Cane sugar mill

Madeira has a secular tradition in the plantation of sugar cane for the purpose of producing white and raw sugar, and also sugar derivatives as bagasse and the famous sugar cane honey used profusely on the island's cuisine.

One of the oldest factories still laboring is located in the village of Calheta, on the South coast. With half-a-century of activity, the Sociedade dos Engenhos da Calheta is, today, a mixture of industrial unit and live museum, with daily visits by the tourists.

Sadly the sugar cane presses no longer operate with steam engines, having being replaced by electric ones a couple of years ago.

Funnels on the cane sugar mill of Calheta, on the South coat of Madeira.

Photo taken with Nikon D40X and cheap Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 G DX VR kit lens.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom.

Why I want to be a Captain

I found this Xerox copy on the bridge of the M/S Bremen, during her last call in Funchal, about one week ago. I've found it so funny that I've requested a copy to the Staff Captain. I particularly enjoy the part "...and when the propeller falls off they have to know what to do about it.". Hilarious.

Xerox copy scanned in Cannon Canoscan N676U flat scanner and converted to jpeg. Post-processing and resizing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Mafra. A baroque extravaganza.

It's, sometimes, for me hard to understand why do we devote so much time building monuments to our own vanity. But, anyway, the thing that scares us the most (like my fellow colleague :-) Joseph Conrad wisely wrote in Lord Jim) is oblivion. We are scared to death that everybody forgets our microscopic passage through this world as soon as we close our eyes. To avoid that, men built pyramids and palaces. Sometimes we also made wars and created a lot of pain and misery. Very few ascended to the immortality condition with anything related to the mankind well-being.

After visiting the Mafra monastery I'm still in doubt about the group where we should include the King João V, the monarch of the time and the idealist of this barroque extravaganza. Built in a time when the gold from Brasil was arriving to Lisboa in buckets, this was, probably, his signature for posterity.

Strangely, and according to the late great historian José Herman Saraiva, this massive palace (still one of the biggest in the world) was built for nothing, since nobody from the royalty ever lived there. Probably turned down by the sheer size of the palace and its cold emptiness, the royals only visited Mafra for hunting games in the nearby "Tapada".

The palace, also a monastery, remained occupied by the monks until 1834, year when the religious orders were extinct in Portugal.

Nowadays, it's a national monument and also houses the Infantry School of the Portuguese Army.

Probably the most breathtaking division in the monastery, the fabulous library, housing 35000 books, rivals in sheer size and opulence with others built during the Renaissance years all over Europe. According to the Wikipedia, the tv miniseries Gulliver's Travels, from NBC, was shot partially in this amazing Rococo division. You'd have to visit it to understand why.

Handheld photo taken with Nikon D40X and Sigma 10-20mm EX DC HSM f/4-5.6.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

The Madeira bread soup

Most of the times there is nothing more rewarding, after finishing a levada walk or a hike through the high peaks of Madeira, than a hot meal and a warm bath. However, if you are still away from home and it's already late in the evening, just the hot meal will do. At least it will warm up your stomach and give back some of the energy lost during the day.

This is especially true during the Winter months, when the inclement weather becomes a constant on the mountains and hypothermia is a risk not to be taken lightly.

Most of the times, under these circumstances, dry, solid food is not really something that you are craving for. What we wish, normally, is an easily digested food with lots of nutrients to compensate our day losses. And warm. Hence... liquids. A tea is very good for this, escorted with a few crackers or a toast. However, if you are feeling homy, there is nothing better than a soup to feed and relax you at the same time. So, while you wait, late in the afternoon, for your connecting bus to Funchal, just enter in the nearest restaurant and ask for the Madeira bread soup.

This typical meal of Madeira is, somehow, a sub specie in a vast family of Portuguese bread soups (açordas, in Portuguese). They all have in common the fact that they are, in a certain way, cheap to be made. They surely were invented in a time when people were poor and didn't had the resources to buy all the culinary items that, today, we take for granted. Therefore their base is quite simple: it consists of bread cubes and boiled water over it. Without forgetting the Portuguese olive oil. The subsequent diversity just depends of how rich you store room is. You just add the ingredients and culinary herbs that you have at hand, at your heart's content. Depending of your technical expertise you can go from a simple Madeira garlic bread soup to a high-tech (and delicious, by the way) Açorda de Camarão (a shrimp bread soup, but more consistent... more solid).

Just try the simpler one, while in vacations among us. After a day's walk, I'll promise you it will taste like Heaven.

The Madeira bread soup, as served in Casa de Chá da Ponta do Pargo (Ponta do Pargo tea house), on the West coast of the island, some weeks ago. To the best of my knowledge, this soup consists of bread, in slices or in cubes, olive oil, salt, pepper, a boiled egg, segurelha (satureja montana), garlic, hortelã (mentha spicata), chili pepper and... hot water.

An endless week

My God. It's finally Friday night. We are fully in the cruise season and this week was, to say the least, frantic. Cruise ships all over the port. Waking up between four and five A.M. and never ending the day before twenty-two hundred. And the weather was not helping. Under the effects of a low pressure for almost a full week, we were having, during the same period, the usual Southwesterlies so common in Madeira, during Winter time.

Spoiled by the past two years of impeccable weather, I'm finding myself with difficulties in adapting the body to work under these more rough circumstances. Particularly funny are the boarding and disembarking moments, with five meter swell and forty-five knots winds.

Oh well... like we, cynically, say, if this life was always sunshine and roses it definitely wouldn't be for us.

The Finnish cruise vessel Kristina Katarina leaving the port of Funchal and heading to La Palma during the present day's rainy afternoon.

MS Deutschland

Although not so old (she was launched in 1998), the MS Deutschland has the looks and the feeling of the late great liners and their Era, which finished during the sixties.

Contrasting with the modern cruise ships (usually a mix of resort, shopping mall and Las Vegas casino), the Deutschland has the classic interiors now, sadly, lost in the modern naval architecture. The profuse use of noble woods and wood work and the ever present shiny brass should make any ship fan more than happy to sail with her.

As for me, with was a pleasure to be her Pilot.

A sculpture in MS Deutschland's beautiful main stairway. It's not the only one. Along the vessel's different halls and stairways there is plenty of artwork to be admired.

Picture taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3.

Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Pilot Card:

Ship's name: M/S Deutschland

IMO number: 9141807

Type: Cruise ship

LOA: 175.30 mts

Beam: 23.00 mts

Summer displacement: ?

Max draft on manoeuvre: 5.80 mts

Propulsion: Diesel engines, two variable-pitch propellers, total propulsion power: 12320 KW

Rudder: 2 Spade rudders - Independent

Bow thruster: 1 (total power: 1000 KW)

Stern thruster: N

AIDAcara

Started today my three weeks working period, after a couple of weeks off-duty, in the port of Funchal. We are already in the full cruise ship season, so today I've had house full. Starting with the arrival manoeuvre of the M/V AIDAcara, at 0700 in the morning, we received also the cruise ship Ventura (with ETA to 1230) and, subsequently, the M/V Braemar, arriving at 1600. Southwesterly winds, varying from force 5 to 7, were a constant during the all day. Add some rain showers in the mix and a two meters swell outside and you'll got the receipt for Pilot's wet feet, which, in fact, did happen.

Well... seaman's life. Like a fellow colleague has the habit of saying: if this was easy, it would never, ever, be for us.

The AIDAcara leaving the port of Funchal, a few hours ago, and heading to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary islands, her final call in Europe before the transatlantic crossing that will lead her to Rio de Janeiro and to a two-months period sailing in the South-Atlantic waters. Godspeed.

Pilot Card:

Ship's name: M/V AIDAcara
IMO number: 9112789
Type: Cruise ship
LOA: 193.34 mts
Beam: 27.60 mts
Summer displacement: ?
Max draft on manoeuvre: 6.00 mts
Propulsion: Diesel engines, two variable-pitch propellers, total propulsion power: 21720 KW
Rudder: 2 - Independent
Bow thruster: 2 (total power: 2000 KW)
Stern thruster: N

Picture taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3.
Post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS3.