After the discovery of this small island, Henry quickly colonised it. Its first governor was a Genoese nobleman whose daughter Filipa would become the wife of Christopher Columbus.
Vila Baleira is a neat and tidy little town with clean streets, flowers everywhere and friendly people. After sight-seeing, and a wander through a pretty little park, we seek out our evening meal. We are late for the fish market. It has no refrigeration, only concrete slabs. The day’s main business was concluded long ago and the only fish remaining on sale lie curling in the heat before a single, resigned vendor with a cloud of large black flies buzzing overhead.
We leave the fish market and go in search of a supermarket. Outside Pingo Doce our 100-escudo coin gets jammed in the shopping trolley’s mechanism, but not far enough in to free it from its fellows. A nice young manager I lure out from inside the store prises our coin free with a pair of scissors. By this time it is a little the worse for wear, so he substitutes it for a new one from inside the store and then has to prise that one out with his scissors as well. But he perseveres cheerfully until he is finally able to release a trolley from its chains and present it to us.
We buy bread, fruit, vegetables, fresh sardines and a speciality of Madeira, honey cake. Also, for a paltry sum, a bottle of five-year-old Madeira wine. A small white label on the back says helpfully in English, ‘It is likely to throw a deposit. Serve gently without shake the bottle.’ We wedge it into one of our rucksacks along with everything else and then begin the two-mile journey home, but along the beach this time.
It is golden, deserted and beautiful with its backdrop of dunes and occasional clusters of large rocks. The tide is coming in. We take off our shoes, tie them to our rucksacks and roll our trousers up to mid-calf. The waves rush in with surprising speed, scattering sandpipers in all directions, heads bobbing, little legs pounding like pistons, tripping into sand holes.
There are a few ramshackle wooden beach houses in the dunes, with a barbecue made from an old oil drum wedged into the sand beside them. Pausing to gaze at one of these huts, more picturesque than the rest with its roof shingles and tiny porch, a particularly large wave overtakes us and our trousers are soaked to the knees.
When we reach the quay we find that two of our German neighbours from the anchorage, tired of their yachts’ rolling, are now anchored in the harbour. At the sea wall, the Irish couple are busy stencilling a frame of shamrocks in emerald green around the painting of their boat.
The strength of the wind is increasing and the growing turbulence in the anchorage means the harbour is becoming more crowded with boats. Its berthing capacity is limited. On the dock a group of yachtsmen grumble about the anti-social behaviour of an Australian yacht-owner who is taking up a large stretch of it but who refuses to allow any other yachts to raft up to him. To reinforce his message he has fastened a couple of large NO RAFTING UP! signs to his side rails which are attracting particular resentment.
We dinghy back to Voyager. It is an even bumpier ride than the one going ashore this morning and at one stage the backpack with the bottle of Madeira wine in it topples off the seat. It has already bumped along for a couple of miles during our wave-dodging progress along the beach, and been roughly handled when we rescued it from the surf while hopping about trying to get damp, gritty feet into our shoes. Now it is heaved unceremoniously aboard during our scramble up out of the dinghy, currently tied to Voyager’s stern, and which thanks to the pounding of the sea swell is snatching violently at her transom.
Despite its rough treatment, and notwithstanding the warning notice on the back of the bottle, after a period of quiet in a cool place the wine is delightful and not at all lumpy until we reach the very bottom some days later. It is something you never think about, when you buy imported, quality-controlled, factory-bottled wines from a supermarket or wine store. But where wines are produced and bottled locally, in small family vineyards, there is often a deposit of grape skins; and with fortified wines such as sherry, port and madeira, as well as some of the heavier reds, it is automatically assumed that you will decant them before serving.
We dine on fresh sardines cooked in olive oil with garlic, a little coarse mustard and a dash of brandy, served with steamed leek and carrot and Gibraltar’s delicious yellow potatoes topped with a little butter and black pepper. The sea swell continues. We rock gently, as in a cradle, our mouths filled with the warm sweetness of coffee and honey cake.
The wind changes direction during the night. It has been coming from the north since our arrival and we have been sheltered by the island, but by morning it is from the south and the anchorage is now untenable in the resulting heavy swell. So we lift our anchor, motor into the harbour and drop it there.
We are the last but one boat to leave the anchorage and with all our former neighbours already ensconced, plus some newly-arrived boats, it is difficult to find a large enough space. Not least because, with our arrival, there are now ten catamarans and three trimarans forming something of a multi-hull ghetto in the midst of all the monohulls. One of the latter is a little single-handed yacht called Antares.
Antares is the name of an enormous red star in the constellation of Scorpio, which astronomers call a supergiant because it has a diameter more than 700 times that of the Sun. It takes audacity to call a 27-foot boat after a star that big. But then, it takes nerve to cross the Atlantic Ocean single-handed on a boat that small.
After a lot of mental struggle, I finally remember where we saw her last. It was off the island of Alderney, in the Channel Islands, shortly after we first set out from England. We were still rather green at anchoring then, and ended up a bit too close for politeness although her young skipper hadn’t seemed to notice. Or if he had, he hadn’t seemed to mind.
We shall be a bit close again, when we turn, but our anchor is well dug in and there is not enough room to mess about trying to get a few feet further away. We shall simply have to be alert to anchor-chain lengths when the wind or the tide begins to turn us all.
As well as intrepid solo sailors, yachting also produces a breed of mariner that eschews engines, electrics and all modern instrumentation, using only wind power, a compass, a sextant and sheer muscle. Two such people are the last to seek the protection of the harbour for the night and they have only a small space in which to anchor without nudging either the sea wall or other boats.
Firstly, in lieu of an echo sounder, they establish the water’s depth by using a lead line – a lead weight on the end of a length of thin rope with depths marked on it. Then with consummate and shaming skill they proceed to position themselves in their confined space, and set their anchor, using a long oar off their stern as their only means of propulsion.
During our second night in the harbour the wind returns to the north. By the following morning it has lost most of its power and the sea swell has diminished. So we dinghy to the quay, pay for our two nights’ stay in the harbour and then set off on the 42-mile journey to Madeira’s capital, Funchal. After such a rough forty-eight hours the Atlantic is now unexpectedly flat. It is also surprisingly blue.
Five islands make up this part of the Madeira archipelago. The one from which it takes its name, and to which we are now heading, is the largest at 286 square miles compared with Porto Santo’s sixteen. There are also three tiny uninhabited islands called Ilhas Desertas (one little more than a large rock) off the shores of which, it is said, you may spot sea lions cavorting. This sounds very appealing until you discover that the three islands offer only one anchorage between them; that it is approached through scattered rocks and is recommended for daylight hours only, in ideal weather conditions and with a crew member left aboard during any shore leave because of the unstable holding. We decide to give Ilhas Desertas a miss.
Much further south there are also the Salvage Islands, about which more later.
MADEIRA
2
Under the Volcano
It is a sparkling, blue-and-silver, soft-aired motor-sail to Madeira. It
s coastline is striking as you approach because the island is a volcano and its sides are very steep. Even Fora, the large rock at its eastern corner, with St Laurence’s lighthouse perched on it, rises steeply to a point. This white lighthouse gives every appearance of having been iced onto the top, like a bride on a wedding cake, with the white icing running downhill to cover every last walled inch of the tiny summit.
Although only 31 miles apart, the two islands could not be more different. Brown and treeless, Porto Santo’s low hills are flat at the bottom, providing the island with its spectacular beach. Madeira in contrast has virtually no beaches, rises steeply up from the sea, and its mountainous peaks and deep ravines are covered in lush green forests. From out at sea the lower slopes appear bright green thanks to the terraces of vines, while large tracts of the coast road give the impression of being suspended over rocky gullies.
Off Caniçal, the first town we pass, we are met by a pod of orcas, visually striking in their black and white. There are seven of them, moving very slowly, sending spray languidly from their blow holes and watching us with as much concentrated interest as we are watching them. When we get closer we can see there are actually nine of them. Two small calves are swimming close to their mothers’ sides.
Orcas have a roundness to them that other whale species do not. It makes them look almost cuddly and, combined with their distinctive colouring, is why they are often a model for soft toys. Add moist-eyed memories of the movie Free Willy, and it is easy to forget that their common name is killer whale. They do, in fact, kill and eat other whales. They also snack on seals and penguins and like to play with their food, the way that cats do, before killing and eating it. The pod waits for us to get level with it and then sinks effortlessly, only to reappear moments later in our wake, watching us go.
The coastline between Machico and Santa Cruz is dominated by the long runway of Madeira Airport and over our starboard rail we can see planes landing and taking off. A glance to port, meanwhile, causes us to stop and stare at what appears to be one of Henry the Navigator’s three-masted caravels floating in the shimmering blue haze of the far horizon. It is like being in a time warp: on one side of us the world’s fastest and most convenient form of transport, making Madeira only a ninety-minute flight from Lisbon; on the other, the wraiths of 15th century Portuguese navigators like Zarco and Teixeira who spent months on their wooden ships, in uncharted waters, seeking new and exotic lands.
A few miles further down the coast, Gaula’s white-walled houses and terracotta roofs soar almost vertically up a precipice and over a mountain ridge. Craning your neck to look up at them, the thought occurs that should a householder trip over his doorstep up there, within seconds he could be swimming for his life with orcas down here.
Porta do Garajau, the last headland before Funchal, is dominated by an enormous statue of Christ with arms outstretched, like the ones at Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. In 1927, when it was built, Madeira’s visitors arrived by boat, and the statue was located here in welcome.
By the time we begin the approach to Funchal, the gap between ourselves and the ghostly vessel to our left has narrowed and we still might have bought into the time warp theory were it not for the large, bright blue, late-20th century RIB it is towing. This 15th century sailing ship’s impressive turn of speed, on this virtually windless day, also betrays the existence of a powerful, non-standard diesel engine beneath its otherwise authentic wooden decks. It overtakes us at the entrance to the harbour and, as we follow it in, we can read its name. It is the Santa Maria, a replica of Christopher Columbus’s flagship, its decks lined with tourists.
While the ship ties up to the sea wall, and its passengers disembark for their hotel and cruise ship dining rooms, we go in as close as possible to shore looking for a suitable place to drop our anchor. The harbour at Funchal is protected by a substantial sea wall, which along with the Santa Maria provides berths for visiting cruise ships and the Porto Santo ferry. But this is a roly poly anchorage when the wind is from anywhere other than the north, that is to say from the other side of the island, and it becomes untenable in strong southerly winds.
The holding at Funchal is poor, too, but we do finally get the anchor to bite at our fourth attempt, after a lot of shunting and shouting. It is now a little after 6pm. So, with our accommodation taken care of, we put out the cockpit cushions, fill two glasses with Madeira wine, settle back in the evening sunshine and gaze about us.
On our landward side we can see a rocky shore, a bit of the Old Town walls, part of an ancient fort and trees in pink blossom; while rising steeply above them are the densely-wooded, mountainous sides of Madeira’s dormant volcano. On the ocean side of us, the cruise ships against the sea wall are bathed in the mellow tones of a sun due to set within the next hour or so. There are shearwaters and terns here, too. Birds have been noticeably absent lately.
Next morning we dinghy into the crowded little marina and complete the entry formalities. When we have officially registered our engine number and the colour of our sails again we stop off at the nearby tourist office for a town map and then catch a Number 31 bus.
In the cruising guide David has read about another little piece of Portuguese territory he thinks we might enjoy, the Ilhas Selvagens or Salvage Islands. They lie one hundred and fifty-five miles south of Madeira and ninety-five miles north of the Canary Islands – our next port of call – and being almost on our course anyway, will make a welcome and enjoyable break in our journey.
The particular Salvage Island which interests us is Selvagem Grande. Although less than two square miles in extent, it is the largest in the group and has for some years now been a nature reserve and bird sanctuary, especially for breeding colonies of Madeira petrels and Cory’s shearwaters. It has recently been declared a marine reserve as well, which means that along with other human predators it also keeps fishermen away, who used to take birds’ eggs as well as fish. This isolated scrap of land has a human population of four: two wildlife wardens and two lighthouse keepers.
To visit this tiny island, yachtsmen must obtain a visitor’s permit before leaving Madeira. These are issued without charge by the National Parks Department from their office at the Botanical Gardens, north of Funchal. Having already experienced Portuguese bureaucracy, we suspect getting one may take a while. Which is why, after clearing in with the authorities, we are on a Number 31 bus on our way to the Jardim Botânico.
The road up to it is very steep and the view across the harbour on this glorious sunny day is breathtaking. So is the two-mile drive, but for different reasons. The road skirts the edge of the mountain and the bus seems to be in the hands of a homicidal maniac. Or perhaps breakneck speed is the only way to keep an engine going up such a steep incline. Perhaps reducing speed for blind corners or stomach-churning chicanes would cause the vehicle to stall, roll backwards and tumble down the almost vertical mountainside. Mostly we avert our eyes and observe that this would not be a place to cycle, or even walk unnecessarily unless you were exceptionally fleet of foot.
We stumble off the bus at a sign saying Jardim Botânico, in that confused state which is a mixture of euphoria at having survived a challenging experience and shock at having been involved in it in the first place. We enter the gates, pay our entrance fee and set off in pursuit of a permit to visit Selvagem Grande.
We begin our search in the main building but the first person we ask denies any knowledge of the island’s existence. After a few more attempts, someone admits that it exists but says you can’t go there. We persist and are gradually directed from one office to another until the outstretched fingers point us away from the main building altogether and into the gardens’ interior. Ultimately we find ourselves edging between delicate plants lining tiny paths leading to small offices, half-hidden by foliage, where the public clearly is not intended to go. Then, just when we think we may be getting somewhere, someone suggests we try the marina down in Funchal Harbour. We smile politely, nod and head back towards the mai
n buildings. We are beginning to flag.
More by accident than design we wander into the museum, with its antique maps of exotic places, exhibits of the paraphernalia of specimen-gathering, giant seed pods and exquisite drawings of plants. There are also some atmospheric sepia photographs of the intrepid explorers responsible for some of the wonders now gracing the verdant hillsides of Madeira in general and the Jardim Botânico in particular. Inspired by their endurance we renew our pursuit of the secret office from which the rare and exotic permit to visit Selvagem Grande flowers unseen by all but the most persistent of foreign travellers until suddenly and unexpectedly we stumble upon the right person at the right moment.
We follow his careful directions and enter a long gallery of large free-standing panels of plant illustrations. Then we make a sharp, unmarked turn taking us behind them and arrive at a staircase of polished wood and marble bearing a large sign saying ‘Private’. As instructed, we ignore this sign and mount the stairs. There is a man at the top sitting at a large desk with nothing on it. His expression changes from bored to startled at our sudden appearance. We are equally surprised to see him. We nod in his direction but do not falter in our progress. In all probability he will not speak English and if he stops us it will get complicated and time-consuming and most likely he will order us downstairs again. So we stride purposefully past him, down a corridor smelling strongly of camphor, and enter a large office containing two women.
They also look startled at our unannounced arrival. We explain what we desire. They deny any knowledge of the island. We persist. The senior of the two, very small and with a persistent cough, looks at us intently: wondering perhaps how we managed to penetrate her inner sanctum; or, perhaps, if it might be necessary for us to be accommodated after all.
A Thousand Miles from Anywhere Page 2
