9.1.2012 - Moonlight on the water (Madeira)

On board ship at Madeira

Like a torrent of amber gemstones, tiny lights flood glittering down Madeira’s steep ravines into the black sea below.  Slowly they shrink behind us as we power our way along the road the moon has laid towards Morocco, 399 nautical miles distant.

The day started wet and dark in Glasgow Airport, and progressed uneventfully towards the soft palms of Funchal, and the technicolour of Bourgainvillia, flowing over its walls and roadsides. 

Madeira is steep.  That is the word, but not one that really conveys the narrow winding streets that rear up at what seem near vertical angles.  Yellow buses, no way discouraged by the mountaineering task before them, twist their tortuous way upwards – on one side of the street the roofs spread below them, on the other, steep gardens with houses perched atop.  Every home in Funchal has a spectacular view, down the precipices to the harbour.  There the cruise ships lie, great white swans amidst the tiny fishing boats, which foam in and out past their towering sides, while their fishermen in orange T-shirts and work roughened jeans heave fish boxes across decks tangled with ropes, floats and nets.

Viewed from the wide wooden decks of our ship Destiny, the city look like a child’s ambitious lego creation, tiny box homes scattered, one above the other, over a rumpled green blanket.  Here and there a thread of road hurls itself from cliff to cliff, lightly springing across spindly concrete pillars.  High above, a fringe of tall trees marches through the clouds.  Had I not been here before, I might have assumed that this was the peak of the mountain, instead of only the lower foothills of a volcanic giant.  Madeira is steep, steep, steep.

Towel elephant

Destiny is an old boat.  But her thirty years of providing holidays afloat have imbued her with an atmosphere of calm and welcome that makes you forgive the occasional dented table or section of scratched deck.  The crew are numerous, neatly dressed and endlessly friendly, cheerful and humorous.  Food is good and everywhere – you mount the stairs to yet another deck and find yet another buffet confronting you.  Likewise entertainment – a full scale musical performed with a dizzying range of twinkling costumes and energetic singing and dancing on one deck, quizzes, dance classes, even towel folding tuition available on others (when we arrived back our cabin tonight, a towel elephant welcomed us).   

Tomorrow the day starts with compulsory tuition on how to abandon ship, to be provided in the CanCan Lounge.  Hopefully we will get through the night without needing the details of this – the sea is gentle, and the boat rumbles on, rolling softly as she goes.

And so we will see if Destiny can do her job of refreshing us after what has been a pretty frenetic autumn.  As we watch the ruffled silver sea below, this seems quite possible.