Funchal

Nov 10th
Funchal

Today was our last stop on the lovely island of Madeira. Again I’d signed up for a tour, and again, something got in the way. I was lucky enough to get on the Toboggan tour, in which you take a cable car up the mountain, and then as a part of the local history, ride down on a wooden toboggan. The toboggan is pretty much just a wooden/wicker looking crate with wooden rails, and after a few passengers get in it, the locals push you down the road, running along side this wood box, making sure you don’t crash into anything. They can control the speed of the thing to as fast or slow as you feel comfortable. And literally, it’s just a group of people sitting in a box letting gravity overcome the friction on the wood against the pavement. People who have done it on past tours all seemed to like it, so I was excited to get to go on this local “thrill ride”, but we had Boat drill that morning. Usually I can get out of the drill without any problems, but today they were doing something extra on the starboard side, my side, that resulted in the entire side being required to be there no matter what. And the dumbest thing is that nothing extra happened to my station, which is always the case because we’re at a different section of the ship, not directly near the life rafts. Maybe this could be a bad thing in case of a real emergency, but it means we never really do anything for the boat drills. So anyways, I missed my departure time and couldn’t go on the tour. I ended up staying aboard till the afternoon, when I eventually got off the ship to walk around the city for a few hours. I had a nice walk and got a few more pictures of the area, spent some of my remaining euros, and even did some shopping at a grocery store – I was out of tooth paste. And oddly enough, the store only really sold Colgate and a few other off brands, which didn’t make me happy because I’ve always been a Crest guy, but whatever. I came back to the ship for a 4:00 rehearsal with Jacqui Scott, a show we’ve all played before, played the gig that night and that was about it for Funchal. Tomorrow is Santa Cruz, La Palma, a new island we haven’t yet visited. Seeya!