For today's excursion we wanted to drive on the mountain roads in the West of Madeira. About the motorway it went to Funchal and then right through a steep valley into the mountains.
Somewhat laborious our little Nissan Juke tormented up the sometimes very steep roads. But compared with the rental car, with whom we were on the mainland road, it was still quite sporty ahead. Bald hatten wir die Abzweigung zur Passstraße erreicht und standen kurze Zeit später vor einer Straßensperre 🙁 So ein Ärger. Since the selection of roads on Madeira but is quite low, we beat back the already successfully tested route along the north coast a.
In Sao Vicente we decided spontaneously, pay the volcanic caves to visit. When we reached the visitor parking lot, We were very relieved. No coaches awaited us, obwohl in Funchal gerade wieder vier neue Kreuzfahrtschiffe angekommen waren 🙂 So lernten wir in den nächsten eineinhalb Stunden eine Menge über die Entstehung der Inseln in dem kleinen Museum, which was located right next to the entrance to the caves. The half-hour walk through the Gotten itself was nice, aber nicht besonders spektakulär 🙂
Passing Porto Moniz we were driving on a small road along the west coast. Quite accidentally we discovered a really incredible vantage point. Before us, the coast was almost 600 Meter ab! From the top of the houses and gardens in the valley looked like miniature toys. With a small cable car (made in Germany :-)) could go down at an angle of 170 ° to the sea. Alone at the sight turned my stomach to. Keine zehn Pferde würde mich in diese winzige Gondel bringen 🙂 So tranken wir lieber einen entspannten Kaffee direkt am Abgrund und überließen das Gondelfahren den anderen.
The West of Madeira is traffic-technically not yet well connected to the rest of the island. On top of the ridge we found in the villages many empty houses, which would probably urgently want a skilled and motivated craftsmen. In part, it looked here but kind of bleak. This impression was unfortunately additionally reinforced by the gathering clouds.
We reached the port before the rain. According to the weather forecast it would probably also the next days are uncomfortable. Let's see, what will really happen. Wettervorhersagen sind ja bekanntlich ähnlich zuverlässig wie „Kaffeesatz lesen“ 🙂
Hello you two,
beautiful again what listening to you, I must say I am impressed by the landscape and the island, because actually I've heard very little from the Canary Islands, it was more so a Neckermann thing from my youth.
I am very pleased that you have fun at the dive, warm water and good visibility makes it easy indescribably. Here is a tip how you prevent the mask from fogging whatâ the. Just some spit well smeared in the mask , but is more a stopgap. It is best if it is diluted baby shampoo in a separate small bottle used with water, goes well with regular shampoo but could something burning in the eyes. Just a Wening in the mask pour a bit einrubbeln rinse and finished . Last but not least you can even make the dive shop to buy a small bottle of anti-fog Abere usually can not find the when you need them, If all this happens under water you can make only one , the mask from the face lift something so pure run some water may, then look down the head move back and forth until the surface washes away , then blow the water out of the mask.
So now only missing photos of the underwater world, I'm sure that will come soon the. 🙂 GoPro here I come !
So what's new here.
The sailing license is progressing well, we now know every part on a sailboat of ” steamlight” up to ” head”, never mind Clew and Tack, Halyard, boomvang and sheet etc. you can hardly believe that the first semester already in 8 Weeks is finished. Where you have to get used to it however, are the Pfruefungen. Because you have to learn real ! But who has probably already got around to the teachers, the students are we quite good. Last Sunday had resulted folgenes, our class 18 People are always greatly exceeds 12 Clock at noon at the school boats. We have a Professor of everything and then directs his assistants help the wiegesagt skippers to the other boats. The helpers are only wirlich helper and drop the level of the teacher but a bit short. Once we figured this out we made sure that we sail with the teacher, we kind of carefully kept pushing people towards the school boat with the end result was that only the three of us were left without a boat. Well you have to know that Ric ( teacher) always has the most modern boats not from the school but from the yardclub . Once we arrived at his boat we found out that Ric’s daughter and husband are also coming even though they are not in the class, ??? yup, that is insider trading!
We were to practice angering, which sucks by the way if you don’t have a windlass and have to use a scope of 5:1 , on top of that if the person on the helm doesn’t get the concept on getting the boat towards the anker it is double as tough. Frankly Maurice and I had enough of these anker drills, Bine was always smiling because she was on the helm and didn’t had to pull up the anker. Sure sounds like favoritism to me.
Since we had sailed with Ric to Catalina Island a few month back to learn navigation as well as ankering . Ric said:”You guys already know how to do that” let’s go sailing ” Of course that was music to our ears, even more so since we had a steady 14kn wind and calm seas. So we zick zack out in the ocean .
We were talking about our final exam at the end of this semester. There is a written exam and a hands on exam, which curtails ability to handle the boat in different situations, man over board , rules of the road , sail trim etc.. at last we will have a race staged with all our boats.
Suddenly Ric said:” Looks like this is the crew to win the race with. Now ,that will secure us a spot on the new boat for the rest of the semester 🙂 :-), yeah I know teachers pet.
Dude, but that is how you learn sailing the correct way , you know there is sailing and then there sailing. Everyone can sail a boat , but can it go faster? You bet, if you have somebody that knows how and that is exactly the person I want to learn from. As I mentioned before the helpers just don’t have it.
I can’t wait to be back on the boat next Sunday.
We also finished successful our Rescue Diving Cert. and starting to work on Divemaster next.
Like you both, we try to live life at it’s fullest enjoying every minute, we live only once!
Can’t wait to hear and see more from you guys . Next time I see if I get you pictures too.
Cheers Maik
PS: come again with the languages confused , it shows, not so right I'm too lazy to write it all again in German. yes I know that your English is very good…..