Mad Madeira

The Madeira archeipelago is made up of four islands of which Madeira is the largest measuring approx 60 x 20km.   Unlike Porto Santo, Madeira is green, fertile with high mountains and a total population of around 250k, mostly living around the rugged exterior of the island.  

After spending an unpleasant rolly night in a beautiful anchorage on the exposed easterly end of the island, we sailed under jib only with our friends, Fiona and Iain on Ruffian for company, towards the capital, Funchal.   It soon became apparent that the one thing Madeira seems to lack is flat land.   High cliffs plummet into the deep sea, mountains rise and fall sharply and houses cling to the green hillsides.   Engineers seem to have had a field day with a labyrinth of bridges, tunnels, cable cars and an incredible airport.   The runway is built on high stilts over the sea with the roaring Atlantic on one side and a large range of mountains on the other.  If the wind is not blowing in from the Atlantic, it is funnelling down the steep hills on the other side.  It is one of the most challenging runways in the world and only pilots who have passed special training are allowed to land here.   Windy days are especially difficult, and pilots are only given three attempts to land before having to return to the mainland.    There is a popular boatyard that provides storage for yachts under the 40m high runway and it was an odd sight as we sailed past the airport, seeing the boats with masts up sitting underneath as a large aircraft taxied down the tarmac.

We found an exposed, but slightly more protected anchorage than the previous night, a little further west than Funchal, called Camara de Lobos.   We anchored under dramatic red coloured cliffs that rose over 500m in an almost straight line with a crazy cable car slowly edging its way to the top.   As Iain stated while we were having drinks on their boat, “That’s mad!” and this coin of phrase was used a lot as we got to see more of Madeira.   In fact the cliffs we were anchored under are the highest in Europe and third highest in the World and the glass floored viewing platform at the top made for spectacular vistas – and as we proved, you have to be mad to want to stand on a glass bottomed viewing platform over 500m above a sheer drop to crashing waves!

Camara de Lobos was easy for us to get into, leaving the dinghy in the small harbour after winding our way through several small colourful fishing boats.   It proved to be an ideal base for us to explore the island and the town was lovely with houses perched on the rocky cliffs surrounding the harbour and lots of colourful art installations made from recycled rubbish decorating the streets and shops.   In fact, the bay was known as Churchill Bay because Winston Churchill had holidayed there once, obviously drawing inspiration from the beautiful surrounds as he spent his time painting! 

Banana plantations were on every patch of ground or garden on the lower side of the hills, that had been terraced with stone walls and levadas – stone irrigation and drainage channels.   Levadas are used to bring the water from the high mountains and feed the fertile soils of the lower slopes.   They were built in the 1700’s by slaves from East Africa and are the reason Madeira is not only green, but prospering from growing every type of tropical fruit imaginable. 

Funchal is a sprawling city with houses creeping up the steep hills.  A maze of bridges and tunnels provide a fast road system, linking the capital to the rest of this fertile island.   As we wound our way up the hills, the crops changed from bananas to vineyards, Papaya and Mango orchards and vegetables as every use was made of growing food in the rich volcanic soils.  We took a cable car to the top of a hill behind the city which slowly climbed above residential areas and gave panoramic views across the area.  Near the top on an adjoining hill, is the impressive football stadium where I like to imagine Madeira’s favourite son, Christiana Ronaldo, has played – he certainly has a huge influence and investment in the area.  Sadly we chose a Sunday to go up to the top which is the one day the famous wicker sledge rides do not run.   The sleighs are operated by two men who wear wooden soled shoes as they guide the sledge down the very narrow and steep hills – mad!   Instead of taking the ride we ended up helping a local guy jump start his van by pushing him to the top of the hill so he could free-wheel down it – that was scary enough!

We booked a guided walking tour which took us inland to the north of the island.   After an hour travelling through the countryside, we arrived at a forest and treked along a levada, following the stone “river” to it’s source.  The levada was teaming with life, including trout of various sizes, living happily in the clean water. We walked through beautiful rain forest following the edge of steep cliffs, as the levada occasionally led us through hard stone as we walked through low tunnels and took in the most incredible scenery.    Mountains looked like they had been drawn by a child with steep sides and rounded tops, all covered in trees for as far as the eye could see with deep gullies separating each mountain.  Our 12km journey ended at a beautiful waterfall which cascaded down high cliffs into a deep pool which then fed the levada we had been following.  

In the late afternoons we cleaned ourselves and the boat in the deep, clear waters, scrubbing weeks of growth off Cerulean’s bottom.   We had picked up a few stowaways in the shape of long white worm-like creatures that were firmly stuck to the hull and it took a good deal of encouraging to remove them.  After spending time scrubbing we returned to the deck in time for 8pm sundowners where we had front row seats watching the sun slowly sink over the sea.   We really did feel like we had found our heaven!

Many years ago I shared a house in Cambridge with three amazing women, one being Barbara whose wedding I went to 35 years ago when she married Keith!   Coincidentally, Barbara and Keith had booked a holiday in Madeira and were arriving about a week after us.   We arranged to spend a day together on the Tuesday after their evening arrival the night prior but on looking at the weather forecast and seeing some strong winds coming, we decided to change plans and suggested we met for breakfast so we could leave at mid-day on the Tuesday.    As the day of their arrival drew closer the weather system was predicted to arrive earlier and our exposed anchorage would become unsafe and untenable in strong winds.    All the marinas were full as September/October is peak season for yachties getting ready to cross the Atlantic and we needed at least two good days to get to our next destination.  We were in touch with another boat, Walkabout, who we had very briefly met in Porto Santo and were heading in the same direction as us.    After much deliberation and talking to Walkabout, we decided we had to take the weather window on Monday otherwise we could be putting ourselves and home in, at best an unpleasant situation and, at worst, a dangerous one.   I reluctantly contacted Barbara and let her know we would miss them by just a few hours as we had to leave for The Canaries while we could.    She was very understanding and, a few days later, let me know that big winds did arrive and, in fact several aircraft were not able to land, which validated our decision to leave when we did.

With Traci and Andrew on Walkabout beside us, we pulled up the anchor at 11am and slowly sailed away from Madeira to start a 270 Nautical Mile passage to Lanzarote in The Canaries, trying to keep ahead of the fast moving weather system.   We sadly bade farewell to Madeira – the most beautiful, fertile and memorable island which filled us with wonder at every turn. It was time to see what other adventures and wonders lay ahead of us, and we didn’t have to wait long to find out!