Late afternoon light over rocky ridge

Sometimes it pays to stay in the mountains a little bit longer. We never know what the sunset light will bring us. Most of the times you will get nothing. But on a few enchanted moments, nature graces us with her exquisite kaleidoscope. After the shoot I had to run down the hill, 'cause the park gate, down in the valley, was closing for night time.

Date: 04-12-2009, 1732 GMT

Nikon D40X

Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm f4-5.6 G ED kit lens

Exposure: f8-1/4000s at #200mm, ISO 100

Hand held

Post-processing (cropping, sharpening and slight increase in saturation) in Adobe Photoshop CS3 

M/T Madeiro in Caniçal

The M/T Madeiro was among us during these past couple of days, discharging in the CLCM terminal the fuels we so much need. While waiting in the bridge for the paperwork to be finished, I chilled out reading the May 2011 issue of the Mare World, the magazine of the Mare Maritime, shipowner of  M/T Madeiro. "Energy Alternative Sources" was the article that caught my eye. And it is somewhat strangely ironic that a company devoted to the transportation of fossil fuels is already looking in the future. To the disappearing of the core business of an entire global industry. Nothing against it. By anticipating those days, they will be better prepared to face the music when things change. And they will. It's no longer a matter of "if", but "when".

The article itself, written simple and concise, was enlightening to me. Particularly because I'm a complete ignorant in energy matters.

However, as serious as the subject is, I couldn't help laughing while seeing this model of a Chevrolet for the year 2050.

Could this be our common destination?

Mare World magazine - May 2011
Partial scan of the page 18
Article "Energy Alternative Sources"
Canon Canoscan N676U flat scanner

M/T Gas Renovatio moored at the offshore terminal of CLCM

A quiet and peaceful February morning was what I've found for the mooring operations of the M/T Gas Renovatio at the terminal of CLCM, located in the fishing village of Caniçal. Although small in size, this vessel stands as a good example of the manoeuvre capabilities that all vessels should have to call these space-restricted buoyage systems. Aside from a quick-reacting main engine and a fair bow thruster power, the vessel is equipped with fast mooring winches and drum ropes, making, therefore, the mooring and unmooring operations faster and secure.

Pilot Card:
Ships name: Gas Renovatio
IMO number: 9161077
Type: LPG tanker
LOA: 99 mts
Beam: 16.70 mts
DWT: 3292.3 t
Max draft on manoeuvre: 5.25 mts
Propulsion: Single engine - single fixed propeller - 2438.4 Kw
Pitch: Right-handed
Rudder: 1 - Semi-balanced
Bow thruster: Yes - 240 Kw

Picture taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3.
Resize work and cropping with Adobe Photoshop CS3

Penha d'Águia and Faial at dusk

A first attempt at night time with my new Panasonic Lumix GH2. I took the picture from the Faial fort pointing the camera to the rock formation of Penha d'Águia. The picture was already taken at night time (about 45 minutes after sunset) hence the burnt highlights in the villages of Águia de Baixo and Faial. I liked the colour of the sky, tho.

Panasonic Lumix GH2
Panasonic Lumix G Vario 1:3.5-5.6/14-42 Asph Mega OIS kit lens
Manfrotto 190XDB tripod with Manfrotto 490 RC4 Ball Head
Exposure: 50 secs (with timer) f5.0 at ISO 160
Adjustments for saturation, noise reduction and sharpening in Adobe Photoshop CS3

From Boca da Encumeada to Curral Jangão

A few days ago, with a full morning to spare, I decided to hike for the first time this small trail. Located at the top North end of the Ribeira Brava valley, this easy path connects Boca da Encumeada to Curral Jangão by a well marked and straight forward track. Regardless of the fact that the trail itself is far from being dangerous or even strenuous, the magic of it is quite present from the beginning. Stopping the car in a small parking area on the right side of the main road, a couple hundred meters before arriving to the Encumeada pass, you'll soon see the sign pointing your destination: the hanging valley of Curral Jangão. The first 500 or so meters are in a well marked forest road, accessible only for all-terrain vehicles. But as soon as you arrive near the large pipe conduct that leads the water from the Levada do Norte, high above, to the Power Plant of Serra de Água located in the valley below, the road ends and you make a detour to the right. You descend a few stony steps, pass under the conduct, and the mountain trail is in front of your eyes.

Map source: Instituto Geográfico do Exército, Chart nº5 (Ilha da Madeira - Curral das Freiras) Scale: 1/25.000

The first kilometre is, actually, quite boring. We walk in a forest of eucalyptus; not the most endemic flora if you know what I mean. However, as soon as we reach open ground things change and we are once again surrounded by the magnificent Madeira mountain landscape.

When we reach open ground, on the "grass floor", the trail opens to the beautiful mountain landscape that characterizes Madeira.

At this point we are already surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the island. Curral Jangão is, itself, a natural amphitheatre. The birth place of Ribeiro do Poço and a perfect and cosy hanging valley, Curral Jangão, at a high of roughly 850 meters, is surrounded by peaks that rise to almost 1600 meters high. So, a dramatic landscape and orography is something that we can expect when arriving there.

Curral Jangão, with its dramatic orography, seen from afar.

After the "grass floor", the path becomes more intimate and we find ourselves surrounded by native forest and vegetation. Sometimes we cross a few "green tunnels", where vegetation completely embraces the trail, and on others we cross some small streams with improvised wooden bridges.

Sometimes, small streams are crossed with wooden bridges...

...other times we cross them with stone ones, like this one, already in the Curral.

One hour, since departure, is more or less the time to reach Curral Jangão. Pacing ourselves, stopping a few times to take some pictures, and the full hike should take us about three hours from Boca da Encumeada and back. For the ones of us that love stronger emotions the path continues, from Curral Jangão, and at an additional 10 kilometres, to Boca da Corrida, passing close to Pico Grande. In fact, Curral Jangão is located in the old path that used to connect Boca da Corrida to Encumeada and also Serra de Água. So it comes as no surprise that we find, in the middle of nowhere, the perfect architecture of the stone bridge above.

The trails that we use nowadays for fun, were, for centuries, the only way possible for the Madeira inhabitants to travel within it.

Upon arrival to Curral Jangão, I meditated for awhile about that. Here, in this peaceful and sheltered high valley, while eating a few chestnuts that I've picked up from the trees, I cannot feel less than amazed for the centuries of efforts taken to vanquish Madeira's violent orography. Without anything more than manual tools and muscle power, these people built a net of water channels (the "levadas"), hundreds of kilometres long, to bring water from the moistly North coast to the sunnier and agricultural-friendly fields on the South. For this hydraulic effort, they vanquished the natural barriers with tunnels and suspended aqueducts, many of them in vertiginous places.

Then the connection between the several human settlements in the island. The net of trails (or "veredas" like they call them in Portuguese) is, certainly, older than the "levadas". But not less difficult to achieve, as we can see in so many parts of the island. Not all of them are so easy to build like this one where I'm standing. There are so many others where nature was uncooperative. Even today, after a more rough Winter, we still face difficulties in returning to the mountain paths. A rock fall here, a mud slide there and some paths become impractical for months. And today we have mechanical tools. How it would be like, in the fifteen century? I think about those ancient construction workers. If their spirits are somewhere, in a nice balcony with a view to their works of art, they must be glad to see their legacy still being used by the new generations.

I know I would.

And with this comforting thought on my mind I return home.

Terraced agricultural fields on the South face of Pico da Encumeada, Curral Jangão.

Bye, bye Armas

Well, it's a fact. The ferry "Volcan de Tijarafe" made her last call in Funchal on the past 30th of January, coming from Portimão and heading to Canary islands, thus ending a commercial operation of nearly four years and her contribution in approaching the populations of Madeira, continental Portugal and Canary islands to each other.

Madeira and Azores remain, therefore, two of the few ultra peripheral European regions without a ferry connection to the European mainland. I don't now about you, but to me it sounds as a regression in time... back to the medieval age. I had the pleasure of being a customer once. And since I'm in an island where when you think travel you think flying, I loved the very refreshing idea of driving my car from Funchal to Portimão and all the way to Singapore and back if I wanted. And so I did it. Not to Singapore, granted. Just to my hometown, in the continental mainland. To me the experience was worth the (comparatively low) cost. And I dare to bet that if you ask that same question to each and one of the thousands of passengers and tourists transported in the past four years, they will give you the same positive answer.

Some carried goods were also arriving to the market shelves with lesser prices than before, namely fruit and fresh vegetables.

And thanks to that ferry line, Madeira got acquainted with a new type of tourist. New, at least, in the island history:  the camper van tourist.

Motor biker expeditions became also common, with several motard clubs in the three vertices of the triangle Madeira-Portuguese mainland-Canary organizing trips within it.

All that is, at least for the near future, gone. And strangely as it may seem, people were not convinced about the reasons. Some say it was due to commercial reasons. The line simply could not be profitable. Others will give the politics answer, eventually colouring it with a few words that we cannot say, for the sake of decency, in front of children. Well I don't know about that. I'm not versed enough in shipping economics to know if the line had the slightest chance to survive since the beginning.

And the politics. Oh, yes... the politics. Well, I couldn't care less about the low level of the regional politics that surrounds us (the same statement is valid to the national one also, by the way!) and it's eventual intervention - or lack of it - in all the process.

However, as a common citizen, living in the "Atlantic Pearl", I'm worried. I'm worried about our increasingly narrow quality of life. And with the reductions in alternatives. With the disappearing of this shipping line we are today one step further away from Europe, when yesterday we were one step closer.

The Armas farewell is only a symptom of the difficulties and solitude that lay ahead. Maybe I'm exaggerating, seeing a black canvas. Maybe they'll return in Summer time, bringing the nice weather and more peaceful voyages. I can only hope so. However, until that day comes, my last memory of that visionary enterprise is a peaceful Winter evening in the bay of Funchal and a departing ship greeting her for the last time. On that evening of January, we all felt a little bit poorer.

Ilhéu da Cal at dusk

Ilhéu da Cal is a small islet SW of Porto Santo island and distant about 400 meters from the later. For many years this islet was the heart of a calcium oxide mining industry that no longer exists and is now a nature reserve, hiding within rare flora and fauna. The inaccessibility of the island protects the delicate ecosystem and visits are only allowed with a special permit.

Nikon D40X with Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens

Cokin Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Manfrotto tripod and ball head