Saturday Sweep at Seixal
"Let's go a bit further today. I think there's a viewpoint at Seixal we could check out." A bit further really was only a teensy bit further - about five miles from Porto Moniz where we were staying. Barely more than an energetic walk, but then again on an island only about 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, and in several places more than a mile high, nothing is really that far away. Once we'd crept down the mountain to Porto Moniz, it was little more than a ten minute drive.
Seixal was the last small town we'd passed a couple of nights earlier on our drive from the airport to our home for the week above Porto Moniz. I had a vague recollection of stopping here briefly on our previous visit sixteen years earlier, but that was about it. I remembered cliffs, clouds, rain and a frothing Atlantic Ocean thrashing the coast like a demented beast on steroids.
We'd have been forgiven for thinking it was a sleepy Tuesday, so quiet was our destination that afternoon, but Saturday it was when we pulled up at a completely empty set of parking spaces above the beach. There was an empty tour bus not far from where we'd stopped, but little sign of its occupants in the silent streets. In the small supermarket that doubled up as a café and bar, a group of men huddled around a television set watching the local team CS Maritimo, who were beating their illustrious visitors Sporting Lisbon by a goal to nil. I cursed myself - I'd been intending to go to the match, but hadn't been paying proper attention to the schedules that had obviously changed since I last looked - I was expecting the game to be played the following day. As we left, a cheer went up - you'd be forgiven for thinking the local team had scored a second, but I learned later that Sporting had equalised. Not for the first time this remote corner of the world reminded me of home where most people seem to follow the glamour clubs at the other end of the country. Either that or they were pleased we'd gone.
Armed with snacks we wandered down towards the beach, where the sea raced in towards a solid looking breakwater. Dodging the occasional shower of seaspray from the bigger waves, and the elbows of an excitable group of visitors who'd been deposited on the car park by another tour bus, I set up the tripod and attempted to catch the movement of the water against the contrast of the black cliffs. But the twin battles I was waging were being lost and we began to head back towards the car.
"Shall we walk across the beach?" Ali nodded in agreement, and a few minutes later we sat on the rocks at the edge of the black volcanic sand, watching the waves that had outsmarted the breakwater rolling onto the beach. It was only when I decided to be brave and took off my shoes and socks that the magic started to happen - only then that I noticed the waves breaking over the big rock to the right hand side of the beach, then retreating and leaving white streaks across the blackness as a parting gift. Excitedly I set up the camera on the tripod and spent the next twenty minutes bashing the shutter with happy abandon, collecting those white streaks on my memory card while the warm sea washed my bare feet as each time they sunk a little further into the sand. When a volume of water raced in an swept across the shore from right to left, I was sure I had something worth sharing. It was undeniably bleak, despite the fact we were on a subtropical island more than a thousand miles south of our cold northern home, but I loved it all the more for that. At first glance you might think I'd edited this in mono, but there are clues that give away the lie.
Above us the steep cliffside was a myriad of terraces, where the locals worked the land and grew crops and kept the odd goat or sheep, or even a cow here and there. The place has a sense of self sufficiency about it that I can't help but admire. Madeira must be a food basket in miniature with its rich volcanic soil and its moist warm climate. On our return to the house we were renting, we found a huge bunch of bananas grown in Funchal and left for us by our host. There's something about Portugal and its people that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. And there are lots of things about this island which mean the camera never stays in the bag for long. We will return!
Saturday Sweep at Seixal
"Let's go a bit further today. I think there's a viewpoint at Seixal we could check out." A bit further really was only a teensy bit further - about five miles from Porto Moniz where we were staying. Barely more than an energetic walk, but then again on an island only about 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, and in several places more than a mile high, nothing is really that far away. Once we'd crept down the mountain to Porto Moniz, it was little more than a ten minute drive.
Seixal was the last small town we'd passed a couple of nights earlier on our drive from the airport to our home for the week above Porto Moniz. I had a vague recollection of stopping here briefly on our previous visit sixteen years earlier, but that was about it. I remembered cliffs, clouds, rain and a frothing Atlantic Ocean thrashing the coast like a demented beast on steroids.
We'd have been forgiven for thinking it was a sleepy Tuesday, so quiet was our destination that afternoon, but Saturday it was when we pulled up at a completely empty set of parking spaces above the beach. There was an empty tour bus not far from where we'd stopped, but little sign of its occupants in the silent streets. In the small supermarket that doubled up as a café and bar, a group of men huddled around a television set watching the local team CS Maritimo, who were beating their illustrious visitors Sporting Lisbon by a goal to nil. I cursed myself - I'd been intending to go to the match, but hadn't been paying proper attention to the schedules that had obviously changed since I last looked - I was expecting the game to be played the following day. As we left, a cheer went up - you'd be forgiven for thinking the local team had scored a second, but I learned later that Sporting had equalised. Not for the first time this remote corner of the world reminded me of home where most people seem to follow the glamour clubs at the other end of the country. Either that or they were pleased we'd gone.
Armed with snacks we wandered down towards the beach, where the sea raced in towards a solid looking breakwater. Dodging the occasional shower of seaspray from the bigger waves, and the elbows of an excitable group of visitors who'd been deposited on the car park by another tour bus, I set up the tripod and attempted to catch the movement of the water against the contrast of the black cliffs. But the twin battles I was waging were being lost and we began to head back towards the car.
"Shall we walk across the beach?" Ali nodded in agreement, and a few minutes later we sat on the rocks at the edge of the black volcanic sand, watching the waves that had outsmarted the breakwater rolling onto the beach. It was only when I decided to be brave and took off my shoes and socks that the magic started to happen - only then that I noticed the waves breaking over the big rock to the right hand side of the beach, then retreating and leaving white streaks across the blackness as a parting gift. Excitedly I set up the camera on the tripod and spent the next twenty minutes bashing the shutter with happy abandon, collecting those white streaks on my memory card while the warm sea washed my bare feet as each time they sunk a little further into the sand. When a volume of water raced in an swept across the shore from right to left, I was sure I had something worth sharing. It was undeniably bleak, despite the fact we were on a subtropical island more than a thousand miles south of our cold northern home, but I loved it all the more for that. At first glance you might think I'd edited this in mono, but there are clues that give away the lie.
Above us the steep cliffside was a myriad of terraces, where the locals worked the land and grew crops and kept the odd goat or sheep, or even a cow here and there. The place has a sense of self sufficiency about it that I can't help but admire. Madeira must be a food basket in miniature with its rich volcanic soil and its moist warm climate. On our return to the house we were renting, we found a huge bunch of bananas grown in Funchal and left for us by our host. There's something about Portugal and its people that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. And there are lots of things about this island which mean the camera never stays in the bag for long. We will return!