Porto Moniz

After a very nice day spent touring - a few hours at Pico do Areeiro (1817 m), a brief stop at Câmara de Lobos (which is Portuguese for 'chamber of the wolves'), and a swim, relaxed lunch stop, and explore of Ribeira Brava 'wild stream', we returned to Porto Moniz late afternoon to go to the Madeira Aquarium, housed in Forte João Batista. Located on the sea front, the little fort was built in 1730 to defend against pirates and restored in 1998 to accommodate the aquarium.

Worth a visit but slightly expensive (€7 each) for the size; I was keen to see more local fish and work out maybe what some of the things I'd seen were. There were various small tanks, some rock-pool type tank exhibits, and a nice main tank (quite full). A good thing about the aquarium was that no photography whatsoever was permitted. Flash upsets many animals and is extremely bad for some delicate fish, sea horses etc, and people generally don't know how to or are too lazy to turn the their flash off. So the pictures here are from my swim the other day (a puffer fish and goby on some red sponge).

It was also nice and quiet, with only a few other people there, and it was good to watch the fish in peace. Yas enjoyed it, watching the morays and the prawns. The tiny shop/stand sold mainly souvenirs with the aquarium's starfish logo, baseball caps etc, and no decent books. However for the foodie holidaymaker was the grandly titled Maderian Gastonomy (or something like that) so one could learn at least how to prepare the things for eating!

Caniçal

Slightly less windy over night (12-15mph perhaps), and not many more days left, so decided to find somewhere sheltered for a swim. Best spot seemed to be a beach near Caniçal, it was sandy, fairly sheltered, and further protected today by a nearby breakwater. First though we stopped in Caniçal itself for a quick look round, to pick up some food to make lunch, but most of all to visit the whaling museum and were pleased to find it open this time of year. We didn't see a life-size model sperm whale or the whaling boat boat said to be on show, but looked at the interesting whaling artefacts, models, and artwork and watched an interesting short film about Madeiran whaling.

On to our beach, parked at the top of the cliff and took all the kit down to the beach. Used my FJ suit and rash vest and hood (didn't bother with gloves) and 4kg of lead. Camera: my Canon IXUS 700. I hadn't bought my slightly rubbishy strobe, but had recently used with the camera's own diffuser with good results. There would be plenty of light and good visibility.

Water felt cold going in but soon warmed up. There was a bit of a surge around the rocks, but not too bad. Swimming out it was very clear and blue. Estimated the visibility to be about 10m, but may have been slightly more. Setting off, the rocks were quite barren but I did notice some barnacles and algae as I was getting my fins on (I hadn't seen any weed, shells, or any creeping thing on any of the beaches we'd stopped at previously). The sandy bottom was also apparently lifeless. Then as I got a bit further out and swam down, things suddenly became interesting with reefy turf, plants and colourful fish.

The fish I can remember were: painted wrasse, saddled bream, parrot fish, shiny blue fish, (all frequent), salp, small grey blue fish (shoals), lizard fish (common), weaver fish (2x), puffer fish (2x), tompot blenny, black headed goby.

Invertebrates included: spiny starfish (these attractive ble and brown), red starfish, brown spotted sea cucumber, yellow, red, green/brown sponges. Sea urchins abundant on the large angular boulders. Some of these had striking blue streaks in the narrows between the spines; the spines of many seemed longer than those I'd seen off Crete, and they were generally spread well apart from one another. I found a few top shells and limpets, but saw no crabs or anenomes.

Plants: reefy turf had short green/turquoise weed with lobed edges, short dark tufts of something, but the largest and most conspicuous plant was the plump pink feathery weed that was dotted around in clumps.

I snorkelled for about an hour going as far as the breakwater then back the way I came slowly, over the beach then over to the rocks on the other side. More exposed the visibility wasn't as good and the effect of the surge far greater. From what I could make out there was less to see, so I came in. I was very pleased with a good swim here and seeing plenty of life.

Porto Moniz

Not ideal for snorkelling, and I couldn't even go for a swim in the rock pools. The pools were barred off - which was a shame because they looked so inviting and jacuzzi-like. The north coast gets the worst of the weather, but it was unpleasantly wavy round most of the south coast too; the ocean swells wrapping round the island. I would just have to be patient.

Above, the northern coastline of the desolate Ponta São Lourenço, to the east of Madeira, on the day I did get to go snorkelling.