Funchal, Madeira, Day 2

May 15^th, 2024

I had decided to splurge for our 2^nd day in Funchal.

The shore excursion brochure described a day out on a luxury yacht. We would be sailing up and down the beautiful coastline of Madeira, we would stop to swim and snorkel in the sparkling blue waters, and then be served a gourmet lunch with champagne and caviar. There were limited spaces available.

Well even without the champagne this sounded like my kind of shore excursion, so I signed up as soon as I had shown it to Brian.

Day 2 of our stay in Funchal dawned rather cold and cloudy, but to the left I could see patches of blue sky. To our right there were black clouds. Hopefully we were going to sail to the sunny side. It was also very windy – a great day for sailing.

Somehow I had expected that the luxury yacht would be moored right next to the cruise terminal, but it was not. Twelve of us piled into a mini van and headed towards the dark clouds.

Fifty minutes later we arrived at the marina. I looked everywhere for the sleek blue hulled yacht featured in the shore excursion information. It was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it had in fact sailed to the cruise port to pick us up.

We were met by 2 men who escorted us to the dock. Where was our yacht? They stopped at a rather fancy looking motor boat. That was our yacht for the day? I must say I was a bit surprised, but then, as I looked at the grey clouds overhead, maybe a motor boat will give us more protection from rain, so it’s not entirely a bad thing. Just not what I had expected.

We all piled on board the boat, and found ourselves somewhere to sit, and off we went out of the harbor into the rough seas.

The weather wasn’t looking that great.

There were no snacks, but we were offered some champagne. Even for me it was a bit early in the morning, so I declined and settled into my comfy seat out of the wind and rain, and watched the coast line go by.

We headed toward the cruise terminal and we had a good view of the villages along the way

But the most impressive sight was the airport. It is built on a cliff with supporting columns. I suppose that if you have no flat land and don’t want to build a runway out to sea, this is what you need to do. It looked a bit scary to me, but I suppose the majority of tourists who fly in and out of the island are unaware of the precarious situation with the runway beneath them.

Then we turned around and once more cruised in the direction of the marina where we had started.

A little way beyond the marina we came to an area with very interesting cliffs and rock formations,

and high above us we could see hikers There were a lot of them.

They stopped the boat and this was apparently the place where we would go snorkeling and swimming. I was having enough trouble just staying warm all bundled up in my fleece and scarf, but 3 brave souls did go for a brief swim. No one snorkeled however.

The place where we were was very pretty, and if the weather had been kind to us, it looked like a beautiful place to go swimming and snorkeling. But just not today.

Lunch arrived – cold meats, cheese, and fruit. Oh, and the most delicious freshly baked bread. Not exactly a gourmet lunch, but we were all quite hungry by then, so it went down well.

Then the Moet and Chandon appeared, so we were all very happy. I seemed to be with a boatload of champagne fanciers. Even the swimmers, who had been looking a bit miserable, brightened up.

It was a short cruise back to the marina, and then an hours’ drive back to the ship.

This was not exactly what we had expected from the tour, but it turned out that we had all enjoyed it and had enjoyed each other’s  company so all was well.

On returning to the ship we were all given Madeira tote bags containing a notebook, a pencil (which will apparently turn into a plant if you put it in soil and water it), a small bottle of madeira (of course) and some Madeira cake. How very thoughtful. I was so excited. I can never have too many tote bags (my sewing has now left it’s disintegrating plastic bag for the safety of the tote bag) and the notebook will come in very handy for our upcoming camping trip in the Okavango Delta. My beloved computer will not be accompanying me on that trip, but now I have somewhere in which I can write everything down. Yay!

The sun was trying very hard to shine though the low cloud cover, and I was wanting to get into the hot tub, so we went up to the terrace. The timing was perfect. Just as we settled onto our loungers white gloved wait staff appeared pushing trolleys filled with tea time goodies.

A “luxury yacht cruise” followed by tea and scones on the terrace is my kind of good way to spend the day!

We watched the sail away from the terrace.

The Ventura had been behind us, and it sailed away first.

There was much blowing of whistles involved. Our sounds soooooo very much better – a real throaty long sound. I loved it. However, maybe we did sound better as I was sitting right under the funnel?

As the Ventura headed out to sea, we backed up, turned in an extremely tight circle and we followed her out into the open ocean, as we both headed to our next island port of call.

One disappointment about the Commodore Club is that they have a new menu of martinis. They look interesting, but apart from the fact there is no milky way martini (expected) there is also no chocolate affair, no PS I love you, and no porn star martini. Not good. However, I chatted to the barman, and he says he has had a lot of requests for the missing martinis, and as long as he has the ingredients he will make them for us. What happens when the ingredients run out is of concern, but for now I am just happy with my chocolate affair.

Funchal has been a great port to visit. Hopefully we will be back again, and hopefully Ruth and Joseph will be here as well.