Dolphin Watching From Funchal: Finding Store 2

Why the store number matters

Marina do Funchal is not a single desk. It is a working marina with a row of numbered units along its front, several operators selling from them, and a great many white and orange boats on the water beyond.

Store 2 is a specific address in that row. Turning up at the marina and looking for a boat, rather than looking for the unit, is how people spend fifteen anxious minutes asking strangers on a morning that was supposed to be relaxed.

It is a small thing that removes the only genuinely confusing part of the day. Find the numbered unit first, check in there, and let the staff walk you to the right boat rather than trying to identify it yourself from a pontoon.

No hotel pickup, and why

Hotel pickup and drop-off appears among the exclusions. Both journeys are yours to organise, and that is stated up front instead of being left for you to work out on the day.

Given a small boat working from a harbour in the middle of a compact city, that stance holds up. Collecting passengers hotel by hotel would add an hour to a two and a half hour trip, and most of those passengers are already within a short walk of the water.

It does mean planning the journey yourself, which for the majority of visitors staying in Funchal means a walk. That is not much of an imposition on a seafront that is flat, pleasant and lined with promenade the whole way.

Walking down to the marina

The city climbs a great bowl of hillside above its harbour, and the marina occupies the flat strip where that bowl meets the sea. Almost every visitor is somewhere on the slope above, so the route down is simple: head for the water.

Coming from the cathedral quarter, the old streets or the hotel strip, you are looking at a few level minutes beside the water. The geography does the navigation for you in a city where very little else about walking is straightforward.

Going back up the hill afterwards is a less appealing prospect in midday heat with salt drying on your skin. There is a rank on the promenade, and taking a car is no admission of defeat. Dolphin watching Funchal Madeira begins here rather than at a hotel door, which is worth knowing before the morning itself.

Taxis, driving and parking

Taxis are plentiful in Funchal, metered, and every driver knows the marina. If you are staying outside the centre or up the hill, this is the straightforward option and the ride is short from anywhere in the centre.

Driving yourself is possible but adds a step. Most spaces in the centre are underground, and whichever garage is closest to the harbour will be full earliest. Budget more minutes than the map implies.

Buses run frequently along the seafront and cover the whole city, though working out the right stop and the right direction is more effort than the walk saves for anyone already staying centrally.

Arriving from a cruise ship

The cruise berths occupy the same stretch of water, which makes this straightforward on a port day. Reckon on a quarter of an hour or so on foot, depending where your ship ties up.

Do the sum before you book: the sailing itself, the two walks, and something spare, all comfortably inside when the gangway closes. That fits a full-day call comfortably and a shorter one if you take the first sailing.

Book independently rather than through the ship if you want this particular boat, but do the timing honestly. A semi-rigid that has found a pod is not turning back early for one passenger with a gangway to catch.

When to get there

Before the departure time, and by a useful margin. The stated two and a half hours is time on the water. Check-in, life jacket issue and the briefing all happen before that, and they take as long as they take.

A first visit to any marina involves a few minutes of orientation, so allowing for that turns a potentially stressful arrival into an easy one. There is a promenade to stand on and a view to look at while you wait, which is not a hardship.

It also gets you a choice of seat. The bow is the most exciting and the wettest, the stern the driest and steadiest, and the people who board first are the ones who get to decide.

Where you end up

You are returned to the berth you left, right in the centre, which is as convenient a place as the island offers to be released with an afternoon unplanned.

Restaurants fill the old quarter a short way along the front. The Mercado dos Lavradores, with its fruit stalls and fish counters, sits just back from the water. The Monte cable car starts from that same corner of the city.

That is the practical case for a short trip from a central marina. Two and a half hours takes you into deep ocean and puts you back on the promenade in time for lunch, with the whole afternoon still unspent.

Before you book

The night before

1. Check your confirmation

   It names the departure point and the time. Read it then rather than on the walk down to the water.

2. Head for the seafront

   The marina is on the promenade in the centre of Funchal, signposted and impossible to miss once you reach the water.

3. Look for the numbered stores

   The units along the marina front are numbered. You want store 2, not a general excursion desk.

4. Check in and get a jacket

   This is where the paperwork happens and where the life jackets are issued before anyone goes near the boat.

5. Listen to the briefing

   Short and worth attending to: how to sit, how to hold on, and what to watch for on the water.

6. Walk into the city

   You come ashore in the middle of town, minutes from the old quarter, the market and the Monte cable car.