dramatic atlantic rescue!!

Blue Beyond , The adventure begins.
Mark and Maxine Frost
Mon 18 Aug 2008 12:01
"32'44,50N 16'43,17W"
We have had a good crossing from Porto Santo to Madiera , took us all of 5 hours and two of those were sailing in light winds just enjoying the sea and the view going about 2knts , as we came around the end of the island we contacted the marina who informed they would send a rib out to meet us and help giude us in as the Marina is a bit tight , so out came a friendly gut Orlando who told us where to put our fenders ropes ect and to follow him in , all was going well until he broke down , we circled him as he said he would get someone else out to guide us in , meanwhile he did a lot of portugese shouting down the vhf at the guy who had forgotten to fill up the petrol tanks!!!!, we stayed with him as he was drifting alarmingly out into the atlantic , we kept offering him a tow but he would'nt have it !anyway after about 1/2 hr he admitted that we would have to take him in which I was a bit nervous with as I had no idea where I was going , knew I couldn't manouver in the Marina if i got it wrong and also had a dingy in tow + crew and why is it that at these times the winds always blow up hard ? anyway we did manage to all get in safely and Orlando went off to find his colleague and beat him!!!!

Chris and Cheryl arrived safely and we have a nice leisurely supper on the boat , the next day we took the dingy out of the Marina to a neighbouring beach ( which are really scarce in Madeira), but the whole approached to the beach was roped off so we approached the next bay , not accessable from the land and made up of huge black boulders which made our landing on the beach something that the special boat force would have had difficulty with !!anyway we loved "boulder beach" as treacherous as it was and we all went for a snorkal and saw some beautiful tropical fish,
We went that evening to a local restaurant in Canical and the waiter was hilarious, food was good too.

Friday and it is a public holiday in Madeira so we trooped into Funchal expecting lots of festivities but the whole town was empty ! I went into a tourist information and asked where everyone was and she told me that everyone was up the mountain which you reach by cable car, so off we went and it was a great ride up , and it was heaving when we got there , we went into a small field as we needed a drink and everyone was buying huge hunks of meat, I investigated and found that this was lunch Madeira style , you buy a kilo or so of beef and they chop it an put it on a 5 ft tree branch , they give it to you and then you take it to a huge bbq and cook it yourself !! no plates , no servietts , just spit roasted beef and big slabs of garlic bread that you could buy fresh from another little stall , this had to be the best meal and the most fun ever , Chris and Mark declared themselves "beefed out", they has over 1/2 kilo each !
Next day back into Funchal as the fish market was something to behold apparently with its accompanying fresh fruit and flower stalls , I managed to get a couple of fish heads for my crab pots , this is,nt going well , so far I had caught 4 little fish , 1 hermit crab , 1 eel , 1 small grouper , but the huge red crab I am after sat on top of the pot and fell off when I brought it up , I will persevere!!!!! Chris cooked us the best fish pie ever , forever known as "unknown fish pie"we had Calvin a skipper from a large motor yacht next to us over to share this with and had a good evening

Sunday and we did a circumnavigation of the island , quite spectacular scenery , huge mountains and valleys and the flora and fauna is incredible, every type of flower imaginable just growing wild every where, we stopped in a rural restaurant where there was no menu just beef on a stick , salad , fresh and lovely, biggest plate of chips ever and garlic bread and wine . what a feast ! this is all going very well !
we are having severe communication problems , there is no wi-fi we can connect to , Marks phone has died , can't get the ssb to send any emails and the sat phone is very hit and miss , so were are not ingoring anyone just having problems!

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