We learned a couple of things about weather at Madeira, one we knew and one we didn’t. First of all, Madeira has several micro-climates. It can be pouring down rain in one part of the island, and sunny in another.

Given that all three weather apps we consult for our photography excursions were showing one final day of clear skies followed by 7 days (i.e. until after we have to leave) of rain, Ann and I decided we should select a levada hike to take. Most of the hikes involve moderate, with occasional steep sections to hike, which generally isn’t a problem, but they’re mostly on well-polished stones, which is an issue when its wet.

The next stage of our trip was moving locations from our Airbnb in Funchal to the one in Seixal in the north (closer to the Fanal Forest among other things).  Given our respective check-out and check-in times, we took our time driving along the south and west coasts (after a stop at a bigger grocery store for foodstuffs) and the first of several great lunches in Ponta do Pargo.

Some days seem to try their best to drive you nuts.  Not like the worst day ever (somebody dying or anything like that), but throwing little annoyances at you, really trying to get under your skin.  Well, that’s what kind of day Tuesday was for Ann and me.  Let me explain.

If the next image looks familiar, it should be. It was taken from the exact position that one of the square photographs from the last post was taken from. In fact, it wasn’t until I looked at the taken image in my LCD in the field to evaluate it did I realize that Ann was just outside my square field of view. Suspecting she might move left a bit, I made a couple of more images and . . . then she moved left, so I made this one after changing the format ratio to 2:3 in my camera.

We were on the 6:05 flight out of Porto, which meant we arrived in Madeira around 8:00 in the morning. The flight was smooth, which is saying a lot given the reputation of the now-named Cristiano Ronaldo Airport as being one of the worst airports to land at (you tube Madeira Airport if you want to see the types of conditions you don’t want to await your arrival here). Our check in wasn’t until 5pm so Ann and I decided to do a grand tour of the island during the day to check out the sights.

We continued our walk around the point, eventually returning to the town itself. Then, as I was checking out (and rejecting) a potential subject, I hear Ann’s voice, “Dan, I think that green door is calling your name.” I looked to her, then to her right. As always, Ann was right.

Despite the fullest of intentions, as well as ideas for blog post themes (“Ann and I are terrible tourists” “Even the most stunning places can be hard to photograph” and the not-so-tongue-in-cheek “Do Madeirans even know what level is?”), I haven’t actually taken the time to sit down and blog yet.