20.12.2025 – Isolation

On our trip today out on the ocean we ent to a place where we normally don’t go. We went far to the west, even passing the lighthouse of Ponta do Pargo, the westernmost point of the island. If you would go further west, the next piece of Land would be the Bermuda islands roughly some 4450 km away. A bit closer to us are the canary islands, only separated by 450 km of open ocean to the south. From a geographical point of view Madeira is on the African tectonically plate, although politically we are part of Portugal, thus Europe. Morocco is only 550km away from this island, while to the Algarve around 800km of open water is in between. All of this isolation led to the evolution of many endemic species on our island. Some of these are the Trocaz pigeon (Columba trocaz), Madeira firecrest (Regulus maderensis), Madeiran wall lizard (Teira dugesii), Zino’s petrel (Pterodroma madeira). This makes Madeira an unique place on earth.

By Horst Schulte

Sightings of the day

Stenella

09:30 No sightings