Last Day in Madeira

For this we spent the morning on a whale watching trip, which was a bit chilly but well worth it. Again lots of firms offer these excursions in  a variety of boats; we went for the one that claimed to have an  eco-friendly boat and was bookable through our hotel. 

They do not guarantee that you will see whales, or dolphins, or indeed anything at all but we were lucky and saw two groups of common dolphins, two pods of pilot whales complete with several mothers and calves and a bonus loggerhead turtle. 

We wouldn't have minded not seeing anything really as we just like to be on the water but that doesn't mean we weren't pleased to see as much as we did. 

It's very difficult to take photos of leaping dolphins and cruising whales while trying to stand still and keep your camera stable on a catamaran type thing that's going up and down. hence my photos were all rubbish. 

This one was the OH's. In the event I realised I was being stupid; I was trying so hard to take a perfect photo (which wasn't going to happen) that I wasn't properly experiencing seeing these wonderful creatures for myself. And when I realised that,  I put away the camera and concentrated on the moment instead. 

It was explained to us that there are very strict rules about whale watching in Madeira, which is to try and prevent the animals becoming stressed. So only one boat at a time at any particular pod, and only ten minutes per boat. It occurred to me that a) this is all well and good but if you had 20 boats that's 200 minutes of something watching the whales so if they get stressed then that's going to stress them even if an individual boat is just there for 10 minutes,  and b) if you have to be so careful  why not just ban it altogether. There again you won't stop people wanting to go and watch the whales so I suppose licencing boats and regulating what they do is probably the best that can be done. 

After the whales we had a very nice lunch out in Funchal and yes, we did have cake again for dessert.

Mine is the chocolate cake and the OH had the strawberry tart. Both delicious. Then it was back to the hotel for packing and getting ready to start the homeward journey the next day. 

We loved Madeira. Not enough to want to go back, because there are still lots of places we want to see for the first time,  but we had a lovely time there and I'm hopeful the OH has now seen the benefit of getting away somewhere warmer in the winter month so that we can go somewhere else  next year. Watch this space!