14Sep10 - With Bruce & Shirley in Madeira

Sulana's Voyage
Alan and Sue Brook
Sat 16 Oct 2010 17:05



 
 
32:44.5 N 16:42.7 W


Tuesday, September 14th. -

With apologies to everybody, and particularly Bruce & Shirley, for not having got this e-mail posted successfully to our blog, as we had thought we had done, ages ago!
 
This morning Sarah left for the UK  - travelling on the plane that brought me, my brother Bruce and his wife Shirley, out for a holiday. There to meet us at the airport was a Captain Bird’s Eye lookalike. Yes, Alan had grown a beard!
 

 
Sarah had been intending to rejoin Sulana, with her husband, John, in Las Palmas ready to do the ARC but unfortunately a health problem has meant that sadly, they will not now be able to come.
 
 
The next morning we sailed across to Porto Santo, accompanied by a number of playful dolphins leaping about in the glittering waves.
 
 
 
We enjoyed a bus ride around the island


 

 
and watched a medieval re-enactment of Christopher Columbus arriving
 
 
 
to ask the Port Governor for his daughter’s hand in marriage.  
 

 
Back to Funchal
 

 

 
where Bruce and Shirley proved to be ideal guests, ready to join in most things (well, except for the cable-car ride to the top of the mountain and a toboggan ride back down again).
 
Alan, Fiona and I went. We had a fantastic view from the top
 

 
and also enjoyed a visit to the Monte Palace tropical gardens,
 

 
where there was still evidence of the devastation caused by torrential rain in the spring. Whole swathes of vegetation and people’s gardens had been wrenched up and slithered down the slopes.
 


Just as we were about to take our toboggan ride down the mountain
 

 


 the heavens opened, so the three of us looked as if we’d been swimming fully-clothed by the time we got to the bottom.
 
However we dried off nicely in the Blandy’s Wine Experience, where we sampled a variety of different strengths of Madeira’s best wines.
 


We certainly enjoyed lingering in the attic storage areas where the wine is left to mature – the temperature being around 30 degrees!
 

 
Another high spot of our visit to Madeira was stumbling by chance upon an open-air display of Capoeira – a blend of non-contact fighting and dance.
 


This sport was apparently developed by slaves whose masters forbade them to fight.
 
We also enjoyed an open-top bus ride around the island and a visit to the local market, which housed dozens of stalls selling a huge variety of foodstuffs.
 

 
Bruce and Shirley returned home on September 21, with Shirley saying she would miss the rocking of the boat in sending her to sleep at night, but she would not miss the dinghy rides ashore. I’m not totally sure I believe her as she always looked to me as if she thoroughly enjoyed sitting pillion to Richard, hanging on for dear life!
 
 
The following day Hannah told us she was returning to the UK, having decided that life and working on board Sulana was not for her. She flew out on Thursday, leaving Richard to enjoy some serious volcano climbing on uninhabited islands en route to Tenerife, whence he eventually left us too.