The lighthouse at Ponta do Pargo, Madeira
32°48’51.1”N 17°15’43.7”W
The lighthouse at Ponta do Pargo, Madeira
32°48’51.1”N 17°15’43.7”W
Thoughts at the most westerly point on Madeira
The most westerly point on Madeira. This is one of the last places in Europe that a ship sees before crossing the Atlantic. The Atlantic Ocean is deep as well as wide. Madeira, the island, is the tip of a submarine volcano that rises up from the ocean floor 4500 or 5000 metres below the water, as well as the 1800 metres above.
The lighthouses were key points for navigation in the days before radio. Otherwise, it was navigation by the sun, moon and stars or dead reckoning, all depending on a ship’s chronometer (mechanical clock) and maybe just estimates of each day’s progress.
Navigation apart, the last lighthouse of Europe represents for an emigrant the end of the old life, a major step towards a life in the New World and maybe a step in to something better. For the crew, it’s the break from the world they know, with only a matter of trust and faith that they would return. Or the fulfilment of that promise on the return leg, the hope of rejoining those they had left behind months or perhaps years previously, along with the uncertainty of what they will find back home.
For a crew in the Middle Ages, this was as much a leap in to the unknown as it was to leave the Earth’s orbit in the direction of the Moon in the Twentieth century. But at least you can see the Moon but you can’t see America.
You can just look and see the horizon, it’s about 50 km away. The furthest clouds you can see are maybe 400 km away if they are high up. But thinking, simply standing with feet on the ground in front of the stone-built lighthouse, the enormity of the ocean becomes apparent. There’s no land for more than 5800 km, more than ten times further that you can see.
The ocean floor is more than 5000 m. down. The cliff in front is eroding rapidly under the action of the ocean waves; the rock is just rubble that is the remains of many volcanic eruptions. There’s little sense of permanence. It’s easy to feel small. “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes” but in reality two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean. Time to scream in to the wind off that wide wide ocean, and move on.