Madeira

After a pleasant week in Port Santo, we sailed on to the main island: Madeira. The approach beautiful as always and the island certainly one of the nicest to look at from the sea.
Went straight to Funchal first, which is despite the very limited marina facilities, one of the most spectacular places one can visit by boat. Nowhere is the yacht harbor just in the midst of one of the nicest towns which surrounds the harbor and climbs up the steep slopes, creating sort of an arena feeling for those down in the center of the harbor. We came just in time to watch one of the fireworks they were having now on every Saturday in June. Went out with the dinghy to watch it and then were asked on board of a local yacht also out to view the fireworks, to share some drinks. Later back in the harbor, same procedure on our boat and so it got late.

As were now were already quite late in our otherwise completely free cruising plan for this season, we thought we could as well wait a few days for our son Felix and his new girl friend Floortje who were to spent two weeks in the island soon. And so we were soon back into island touring mode with all the associated activities like surfing behind the dinghy and climbing around in the rig.

When we were finally ready to leave Madeira, the wind was up too strong for enjoying the nature preserves of Islas Desertas and Islas Selvagem and we had to choice of waiting three days or skipping these lovely places.

We decided to wait.