to actually build a footie field.

Perfect one day (for a few hours at least!)

Positively horrible the next.

It’s a likeable island, attractive and clean, although winter is probably not the best time to be here, even if it is warmer than the rest of Europe.  Over the last two days we’ve been being battered by 25+kt winds from storms sweeping across the Atlantic.  Thankfully, we’re protected from the swell (this time) but not from gusts rolling down those steep hills behind.  The Cap’n has been busy, in the rain, tending mooring lines, swapping thin with robust and adding more to ensure we stay safely confined within our berth.  Hmmm!  Must be time to move on.

Off the Leash. At Last

X-ing File #1_Lagos to Madeira

Lagos, Portugal

After weeks of staring over the edge of the precipice, it was TIME.  We woke to marina time (Whoops!  Should have been up an hour ago…) and after duly noting the 7°C temperature at 8.30am, it was indeed time to go.  We packed up and refuelled then left with an interesting land breeze from the north.  By the time we reached Cape St Vincent, it was indeed rather strong but at least there was little traffic in the shipping lanes to play chicken with, so we scraped across and headed for our destination – Madeira.  We had high hopes of reaching it in 3 days (72 hours) of comfortable cruising. 

The first day was a disaster as the swell and 25kt winds and waves buffeted WJ3 on the starboard quarter creating perfect conditions for mal-de-mer and the Galley Slave, noting this was not her preferred angle of sail, wholeheartedly succumbed, leaving the Captain to hold the fort, so as to speak.  It should be noted that he too, was a little queasy.

On the second day, conditions improved, as did the Domestic Level of Happiness.  By the third (and with land in sight) all was back on track, sense of humours returned, the Captain had had some sleep and the crew was discussing plans for the X-ing of the Atlantic.

Initially, we had intended to stop at Porto Santo, once home to Christopher Columbus - he married a hardy local lass from the island.  Given the conditions, and the fact we had a workboat shadowing us (for good reasons we decided), WJ3 was instead pointed towards an anchorage on the east coast of Madeira.  Under current conditions (insert – the conditions in the anchorage were untenable), we swiftly moved for a safer berth in the marina.  It took us two days to recover.