Madeira

10 November 2002

After four nights at Porto Santo, we took a day sail over to the main island of Madeira. We’d heard that Funchal harbour was desperately overcrowded so decided to try out the new marina, Porto Quinta do Lorde, at Machico on the east of the island.

Upon arrival, the wind was blowing a bit stiffly, the gap between the pontoons was very narrow and the pontoons themselves were set lower than usual, only inches above the waterline. Mike steered up towards the pontoon, bow first. I was sent forward with a rope (It took me a long time to get into calling them ‘lines’), the one end of which I’d tied to the boat, the other end clutched in a loose coil in my right hand with the bulk of the middle bit bunched up in my left hand. When the gods are with you there is someone to assist your arrival in a marina and when close enough to the dock I would heave the wad of rope at them and they would tie us up.

Godless, as was the case that day, I was supposed to jump off the boat carrying this cumbersome load and tie it onto a bollard. Then I’d run back and take a second rope which Mike would throw me from the back of the boat and tie that to another bollard, securing the boat firmly to the dock. Easy. Yeah, well it is, usually.

But as mentioned the pontoons were set very low on the water and the bow is the highest point on the deck. The wind had pushed the boat away from the dock but Mike was determined to get in there so instead of backing out and trying again, he persevered and pushed the nose further in. I couldn’t move further back on the boat to find a lower spot to jump from.

“Jump!” Mike yelled.”

I was standing about two metres above the dock. Could I do it? I had to. He eased off on the engine, the boat stopped and whilst I dithered in fright the wind blew it back again. It was too far and too high. I knew I’d either break a leg or jump too short and land in the water, or not be able to stop my momentum and roll in an undignified heap right over the dock and fall in the other side. I was in my fifties, fergawd’s sake. For sure, I’d misjudge it.

“For Christ’s sake, woman. Jump!” There was now a sharp note of hysteria in his voice.

I shook my head. “I can’t. It’s too far,” I squeaked.

“What are you talking about?” he screamed, purple in the face. “Jump! Please!”

He’d lost his cool by then - no longer ‘Master and Commander’ like that sexy beast Russell Crowe. Right then he was a panic stricken small yacht skipper terrified his precious boat was going to be dinged. Rightfully terrified, as it happened, because I downright refused to put my own precious little person at risk to try. Bit of a pig’s breakfast all round - just when I thought I’d got the hang of this mooring business. Luckily for us, someone heard all the shouting and came running over to help. We eventually got tied up with only a small scrape on Forever’s side which I polished away, but it was some time before I was forgiven.

Construction of the marina was not actually finished and management was being handled by a hotel on shore. Charges were high and facilities few, but we did manage to make a telephone call on the 11th to Melanie for her birthday. There were no shops anywhere so one had to hire a car to get to the main city of Funchal. We did this once and managed to share the cost with another yacht, but it was totally impractical. However, the marina had it’s inauguration party during our three day sojourn and the few resident yachties were invited to attend. Most of Madeira’s big wigs were there, including the governor, dressed in their finest. We stood out like scruffy sore thumbs but felt confident we added to the flavour of the occasion. The food and drinks were excellent and a fine time was had by all.

We decided to move to Funchal after all and try to anchor outside the harbour. We set sail west along the south coast in fine weather, but as we approached the harbour we hit a very nasty storm and felt compelled to take refuge inside. Our informants were right about the overcrowding at Funchal - it was a joke. There were hundreds of yachts squashed into the harbour and we were tied up five abreast against the wall. We were stuck in the middle and had to climb over two other boats to get to and from ours which was physically challenging for us, particularly when laden down with heavy grocery bags, and an invasion of privacy for them, and then we had another two yachts tied to our other side and they had to climb over all of us. We stopped apologising after the first day. It didn't take long to get friendly with the neighbours - cold beers and glasses of wine were passed along the decks in lieu of apologies!

There is quite a large tidal range at Madeira and at high tide one almost stepped straight onto the quay. But at low tide the inside boat was a couple of metres below the wall making it a nerve-wracking climb up some rusty rickety iron steps to get off. Getting back on again was even worse and positively nightmarish at night or when a swell came into the harbour. Some of these yachties are well into their fifties and sixties or even seventies and it’s astonishing how well they managed to negotiate this hazard. (Needless to say there were no signs admonishing one to take care!) Cruising is an active life and I was getting better at all this climbing and leaping, pulling and pushing, lifting and hoisting. I felt fitter then than I had for years.

Funchal is a beautiful town and really lives up to Madeira’s reputation for gorgeous flowers. Never have I seen such an exquisite profusion of flowering plants, shrubs and trees, many of them nostalgically reminiscent of Africa.

Mind you, there is a bank of black cloud that hangs, permanently it seemed to me, over the island and it rained almost every day. No wonder everything grows so well.

The official language is Portuguese, which I had imagined would sound a little like Spanish. However, I was unable to discern any words at all, with the exception of ‘obrigado’, meaning thank you which is the first word, and in this case the only word, we try to learn in a new language. To my untrained ears, Portuguese might just as well have been Russian.

The Beatles once had a yacht, the Vagrant, now tied up permanently in the harbour which has been turned into a restaurant. We went and had a look but didn’t go in – a glimpse at the prices on the menu outside was enough!

Funchal harbour’s breaker wall was once again covered in colourful graffiti done by sailors over the years, but this wall was less interesting than the one in Porto Santo and had been defaced in many parts, so Mike declined to paint something for Forever.

I spent a little time working my way through the MaxSea program to see what it could do. It’s really amazing and I loved it, but electricity was always a problem. Despite the extra batteries, the new solar panel and good sunshine every day, we never seemed to have enough power for all the things we wanted to do. Most of the other boats we met had more solar panels, or they had wind generators and of course they all ran their engines regularly, something my excellent skipper absolutely refused to do.