32:44.5N 16:42.7W Porto Santo to Madeira
Gaudeo
John and Prue Quayle / John Quayle
Sun 16 Sep 2007 06:02
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14 -15th September: Motored 45M to Madeira
anchoring first in a secluded bay (Baia de Abra) just inside the eastern end of
the island for a swim, then onto an excellent, newish marina at Quinta do Lorde,
15M east of the capital, Funchal which has a rather crowded and less appealing
harbour.
The celebratory meal ashore soon got out of hand
with endless debate and trial as to the relative merits of malmsey over sercial
as an aperitif. Memorable (as far as can be remembered) though the evening was,
it was a struggle for the crew to keep a 9.30am taxi appointment next
morning for a tour around the 33M long island.
A stop at Cabo Girao, a 580m promontory- one of the
world`s highest sea cliffs - gave terrific views of the coastal plain showing
extensive terraced plantations and complex irrigation channels. It
also overlooked Camara do Lobos, a popular haunt and inspiration of many
paintings by Winston Churchill in the 1950s.
The crew, afflicted with a little vertigo
at this stage, curiously accepted the taxi driver`s advice
to sample a local speciality of "puncho" - a sickly
concoction of distilled sugar cane, lemons, oranges, and honey which is taken
with peanuts, the shells of which are ostentatiously left on the floor.This
ritual received a mixed reception from the crew. We then continued
upwards to the stunningly beautiful Boca da Ecumeada, around 1600m,
traversing several changes in climate and vegetation.
Immense energy has been
expended creating terraces and plantations on the steep slopes of
Madeira, and it is hard to believe that it is only 700 years since
the uninhabited forested island was discovered. Many of the terraces have
been abandoned with the change to tourism. Even more remarkable is the
disproportion of an extensive modern infrastructure for a
resident island population of only 450,000 - for
example: a long modern motorway around vertiginous sloops requiring
several miles of tunnels, and a modern airport constructed on stilts over land
reclaimed from the sea. We wondered how much of our taxes had been diverted to
fund such extravagance. Whilst the hills are indeed pretty and walking holidays
likely to be enjoyable, the absence of beaches made it difficult for us to
understand why Madeira remains a popular
resort. |
