Red Flag For Water Quality; Goodbye To The King Of Spain ; Basso Wins Madeira Wine Rally
(2nd August). Today’s main news headline . ‘RED FLAG – There are hotels with red flags and beaches with yellow flags because of dirtiness and jellyfish. The ‘Environment’ says that the tests produce good results. The bathers are on dry land’. The people see rubbish that the entities deny exists. Four beaches have already taken down their Blue Flags since the official start of the beach season. There is rubbish in the sea nearly every day, but the Regional Director for the Environment doesn’t know about any cases of pollution in the swimming zones. The fortnightly water test results have been good, with the only bad result being at Praia do Vigário, that doesn’t have a Blue Flag. Four of the twenty Blue Flags awarded this year have already been taken down. That includes the one at Madalena do Mar, that won’t be returning, after the water was found to be cloudy due to discharges from the land. Lido, Calheta (and Madalena) are singled out several times in the article for particular criticism, mentioning pollution coming from hotels, of an unpleasant origin. “As for jellyfish, biologists guarantee that there is no connection between the plague this year and dirty water, but the truth is, that when the sea is dirty, there are more jellyfish, and the those responsible hoist the yellow beach flags to avoid any hassle”. The jellyfish are common in Madeira’s waters, but for many years they have not been seen in such large numbers, with so many bathers stung, and they are the biggest cause of complaint this year. Did I wake up on a different island this morning? For anyone thinking of visiting Madeira this article would be quite off-putting, and I actually left out some of the more specific and unpleasant parts. I can only say from my experience, and I have been in a beautifully clear clean jellyfish free sea this week, that in my opinion there may be some places with problems as reported, but they must be vastly outnumbered by clean safe places round the island. Funchal, through the high concentration of population, hotels, boats etc. is bound to have more problems than elsewhere, but it is is also much better equipped to respond to any reports of pollution very quickly after notification. The very relevant photograph above courtesy of the Diário de Notícias.
‘Cavaco Wants To Bring Princes To Madeira – Joan Carlos said goodbye yesterday to Madeira and is going to encourage Spanish businessmen to invest in the region’. After the kings, the princes. The President of the Republic expressed the wish to see the Spanish princes come to Madeira, and made an invitation to the future king / queen of Spain, Carlos and Letizia, whilst on the golf course designed by Seve Ballesteros. The Spanish king and queen returned home yesterday, finishing their royal visit on Porto Santo, but after Juan Carlos said he would like to return to Madeira. On Porto Santo the beach was empty as people flocked to see the royal visitors. At the airport, because of tight security, the goodbye was witnessed mostly by tourists. The royal walkabout in Funchal earlier was very tight in security terms. Rubbish bins were removed, and mobile phone networks were disconnected in the vicinity. Anyone watching from windows was ordered to close them, and retreat back into the room.
In a separate article : ‘Juan Carlos promises greater business cooperation – The King will present the case for Madeira to businessmen from the private transport sector’. The royal visit has already served to promote Madeira for tourism in Spanish territory, and has also provided publicity for some of the problems of the regions, particularly those related to being a remote island.
‘Young Man Dies In Motorcycle Accident In Campanário’. The 25 year old died yesterday afternoon after coming off of his motorbike in a tunnel on the via rápida at Campanário. He was a natural of Caniço. That’s the ninth road death on Madeira so far this year, with 5 within the last month.
The main front page photo today shows two drivers on top of their car, with champagne, after winning the Wine Rally : ‘Basso Makes It Three In The Vinho Madeira – The Italian driver makes the party in the 5th edition of a rally that lasted until the final special test, because of the pressure of Bruno Magalhães, 2nd placed. Alexandre Camacho secured the final place on the podium’. Basso (and Dotta) have participated here 5 times, and won in three of those. The Madeira team came in a very respectable third. FULL STORY & RESULTS
‘More Generics Sold – The market share of generic medicines on Madeira has already hit around 10%’. The search for the cheaper alternatives increases. Between June 2008 and June 2009, 629,100 packages or bottles of such medicines were sold here. That’s around 10% of the market, up from 572,000 on the same period the year before. The total expenditure on generics was under €7 million, around €1 million less than the year before, due to government forced price cuts. Health professionals are also obliged to tell patients that generic drugs are as effective as the brand names, but they are not obliged to prescribe them. A new campaign to further the cause has the motto “Don’t you think that being ill already costs enough?”, and will run until October.
Around 50,000 Madeirans have already applied for the Cartão do Cidadão (Citizen’s Card), around 20% of the population. That happened in just one year. The single card replaces the multitude of cards each citizen has for identification, health, tax, social security, and voting.
‘Fires Oblige Alert – The fires in Santa Cruz were under control yesterday, but the area was still under observation’. A team of 20 firefighters spent all day yesterday on surveillance duty in the areas affected by fires since Friday morning. The fire only threatened houses (but not according to RTP national news, that said two houses were quite damaged and had film footage of one), but a warehouse was damaged by the fire. It was eventually confirmed at the end of yesterday that all fires had been extinguished.
There will be restrictions on the via rápida between Funchal and Cancela from tomorrow until the 13th August for roadside repairs. Some exits will also be affected.
