29 November 2014

November evening

Victim of a strong seasonality, almost with zero tourism occupation through the Winter months, the island of Porto Santo can be hard to a traveller not blessed with the living philosophy of Father Foucauld.
With all the hotels closed, except one unit (or two), this situation can also be a nightmare to the commercial airliners connecting the continental Europe to the island of Madeira. When forced, by meteorological reasons, to abort the call in Aeroporto da Madeira, the natural option would be the comparatively safer Porto Santo runway, twenty miles to NE.
Sadly, due to the lacking of available beds to accommodate those passengers in transit, many of these flights have to diverge to Canary islands, meaning an add of 400 kms to the initial voyage.
However, if solitude is (temporarily) your thing you'll probably have a nice time in Porto Santo during Winter. Less people means less confusion, therefore you will have certainly a better (available) service for your needs. And an amazingly beautiful 9 kms long beach only for you. 
Just enjoy the quiet peacefulness, the life moving slower, the peoples' approachability and learn about the place.
In the picture: Hotel Luamar and swimming pool at evening time, on the first week of November. Picture taken with Panasonic Lumix GH2 with SLR Magic Hyperprime 12mm T/1.6 cine lens. Conversion of the Panasonic proprietary Raw format to TIFF in Silkypix software and post-processing of the TIFF file in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, ver. 4.1.

06 November 2014

Aida Stella

The Aida Stella, from Aida Cruises, a 2013 construction from the german shipyard Meyer Werft and the seventh vessel of the Sphinx class, rests alongside the Pontinha breakwater, one calm evening, a few days ago.
Picture taken with Nikon D300 and Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D AF. Manfrotto tripod and Junior Geared Head. Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Ver. 4.1