Madeira

8 – 28 October 2009

We finally got a good weather forecast of north-easterly winds and at the very last minute changed our minds and decided to go to Maderia before the Canaries.

Our first 24 hours were excellent and we made over 120 miles. The next 3 days were slower, and we motor-sailed the last few hours in light winds in order to arrive in daylight. We made landfall at Porto Santo, the smaller inhabited island of the Madeira group, 4 days and 4 hours after we left Portugal – a very good trip and our longest so far.

The island is small, dry and barren, but the scenery is very dramatic with a classic volcano. The north coast and the off-lying small islands have dramatic cliffs, but along the south coast is a very long beach of golden sand. The main town is lovely, mainly white painted buildings with terracotta roofs.

We stayed for 5 days (instead of the originally planned 2 days) then motored (there was no wind) to Funchal on Madeira and anchored off the town.

We were surprised to find Madeira so completely different from Porto Santo – cooler, wetter and with very lush vegetation. Funchal itself is very busy and its old town is particularly attractive. There’s very little flat land so bus rides were along hair-raising roads up the sides of mountains, along narrow ridges and bridges across valleys. In many places the roof of one house would be level with the floor of the next.

The island is famous for its levada walks along the maintenance paths of the water courses which were constructed along the side of the mountains, some of them dating from as far back as the 15th century. The walks are of varying levels of difficulty and through different types of scenery – we did 3 of the easy ones and really enjoyed them. There were fantastic views, especially from the walk to Cabo Girao – the 2nd highest sea cliffs in the world. Many houses are only accessed from these levadas and numbered along them; and it must be quite a feat to get supplies, furniture etc to the properties.

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Portugal

1 Sep – 7 Oct 2009

After a long motor in very little wind we received a very friendly welcome in Viana do Costelo, our first port of call in Portugal. The town is lovely – the older part of very narrow streets and the newer (18th-19th century) part of very elegant buildings lining wide roads and squares. We took a ride on the funicular up to the Basilica de Santa Luzia which has a fantastic location high on the hill overlooking the whole river valley and coast, and has a quite awesome interior.

Our trip down the coast of Portugal consisted mainly of long motors with very little sailing, interspersed with periods of fog (apparently the weather is rather better earlier in July and August). The Portuguese are generally very friendly and helpful, and fortunately many speak good English as we find the pronunciation of the Portuguese language extremely difficult, although we can now manage some of the basics.

The places we visited were:

Povoa de Varzim – a pleasant town from where we took the Metro line into Porto. We were very surprised and impressed at the long aqueduct we saw from the train on the way. We had a marvellous day in Porto walking around the old town and over the bridge to see the boats which carry port down the river.

Leixoes – a suburb of Porto where we intended to stop only 1 night, but extended the stay for our liferaft to be serviced and were then fogbound. This did give us the opportunity to visit Porto for another day.

After anchoring for a night in the lagoon near Aveiro we moored in Nazare for a few days, a marina run by a very helpful and friendly English couple. From here we took the funicular up to the charming old town of Sitio. We also visited by bus the Batalha Monastery – an enormous and spectacular church where Henry the Navigator is buried, an extensive monastery complex with two cloisters, and an extension of 7 unfinished chapels.

Our next stop was Cascais where we were able to anchor in the bay. Cascais is a very popular and noisy holiday town full of hotels, restaurants and bars, but is very convenient for visiting Lisbon, only 12 miles away. We had a couple of days out to Lisbon, the first walking around the centre and the old town. On our second visit we were lucky to find it was a free day on public transport, so we hopped on and off the old trams, buses and a funicular to the parts further from the centre, including the Belem Monastery and Belem Tower. We also visited Sintra – a small village in a spectacular location with a moorish castle, palaces and gardens, but worth a visit in spite of the number of tourists.

After waiting a week for the wind to change to take us to the Canaries, we decided to motor to Sines which turned out to be a very attractive small town, and where we caught up with our Dutch friends, Louis and Karyn on Rita, who we met last winter in La Rochelle.

For more photos please click here