One highlight of being here is that Eva of Eva7Seas is here so we have had a nice catch up session with her.
This photo shows her here.
We are likely to be here for a few days as it makes a good base for further exploration of the island.
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Moved to Machico
Five days in Quinta do Lorde allowed us to catch up on showers and laundry but we were feeling a bit ghettoized in a yottie way so have moved a couple of miles up the coast to the town of Machico. We are tied up to the concrete pier which is not something we are very experienced with but so far it has been fine.
One highlight of being here is that Eva of Eva7Seas is here so we have had a nice catch up session with her.
This photo shows her here.
We are likely to be here for a few days as it makes a good base for further exploration of the island.
One highlight of being here is that Eva of Eva7Seas is here so we have had a nice catch up session with her.
This photo shows her here.
We are likely to be here for a few days as it makes a good base for further exploration of the island.
Friday, 30 August 2013
Periodic Upload of Photos
We periodically get around to pushing a few photos onto a publicly available Google album. As ever, the url is:
here
We are also starting to take an interest in Tropical Revolving Storms aka hurricanes so are looking at the National Hurricane Center
here
We are also starting to take an interest in Tropical Revolving Storms aka hurricanes so are looking at the National Hurricane Center
Touristy Stuff
We have spent the last two days doing touristy stuff. Yesterday we took the bus to Funchal and today we investigated Machico and did a bit of walking. Here are some indifferent photos of it. The weather is looking to become much brighter and we are resolved to spend longer here now. We will however be moving to Machico as it is a more "real" place than Quinto do Lorde is.
Of course, we are constitutionally incapable of not looking at the harbour facilities in a place we visit. So, not withstanding the fact that we spend nearly all our time on the water at the moment, our first thing in a new place is to rush down to the waterfront and look at the boats there and whether we could get in. Sadly, Funchal is not looking promising. There used to be an anchorage to the east of the very busy marina but that has been entirely filled in. Pictures on the fences show a marina with cruise ship dock outside of it. Goodness knows when it is likely to be finished though. Here is what it looks like at the moment.
The old part of Funchal is a lovely place with lots of squares and some quite old churches and such like. This is the Praca de Municipio.
This last is the interior of a very old Jesuit college that is now part of the University of Madeira. The students are set to work trying to recruit tourists to come in and visit for free (and buy stuff in their gift shop of course). It is an intriguing building and we even bought a t shirt in the shop so they were very happy. The architecture is typical of old Funchal where they have white washed walls with window and door frames made from some sort of very dark volcanic stone. It makes for quite a dramatic look though one that is difficult to photograph well.
Sadly, the rest of my pictures are really not very memorable so I won't clutter this blog up with them. The cloud built up and we wound up spending too much time fending off some scammers pretending to do a survey of why tourists come to the island. Needless to say, we will be going back there.
Today we first went into Machico to do some shopping and also to meet up with Eva Kullgren on Olina who we had previously met outside Cadiz. She is tied up to the wall at Machico and we are going there ourselves. The facilities here at Quinta do Lorde are very good but it is too closed in and exclusive with all non residents and berth holders kept out.
This afternoon we took a bit of a walk out along the peninsula at the eastern extremity of the island. There is an anchorage there called Bahia d'Abra. The foot path skirts round this and then out to the end of the peninsula but we walked to the top of the bay. The photography was a bit better owing to the clouds clearing away.
The Peninsula de Sao Laurenco (the c should have a cedilla on it making it a soft c) is quite dramatic as we found when sailing past it. The walking is relatively easy though you still find some steep bits where you need a good head for heights.
Before people arrived in the thirteenth century, the island was heavily wooded and very fertile. The Portuguese embarked on a programme of systematic deforestation and, in the eastern extremity introduced goats who grazed all the grass off leaving a near desert now!
Nevertheless, the bay itself does look enticing as a place to stop for a day or so. We shall see if we do make it there. This is the rocky bit right at the head of the bay.
We stopped for a rest on the remains of a dry stone wall and found these lizards moving slow enough to be captured by the camera.
Finally, another view of a barren landscape with evidence of heavy water erosion - though it was as dry as a tinder box and any stray light would have caused a serious fire. I really do need to remember that I am not a geography teacher though!
Of course, we are constitutionally incapable of not looking at the harbour facilities in a place we visit. So, not withstanding the fact that we spend nearly all our time on the water at the moment, our first thing in a new place is to rush down to the waterfront and look at the boats there and whether we could get in. Sadly, Funchal is not looking promising. There used to be an anchorage to the east of the very busy marina but that has been entirely filled in. Pictures on the fences show a marina with cruise ship dock outside of it. Goodness knows when it is likely to be finished though. Here is what it looks like at the moment.
The old part of Funchal is a lovely place with lots of squares and some quite old churches and such like. This is the Praca de Municipio.
This last is the interior of a very old Jesuit college that is now part of the University of Madeira. The students are set to work trying to recruit tourists to come in and visit for free (and buy stuff in their gift shop of course). It is an intriguing building and we even bought a t shirt in the shop so they were very happy. The architecture is typical of old Funchal where they have white washed walls with window and door frames made from some sort of very dark volcanic stone. It makes for quite a dramatic look though one that is difficult to photograph well.
Sadly, the rest of my pictures are really not very memorable so I won't clutter this blog up with them. The cloud built up and we wound up spending too much time fending off some scammers pretending to do a survey of why tourists come to the island. Needless to say, we will be going back there.
Today we first went into Machico to do some shopping and also to meet up with Eva Kullgren on Olina who we had previously met outside Cadiz. She is tied up to the wall at Machico and we are going there ourselves. The facilities here at Quinta do Lorde are very good but it is too closed in and exclusive with all non residents and berth holders kept out.
This afternoon we took a bit of a walk out along the peninsula at the eastern extremity of the island. There is an anchorage there called Bahia d'Abra. The foot path skirts round this and then out to the end of the peninsula but we walked to the top of the bay. The photography was a bit better owing to the clouds clearing away.
The Peninsula de Sao Laurenco (the c should have a cedilla on it making it a soft c) is quite dramatic as we found when sailing past it. The walking is relatively easy though you still find some steep bits where you need a good head for heights.
Before people arrived in the thirteenth century, the island was heavily wooded and very fertile. The Portuguese embarked on a programme of systematic deforestation and, in the eastern extremity introduced goats who grazed all the grass off leaving a near desert now!
Nevertheless, the bay itself does look enticing as a place to stop for a day or so. We shall see if we do make it there. This is the rocky bit right at the head of the bay.
We stopped for a rest on the remains of a dry stone wall and found these lizards moving slow enough to be captured by the camera.
Finally, another view of a barren landscape with evidence of heavy water erosion - though it was as dry as a tinder box and any stray light would have caused a serious fire. I really do need to remember that I am not a geography teacher though!
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
On to Madeira Grande
Ten days and we felt we had thoroughly absorbed Porto Santo and it was time to move on. The laundry situation was also getting a bit desperate. The Marina Porto Santo does have washing machines but they are not self service and very expensive. We did one wash to tide us over but now need to do some thorough washing.
Our first sight of the island after the 20 mile passage between the islands was suitably dramatic though the photo makes the weather look much grimmer than it was!
The sail from Porto Santo to Quinta do Lorde which is at the extreme eastern end of the island was a pleasant one with a nice force 5 to 6 on the quarter. It is an odd place being a fairly new "marina village". Everything is pristine but also completely fake. Still, the shelter is good with no surge in the harbour at all though the wind does whistle through with a vengeance.
We will be spending a few days here and do some touring around the island. There is a wine festival starting on the first of September which we will definitely have to stay for.
Finally, the view from our cockpit at the moment.
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Making Bread
One of the aspects of being a long distance cruiser that “they” don't tell you about is the strange and inconsistent way in which you apply the self sufficiency mantra. Sometimes you will happily bemoan the fact that you can't get your hands on good coffee irrespective of the fact that you should have stocked up when it was available in Spain. Other times you will move heaven and earth to get hold of the wherewithal to make something that is generally available in even the remotest locations. An example of the latter is bread.
Of course, almost all settlements will have a baker and the more remote, the more likely it is to be quite good. Put simply, bread is one of the easiest of all foodstuffs to get hold of. However, there is a wealth of information on the web about how to make bread in your pressure cooker, thus saving you the need to burn lots of gas by using the oven.
The argument that we will trot out is that bread does not keep very well and the smell of fresh baked bread while on passage will be lovely. However, the old rule that seventy percent of your time is spent in harbour is probably conservative and most cruisers most likely spend eighty or ninety percent in harbour. The longest passage on an Atlantic circuit is likely to be three weeks at most. That in a one year cruise!
Still, we have spent ages trying to get the bits together to allow us to make bread. We have the key item which is a pressure cooker. However, you still need a trivet of some type and a suitable container for the bread. It is amazingly difficult to get these things – even finding a pressure cooker can be difficult but thanks to Moreleys in Brixton we have had one for a long time. In the UK, my favourite cook shop is John Lewis on Oxford Street but they let me down and can only now sell bread makers!
Various ferreterias in Spain also failed to turn up the goods. Finally though a Chinese shop in Porto Santo, Madeira had a butterfly leaf steamer and a suitably sized tin.
We took our new possessions back to the boat and I had a go. There are not really any suitable recipes out there but I just poured what looked like enough flour into the bowl, added salt, yeast and some olive oil before adding water enough to make up a dough. I didn't bother kneading it but left it to rise for a while before putting on the pressure cooker. A web site we had found suggested 20 minutes. I added plenty of water to the bottom and turned things on. After twenty minutes we turned off and waited for the pressure to ease.
The result? Well it was bread alright but without a crust of course. Actually, it was really quite nice and we are looking forward to doing it again.
Of course, almost all settlements will have a baker and the more remote, the more likely it is to be quite good. Put simply, bread is one of the easiest of all foodstuffs to get hold of. However, there is a wealth of information on the web about how to make bread in your pressure cooker, thus saving you the need to burn lots of gas by using the oven.
The argument that we will trot out is that bread does not keep very well and the smell of fresh baked bread while on passage will be lovely. However, the old rule that seventy percent of your time is spent in harbour is probably conservative and most cruisers most likely spend eighty or ninety percent in harbour. The longest passage on an Atlantic circuit is likely to be three weeks at most. That in a one year cruise!
Still, we have spent ages trying to get the bits together to allow us to make bread. We have the key item which is a pressure cooker. However, you still need a trivet of some type and a suitable container for the bread. It is amazingly difficult to get these things – even finding a pressure cooker can be difficult but thanks to Moreleys in Brixton we have had one for a long time. In the UK, my favourite cook shop is John Lewis on Oxford Street but they let me down and can only now sell bread makers!
Various ferreterias in Spain also failed to turn up the goods. Finally though a Chinese shop in Porto Santo, Madeira had a butterfly leaf steamer and a suitably sized tin.
We took our new possessions back to the boat and I had a go. There are not really any suitable recipes out there but I just poured what looked like enough flour into the bowl, added salt, yeast and some olive oil before adding water enough to make up a dough. I didn't bother kneading it but left it to rise for a while before putting on the pressure cooker. A web site we had found suggested 20 minutes. I added plenty of water to the bottom and turned things on. After twenty minutes we turned off and waited for the pressure to ease.
The result? Well it was bread alright but without a crust of course. Actually, it was really quite nice and we are looking forward to doing it again.
Friday, 23 August 2013
More Porto Santo
We arrived a week ago this evening and now feel quite at home here. It is a lovely little island well worth getting to know.
Yesterday we took the tourist bus which covers pretty much the whole island in a couple of hours. Of course, I took lots of pictures though not as many as previously threatened owing to the weather being a bit hazy. A highlight of the trip was the Spanish woman we were sat next to. She was from Pontevedra and was absolutely amazed when we pointed out Sarah G to her as we passed the harbour.
Anyway, here are some less than fantastic pictures.
We stopped for a few minutes at the southeastern end of the beach that forms the whole east coast of the island.
The geology of the island is interesting as it is formed of a series of volcanic plugs over which there are sedimentary rocks making up the majority of the landscape. This is one of the obviously volcanic peaks of the island.
The west coast of the island is not settled and very rugged. The chart shows that there is a wide area of shoals so we are unlikely to visit by boat!
There is a lookout point about half way up the highest peak on the island and the bus follows a precipitous and winding road to get there. The views are well worth it though.
Finally, there is some idiot in a hat overlooking the harbour - thank you Audrey!
Yesterday we took the tourist bus which covers pretty much the whole island in a couple of hours. Of course, I took lots of pictures though not as many as previously threatened owing to the weather being a bit hazy. A highlight of the trip was the Spanish woman we were sat next to. She was from Pontevedra and was absolutely amazed when we pointed out Sarah G to her as we passed the harbour.
Anyway, here are some less than fantastic pictures.
We stopped for a few minutes at the southeastern end of the beach that forms the whole east coast of the island.
The geology of the island is interesting as it is formed of a series of volcanic plugs over which there are sedimentary rocks making up the majority of the landscape. This is one of the obviously volcanic peaks of the island.
The west coast of the island is not settled and very rugged. The chart shows that there is a wide area of shoals so we are unlikely to visit by boat!
There is a lookout point about half way up the highest peak on the island and the bus follows a precipitous and winding road to get there. The views are well worth it though.
Finally, there is some idiot in a hat overlooking the harbour - thank you Audrey!
Monday, 19 August 2013
Some initial photos
Just a couple of photos so far. It is a very photogenic place but difficult to get any interesting images of that aren't just postcard type snaps.
This is the view SE from the harbour.
We went for a walk and climbed up to a lookout point above the harbour and got this view to the NE which is roughly where we approached from.
Then we spotted a rather nice blue boat moored in the harbour. Sorry for the vanity.
This is the view SE from the harbour.
We went for a walk and climbed up to a lookout point above the harbour and got this view to the NE which is roughly where we approached from.
Then we spotted a rather nice blue boat moored in the harbour. Sorry for the vanity.
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