Madeira Hike, Sao Lourenco, 22 July 2010

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Walked from the Quinta do Lorde marina to the Cais do Sardinho on the Sao Lourenco peninsular, the south east point of the island, a 3 1/2 hour walk.






Here there is very little rainfall and, in contrast to the north and west of the island, it is arid and desert-like.

Madeira Hike Levada Caldeirao Verde 21 July 2010

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At 0800 hrs we left the Quinta do Lorde marina with Leonard and Carola from S/V Arearea in their hire car direction Queimadas near Santana, one of the starts of the beautiful Caldeirao Verde Levada walk.

Madeira, being a very mountainous island with peaks over 1800 metres high, has extremes of climate across the island.

The west/ northwest of the island has plenty of rainfall giving rise to luscious green rainforests, whereas the southeast is arid and desert-like.

From the 16th century up until the 1940's, an elaborate network of aqueducts , known as Levadas, has been constructed, contouring around the sheer mountainsides to bring the abundant rainfall in the northwest to the southeast of the island in order to irrigate the land.

The often dangerous construction work to carve the levadas out of sheer cliffs and tunnel through the rock was sometimes carried out by slaves and convicts.

 The result is an amazing network of walking routes crisscrossing the island in otherwise almost impenetrable areas.

This walk is some 14 kms long with almost no gradient and took us around 4 1/2 hours to complete.

The day started with a light drizzle but later cleared up. All in all, a magnificent walk.

Fruit Cake Recipe 22 July 2010

As requested by some of our Rally Arquipelagos friends, please find below the recipe for Jeannette's fruit cake:-

Fruit Cake

S/V Dutch Link

Ingredients:

1 kilo	mixed dried fruit (raisins, sultana’s, currents)
1	rind of lemon
350 gm	plain flour
1/2 teaspoon	Baking Powder
1 teaspoon	Ground Cinnamon
¾ teaspoon	Ground Mixed Spice

275 gm	Butter on room temperature
275 gm	Soft Brown Sugar (if not available white sugar)
5	eggs
100 gm	blanched almonds to decorate (optional)

Method:

Prepare cake tins (butter tins and dust with flour).

Wash and dry fruit add lemon rind

Mix flour, baking flour,cinnamon, mixed spice together

Mix butter and sugar with mixer until light and creamy

Add 1 egg, mix, add 2 tablespoons of the flour mix, add egg and flour repeat until eggs are finished and add carefully the remaining flour. Add ¼ of the fruit, mix add another ¼ etc.

If the mixture is very stiff add 1 or 2 tablespoons milk.

Pour mixture into tins.

Press almonds( if you have) on top and slide into the oven

Temp 180 degrees 1 ½ hr

Test with needle – if needle comes out clean, cake is ready to enjoy.

This mixture makes 2 cakes in tins +/- 23cm by 12 cm or 1 big tin

Eet smakelijk!!!! (enjoy your cake)

Madeira 18 to 20 July 2010

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The Marina of Quinta do Lorde is proving to be a very pleasant place to stay. The only negative side is the strong gusts of wind (NE) that we have been experiencing but this only results in noise, not swell.



On the 18 July evening the rally decided to have a potluck supper which turned out to be a lot of fun - everybody bringing a dish.










For Sunday lunch, the rally was very generously invited to the Casa de Pasto O Caroto restaurant by the owner, who is a sailing friend of Rui from S/V Quero Quero.




We were treated to an excellent lunch of Madeira Tapas followed by a superbly oven baked Tuna main course.









On Monday Herberto from S/V Trilemus drove us and others from rally to the capital, Funchal for the afternoon. On the way we stopped to admire the north coastline and went under the runway of the main airport which is built mainly on 70 meter high concrete pillars as flat ground is almost non-existent on Madeira.


Much of the area under the runway is being cleverly used by the company that owns the Q d Lorde marina as a boat yard for storing and repairing yachts - it comes complete with 70 meter high roof!

Everywhere one goes in Madeira , the highway dives in and out of road tunnels , some over 3 km long - there must be a lot of tunneling expertise on the island.




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In Funchal, we visited the marina and had a stroll around the town.

The marina has less wind than Q do Lorde but is far more crowded and, instead of the excellent finger berths, only has submerged bow lines to keep one off the quay. The facilities in general are not so good as Q do Lorde.




The pavements are black basalt and white limestone mosaics similar to the Azores and several of the buildings have tiled murals similar to mainland Portugal.







There are a couple of the steep streets in the north of Funchal which are used for the traditional toboggans - a sort of downhill taxi service from the past. Anna and daughter Alice from S/V Danny Boy had the courage to try this out.


On the way back we stopped at the townhall of Machico, a town close to the Q d Lorde marina. There we had an official visit with the Mayor and received a book on whales from him.








Back at the marina we were treated to traditional dancing from a local group.

Please click on video to view














Please click on video to view




Please click on video to view


After the dancing each boat was presented with a small version of the very amusing toy/musical instrument.













At 1000 hrs on Tuesday 20 July it was unfortunately to say a sad goodbye to the Rally Arquipelagos - it was time for the 7 yachts to return to the Azores - first to Santa Maria , then back to Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel.



















We enjoyed the rally very much - thank you Luna and Manuel for organising it and thank everyone for being so friendly and making the effort to speak English with us - we apologise for our lack of Portuguese.

Sail Porto Santo to Madeira 16 to 17 July 2010

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Left the Porto Santo marina at 1000 hrs 16 July and had a great sail to Madeira in a NE 4/5.
Rounding the rocky islands at the eastern extremity of the island was interesting - encountered a 2 knot east going current which , with 18 kts of wind from the NE led to quite some steep waves and slowed us down considerably. This rounding could give overfalls and be quite dangerous in stronger winds. Once we had rounded the point we came into the lee of the islands and the seas flattened off.

Catia and Joana gave us a very good welcome at the marina Quinta do Lorde and arranged check in with the authorities without us needing to be present. Marina costs are even higher than Porto Santo - 34 Euros/night taking into account our 20 percent discount - weekly discounted rate reduces to just under 30 euros /night. For these rates at least one gets electricity, water and showers included in the fee.

The marina is built below some high vertical cliffs and, since we have been here, has been subject to strong gusts of wind.

The marina is part of a resort development which consists of a picturesque brand new village nestled against the cliffs complete with church and village square.
Unfortunately the development, although nearing completion, seems to have fallen foul of the current economic crisis and work has slowed down on its completion- it resembles a ghost town at the moment although 15 percent of the homes are, we are told already sold.

Saturday 17 July, a coach tour of the eastern side of the island was organised for us by the marina with Joana as our friendly multilingual guide.

The tour took us through many tunnels to Santana giving us superb views of the awesome north coast with very steep rugged verdant slopes plunging to the valley bottoms and the sea. Wherever possible, the slopes are terraced and green with various crops. Houses are scattered through the valleys and perched precariously on the slopes. The road in many places seems to just cling to the mountain sides with almost sheer drops on one side. Without the many tunnels , some several kilometers long, travel across the island would be very slow.

At Santana we stopped at some traditional thatched sided houses. Soon aftewards we visited the Santana theme park - first impressions were "why on earth are we stopping here?" as the first thing we did was have a children's ride in a four seater tracked "boat" through a boring, ill thought our fairground ride. However, the rest of the park proved to be quite interesting with side shows of traditional crafts (basket weaving etc.) and a very good museum addressing the origins, history and culture of the island.
We were shown an excellent promotional film of the island whilst sitting in simulator moving seats - one minute hiking along the Levadas, the next gliding over the spectacular scenary in a delta wing glider, then plunging to the depths in scuba diver gear and miraculously ending up on a sailing yacht romantically sailing into the sunset - never experienced such a large simulator.



Afterwards the coach took us to the mountainous interior climbing to the third highest peak on the island, Pico Areeiro 1818 m , high above the clouds with spectacular views.






Afterwards we returned to the marina via Pico do Facho 322m , close to Machico with excellent views of our marina.