Dawn of a new day

While watching, though the tv network, the ending of a massive public demonstration that took place, until a few minutes ago, in Lisboa's Terreiro do Paço square, I can't help but to be afraid of the future laying ahead of us all.

Portugal, a notoriously peaceful country, is giving signs, during the past weeks, of cracking under the stress-induced austerity measures placed by the government. I'm, personally, deeply worried that what lays ahead is social turmoil and political instability.

Meanwhile, in our small Madeira, life goes on. Day after day. We just don't look for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow anymore. And we don't dream anymore. We are just trying to keep our jobs, to survive, and, while squeezing the Euros (shorter from day to day), we wait. Like this mooring foreman, in the Pontinha breakwater, standing-by for the berthing manoeuvre of the M/V Oriana, one day ago.

A mooring foreman awaits the arrival of the M/V Oriana, from P&O, to the port of Funchal, yesterday, at sunrise.

Picture taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

NRP Cacine

The NRP Cacine, a patrol boat from the Portuguese Navy, enters the Funchal port in the present day's afternoon.

This class of vessels were built in Portugal and with the military effort in the Colonial War on sight. After the war and the consequent Portuguese colonies independency, in the mid-seventies, all the units of the family were stationed in the Portuguese mainland and autonomous regions of Madeira and Açores, serving mainly for fisheries patrols and SAR operations. From an original class of ten vessels (each one baptized with the name of a river from the former Portuguese African territories), only four still navigate.

Pictures taken with Panasonic DMC-FT3 waterproof and shockproof digital camera.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Sétima Legião live in the Santa Catarina Park

Few bands shaped a whole generation in Portugal as did Sétima Legião. A pop sound with clear roots in the Portuguese ancient medieval music and troubadours, these musicians shaped the eighties and early nineties generation in Portugal. "Authentic pearls of the Portuguese music", as the Blitz music newspaper once said, both the LP's "Mar d'Outubro" and "A um Deus desconhecido" hardly had a weaker song in a perfect production of both lyrics and music. Multi-instrumentalists, the use of ancient instruments during their concerts, such as bag-pipes, hurdy gurdies, flutes, accordion and percussion, was frequent and added depth to the characteristic solemn sound of the band.

I spend my whole youth and also the Nautical School years listening to these guys. And suddenly (and sadly!) they disappeared.Most of them with college education, they went searching for their respective careers.

And now, after years away from the music world, they returned. To another (probably the last one) tour. With mandatory passage by Madeira (Ricardo Camacho, professionally a Physician, and the band's keyboardist, is natural from the island), it would be a sin not to be a part in the concert. I was not disappointed. I, suddenly, returned back twenty-five years in my live. To the dreams I had when I first listened to them. Some of those I managed to pursuit. And they became real. The others remained just like that. Dreams. To be fulfilled in the future. If life permits.

In the end, we are all twenty-five years older. Me, the band and the generation (my own!) listening to them in that peaceful end-of-Summer night in Santa Catarina park. But their music is still as young as when I heard it, two-and-a-half decades ago.

Sétima Legião, live in Santa Catarina Park, Funchal, yesterday's night.
Picture taken with Panasonic DMC-FT3.
Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Autumn leaf

It's now official.

Meteorology changed abruptly in the past couple of weeks. The weather in Madeira is moving towards Winter. And contrary to the past two years, it seems that the upcoming rain season it's going to be exactly that: rainy.

Not that I'm complaining. The land was already needing some water, with the levadas around the island with dangerous low levels, thus compromising the cultures, the hydroelectric production and also the fresh water supplies to the population. We never, actually, had any shortages in these matters. However, since Madeira is fully dependent on pluviosity to equilibrate the water consumption all the population welcome these early rain showers with a smile.

Oh well, as long we don't have strong winds (Pilot's worst enemy in this neighbourhood), the Autumn season is clearly welcome. And I'm sure missing the colours.

Autumn leaf close to Queimadas, last year's Autumn.

Picture taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma EX 18-50mm f/2.8 DC HSM.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Waterfall

Along the forest road connecting the village of Santana to Queimadas (the starting point to one of the most beautiful levadas in Madeira: to Caldeirão Verde) there are a few water streams and waterfalls. This is the land of the green-coloured forests and trouts enjoying their creeks.

And, although the past two years have been quite dry, the Northern forest stills keeps its magic and monochromatic enchantment. Under the green canopy, you'll find people like you passing by, and, just like you, with a strong bond to the natural world. In front of you might lay several miles of a fairytale forest. Made from the same stuff that molds our dreams. And "a river running though it".

Small waterfall in a creek close to Queimadas.

Picture taken with Nikon D300 and Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 EX DC HSM.

Manfrotto tripod and geared head.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Costa Deliziosa

After a couple of weeks on holidays, I have returned to my job as a Funchal harbour Pilot. While we wait that the rests of the passing-by hurricane Nadine pays us a visit, we keep on enjoying the remains of the Summer with nice weather and a few early-morning manoeuvres.

Today, besides the Aida Sol, under Pilotage by my fellow colleague João Santos, we had also the visit of the Costa Deliziosa, currently the flagship from Costa Crociere.

Color picture converted to Black & White in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Picture taken with Panasonic DMC-FT3 compact waterproof and shockproof camera.

Roncesvalles

On a cold and rainy November night, back in the early nineties, I stepped off from a bus coming from Pamplona and started looking for a place to sleep. While walking to the town's only hotel along the desert road, with the sound of the rain and my own footsteps as my only companions, I couldn't help but ask to myself what was I doing in the middle of the Winter in that small Pyrenean village. As soon as I settled down, the answer quickly shined in my mind. I came looking for a legend. A legend of medieval times, of dark ages, of war and Heaven, of courage and fear, of heroism and fate. The legend of a King, the Emperor Charlemagne, and a devoted knight, Roland, dying in his final battle not far away from here.

It's the legend of his courage and his more than legendary sword Durandal striking a final blow on the Pyrenean spine, while attempting to retreat with his army to France, in one of the many religious wars that grassed over our old Europe.

It's the legend of Santiago de Compostela. And the Way of St. James, passing by and leading to it. It's the legend of the Rocesvalles order of warrior monks, protecting the pilgrims to Compostela since the late XII century.

On my second day there, around two coffee mugs in a restaurant nearby, I met the priest of the collegiate church, of the cathedral. We spoke a little. About the History and about the Legend. He asked me if I was a pilgrim. I said that I was not. Just a simple wannabe-freelance journalist on a personal quest for light.

Now, when I look back and think about it, a pilgrim, truly, was what I was. Because there is no way that you can go to Roncesvalles without being in your own pilgrimage.

The altar in Roncesvalles abbey on a quiet November night, almost twenty years ago.

Picture taken with Pentax SF-1 and Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.7 KAF lens.

Agfachrome RS 50 ASA, scanned in Nikon Coolscan V ED and post-processed in Adobe Photoshop CS3.