Marinas in Portugal Madeira

The Madeira archipelago consists of the islands of Porto Santo, The Desertas, the Salvagens and Madeira itself. Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal and therefore part of the European Union, with a governor resident in the capital Funchal.  The principle language is Portuguese.

The island is mountainous with lush forest and great beaches. Many of the steep sided hills are terraced and produce the famous Madeira Wine which is a type of Portuguese fortified wine and used as an aperitif or a sweet wine. The roots of Madeira's wine industry dates back to the Age of Exploration when Madeira was a regular port of call for ships travelling to the New World and East Indies, the wine was fortified to prevent spoiling on long sea voyages

International flights to Europe can be found from Madeira’s Santa Catarina airport with the national airline TAP (Transportes Aereos Portugueses) flying to Lisbon. At the moment international travel to the rest of the world has to be via mainland Spain. The airport on Porto Santo also has international flights. Interisland Flights are regular and provided by TAP and Air Luxor.
A daily car ferry service connects Madeira and Porto Santo and takes approximately two and a half hours. Contact the Porto Santo Line for ferry times as these vary seasonally.
Porto Santo and Funchal are the only official entry ports but most marinas can help with the paper work.

Roads on all the islands are well maintained, but the narrow county lanes can be twisting and hairy in places, pedestrians believe in immortality and seem to have no fear of traffic. Buses on Madeira are cheap clean and efficient and bus stops are marked Paragem or Paragem de Autocarro. There are no buses on the other islands. Taxis are yellow with a blue stripe and reasonably priced but agree a fare in advance for long journeys. Car hire is readily available; a national or international driver’s license is required that has been held for at least one year. Remember traffic drives on the right hand side of the road.

Many of the marinas have only recently been built and so are modern and have been designed to provide good protection.

As the Madeira Islands are part of Portugal, as of 1st January 2002 the legal currency of the islands became the Euro
The islands use UT (GMT) with daylight saving (+1 Hour) from late March until late September.