A week of diving, dolphins and very good company

30 June – 7 July 2025  |  Pestana Carlton Madeira Premium Ocean Resort

Jet2 from Bristol  |  Bed & Breakfast  |  DivePoint Madeira

Overview

We last visited Madeira in May 2023 (you can read that report elsewhere on this site) and came away thoroughly impressed by both the above and below water offerings. Sufficiently impressed, in fact, that we went back. The danger with such a course of action is obvious: returning to a place you loved and finding it somehow diminished. Fortunately for us, it measured up entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The repeat visitors were Kevin and Vicki, Geoff and Teresa, and Nigel — though on this occasion flying solo, as Claire had other commitments. Joining us were Tim & Sue making seven in all, all staying at the Pestana Carlton Madeira Premium Ocean Resort, all there for a week of Atlantic diving, exceptional food and the kind of easy company that makes a holiday feel effortless.

The diving was once again in the safe hands of DivePoint Madeira, operating from the base of the cliff directly below the hotel. With Wilfred at the helm and guides including Miguel, Sara, Paolo, Alfonse and Pablo — the latter a familiar face from 2023..

Day 1 (Monday 30th June): Travel & Arrival

The alarm went off at 3:30am. Bounty, our Welsh sheepdog, regarded this development with the profound suspicion it deserved & even surprise as we left without him. We collected Tim and Sue at 4, loaded everything into the car — the luggage fitted with  precision — and cruised south west towards Bristol Airport as the sun began to make its first tentative appearance on the horizon.

Sue handled check-in for the group with characteristic efficiency. The desks opened at 5am, twenty minutes ahead of the advertised 5:20, which afforded us a comfortable breakfast at Briggs & Stow before the queues arrived. Geoff, Teresa and Nigel were already downstairs with coffee. Full English for most; vegetarian for one. The flight went smoothly. We had secured Row 1 — front of the plane, prime position for a ceremonial welcome as the rest of the group boarded. The airline, in a spirit of quiet mischief, boarded our friends from the rear! 

Arrival in Funchal was straightforward, and as the second drop-off on the transfer we were at the hotel in just thirty minutes. The rooms, however, were not ready until 3pm and we were offered consolatory drinks — disappointingly non-alcoholic — and we grabbed ourselves some club sandwiches, a tuna sandwich, and what Sue reported to be a very promising-looking dessert. We endured the wait with admirable grace.

With the afternoon to fill, we dropped off the dive kit, completed the paperwork and re-met Wilfred, the head of the diving operation. Mark dealt with the practical briefing: fourteen sites on the map, a suggestion that we might enjoy trying a DPV, and an honest assessment that the eastern sites held nothing you wouldn’t find elsewhere. There is, he mentioned almost in passing, a cave.

We filed that away for later and walked into Funchal to the Beer Garden, where a thoroughly attentive waitress guided us through a tasting selection with infectious enthusiasm. Monte emerged as the clear winner. Tim entertained us with a detailed account of his solar power generation setup — a subject that would resurface at pleasingly random intervals throughout the week. Back at the hotel, Tim, Sue and I grabbed a final bite: fish and chips (excellent) and a prawn salad (equally good). Then bed, at a time more appropriate to the hour.

Day 2 (Tuesday 1st July): First Dives & Funchal Old Quarter

Breakfast sparked an earnest group discussion on the relative merits of domestic cleaning products. After considerable debate — and some surprisingly strong opinions — bicarbonate of soda was declared the clear, unanimous winner. The dining room was quiet at 7:30am but noticeably busier by 8:00. We met at the dive centre at 9am for a briefing, and the non-diving contingent — Vicki, Sue and Teresa — established base camp with an excellent view of the jetty. The procedure was pleasingly familiar: sort weights, kit up, walk to the jetty, don fins at the steps, slip into the water and swim to the boat.

Dive 1: Garajau – Beach (Max Depth: 27m)

The first dive of the trip, and with it the traditional comedy of errors that apparently must accompany any return to diving after a break. On this occasion the chaos centred on a borrowed backplate-and-wing BCD that was put on upside down, a regulator attached with the hoses on the wrong side, a last-minute scramble for a double-ended clip for the DSMB, and a torch that resolutely refused to work — owing, it emerged later, to the battery having been inserted the wrong way round. None of these problems proved insurmountable. The dive itself was a warm, welcoming return to Madeiran waters: reef, boulders, plenty of fish. Tim and Geoff spotted a large grouper tucked under an outcrop. The rest of us, positioned slightly less advantageously, did not.

Dive 2: NRP Afonso Cerqueira – F488 (Max Depth: 32m)

The Afonso Cerqueira — a Portuguese Navy corvette deliberately scuttled around four years ago to create an artificial reef — sits at 32 metres, the deepest of our dives across the week. On this first visit the visibility was slightly milky, but the wreck is substantial enough that it impresses regardless: engine room, stern compartments, a ray resting on the bottom that opened one eye with enormous reluctance when the guide tickled it, and a triggerfish that developed a strong personal interest in two members of the group and got inside a wetsuit on at least one occasion. The ship’s kitchen and mess room were also visited, though the service remained, as one diver observed, as poor as on the last trip. Having subsequently seen the kitchen, nobody was particularly surprised.

The dive was overshadowed somewhat by the loss of a camera. Having slipped the wrist loop on with one hand and reached for the shot line with the other, the camera detached — the lanyard parting from the end of the stick — and vanished silently into the depths below. The guide, admirably, went back in to search. It was not recovered.

That evening, a group of us walked into Funchal’s old quarter — Vicki, Tim, Geoff and Teresa — and, following some navigational instinct too stubborn to be called a plan, found ourselves in exactly the same restaurant down a little side street as two years previously. The same owner at the door, the same persuasive manner. The meal was every bit as good as remembered. Vicki’s parting embrace of the owner was one of those unrepeatable moments. We took the bus back — quick, cheap and, crucially, free of the steep uphill walk to the hotel. We would recommend it without reservation.

Day 3 (Wednesday 2nd July): Double Dive Day

A minor breakfast adventure: the coffee serving staff had been replaced overnight by machines. Vicki, surveying this development with the calm authority of someone who has seen worse, spotted some jugs and quietly took on server duties herself. Nobody went without. A second two-dive day had been negotiated the previous day at lunch; cakes were discreetly sequestered from the breakfast buffet for later use as a surface interval snack.

Dive 3: Pronto (Max Depth: 30m)

The Pronto sits just in front of Funchal harbour — close by, but at 30 metres she is deep enough to keep bottom time short. Twenty minutes was the maximum, which was just enough to circumnavigate the wreck and swim over the top. The stern is somewhat flattened, but the rudder and prop remain, and the highlight was a very large dusky grouper sheltering beneath a covered section near the bow, a smaller companion swimming freely nearby. Visibility around 15 metres.

Our partners watching from the shore, briefly feared something had gone wrong when we surfaced so quickly. Proximity and depth, we reassured them. Cakes from breakfast were produced and consumed with some satisfaction.

Dive 4: NRP Afonso Cerqueira – F488 (Max Depth: 32m)

A return to the Cerqueira in the afternoon, with Sara as our guide for just the four of us — a pleasingly intimate group. We dropped into the middle of the wreck and headed forward past the guns to the prow, then over the side, round to port and into the engine room before working forward through multiple compartments. Out the front, back in heading aft, then down a hatch to a large propeller shaft and tables. By this point we were at 100 bar and one diver (no names!) had accumulated some deco for reasons that remain slightly unclear — the dive computer, it transpired, was still configured for trimix from a previous dive, making the NDL calculations unrealistically conservative. An extended safety stop at six metres followed. Nigel confirmed his computer was equally pessimistic, which was mildly consoling.

Back on the surface, the girls had organised sandwiches, salads and drinks. They are, it must be said, exceptionally good to us. We debriefed over lunch and firmed up the logistics for the dolphin watching excursion the following morning. Dinner that evening was across the road — a pleasant meal to round off a productive day.

Day 4 (Thursday 3rd July): Dolphins & an Afternoon Dive

We mixed things up this morning with a dolphin and whale watching excursion, organised through DivePoint. An early breakfast at 7:30, then a walk down to the yacht marina and onto an 18-person RHIB — fifteen of us on this trip — with Anna leading, Alfonse along as dive guide, and Pablo, who many of us recognised from 2023, rounding out the crew. The boat headed out a fair way, with spotters apparently stationed on land to help locate the pods.

What followed was something rather special. The first encounter was with Atlantic spotted dolphins — suddenly, without warning, the boat was surrounded, the dolphins leaping and bow-riding with what can only be described as ostentatious enthusiasm. Regulations allow just twenty minutes in any one area, so we moved on, tracking a pod of striped dolphins who proved considerably faster and required a fair chase to keep pace with. Our time in that area expired too, and as the boat turned for home a third species materialised: bottlenose dolphins, unhurried and companionable, escorting us for a while before peeling off on their own agenda. Three species in a single morning. Not a bad return on an early start.

The non-divers took the bus back; the diving contingent headed straight to the dive centre for the 12:30 slot.

Dive 5: Garajau – Lazareto (Max Depth: 27m)

This one was billed as a drift dive. The current, in a spirit of gentle but firm resistance, was running in entirely the wrong direction throughout, converting what should have been a relaxed glide into a sustained swim against the flow. The rocky outcrops and boulders descending to sand were good company regardless, and Nigel — who has a particular gift for spotting things others swim past — found shrimp that had eluded the rest of us entirely.

Back from the dive, the BBQ that had been starting as we left had long since finished. The last cheese baguette was claimed; others made do with a cheese and jam offering (reportedly tasteless) or tuna (Nigel’s choice) and chips. Hardly a feast, but it served the purpose.

The evening brought a more interesting encounter. At the hotel bar, we met ‘Jack’ — not his real name — a Brummie representative of the Pestana Club, who bought us free drinks in exchange for a polite hearing of his membership pitch. We did not join. Jack, however, redeemed himself entirely by recommending a nearby restaurant that turned out to serve some of the finest steak any of us had eaten in recent memory, fish of equal quality, bread rolls and garlic butter that were simply outstanding. . Venue for the final evening: confirmed.

Day 5 (Friday 4th July): The Cave & the Wreck

Dive 6: Galo Cave (Max Depth: 22m)

The standout dive of the trip. Wilfred had tempered expectations somewhat — ‘not much life in and around the cave’ — which meant we arrived without undue anticipation. Those expectations were exceeded within minutes and simply kept climbing.

The cave sits slightly east of Garajau, with the entrance at around 12 metres reached by a swift swim from the boat. For Nigel, this was a first cave dive, and he approached with understandable apprehension. It dissolved almost immediately. Inside, protocol requires hugging the west wall in case any seals occupying the cave wish to exit — there were none on this occasion — which gave everyone ample time to absorb the colours of the rock and the particular silence that settles over a cave dive. At the far end, the cave opens into an air chamber: surfacing inside a cave to find a pocket of air above you is an experience that produces a brief, shared quiet more eloquent than any commentary. A camera records all divers who pass through; no more than six per day are permitted, for the protection of the cave’s wildlife.

The swim back out was equally vivid and the exit felt almost too quick. Keeping the shoreline to the left on the return, the group tracked across a boulder-strewn landscape that, whatever Wilfred had suggested, was teeming: shoals in formation, fish chasing each other, fish simply existing with total indifference to our presence. Visibility 30 metres or better. The dive of the trip, without question.

Dive 7: NRP Afonso Cerqueira -F488 (Max Depth: 32m) — Unguided

A third visit to the Cerqueira, this time without a guide, having dived her guided twice this trip and once in 2023. Nigel proposed that part of the dive be devoted to searching for the camera lost on Day 2. Rather than following the shot line, Nigel and I dropped straight to the sand — entering a sea of sand eels — and spread out for an eight-minute search in reasonable visibility. The camera was not found (and hence not as many underwater photos as hoped), the search was called, a bearing was taken, and we headed for the wreck.

En route, a large ray — tailless, apparently untroubled by this fact — skimmed languidly above the sand, the most elegant thing in the water. The upper section of the wreck was explored: the captain’s cabin with its table and desk, the bridge (the wheel, revisited and briefly commandeered), the funnel and scaffolding. Ascending the shot line, Nigel & I encountered Tim and Geoff heading up at the same moment — a pleasing coincidence after an entirely independent dive. A trumpetfish had adopted one diver as a travel companion for much of the wreck, leading him from compartment to compartment with absolute authority and no apparent destination in mind.

Back on the surface, cold beers and food had been organised by our partners. It is not possible to overstate how welcome this was.

That evening, a taxi dropped us just south of the market in Funchal, where we navigated the old quarter with some care — our favourite restaurateur was in her usual position outside, as persuasive as ever, and avoidance required a certain tactical awareness. We settled on a restaurant just across from the cable car station: another enjoyable meal, though, as one member noted, the previous night’s steak had set a bar that few establishments could reasonably be expected to clear.

Day 6 (Saturday 5th July): Market, Tea Rooms & the Levada

A day away from the water — or most of it. A taxi to the morning market, where the stalls were loaded with fruit, dried goods and a variety of chillies so vast and improbable it demanded prolonged contemplation. The fish market provided a more sobering experience: black scabbardfish regarded us with dead-eyed accusation from the slabs, their expressions suggesting a full awareness of the food chain and our position in it. The fish that had apparently bitten Geoff on a previous encounter was identified — or at least a very plausible candidate — lying on a fishmonger’s slab with what the group agreed was appropriate cosmic justice. Fruit tastings were abundant and excellent; dried fruit was purchased in quantities that necessitated some creative luggage management.

From the market, a taxi took us to a tea room that turned out to be exactly the kind of place that makes you wish you’d found it earlier in the week. A cheerful chap from the Midlands served freshly baked scones, cake and tea under a sheltered outdoor glade with a fresh breeze, birdsong, and a dog sunning itself with complete contentment in the yard. Bliss is perhaps not too strong a word.

Nigel then unveiled the afternoon’s activity: a levada walk, advertised by him as approximately ninety minutes. Nigel’s internal geometry, it emerged, operates on a somewhat different scale to the physical world. The walk alongside the levada — the famous irrigation channels that thread across the island’s hillsides — was genuinely beautiful: fresh running water, extraordinary flowers, sweeping views down over the island. It was also considerably longer than advertised. We emerged, eventually, at the Monte cable car station at what felt like the very top of the island, where the cable car down to Funchal and a gelato almost — almost — compensated for the navigational optimism. A lively debate on the subject of the walk’s actual duration continued at dinner, where a restaurant that appeared fully booked proved, on closer inspection, willing to find space for us just as we were about to give up and leave. One to remember: Cassino da Penza.

Day 7 (Sunday 7th July): Island Tour

Geoff, in a masterstroke of organisation, had arranged a private taxi tour of the island for the whole group — a format we had used on the previous visit, though visiting entirely different locations this time. The great pleasure of a private driver is the freedom to stop when and where the mood takes you, and to linger over things that a coach tour would dismiss in ninety seconds. The result was a deeper, more textured experience of Madeiran life: villages, viewpoints, the dramatic volcanic landscape of the interior, the lush terraced hillsides dropping to the sea.

Lunch was at a beachside restaurant, reasonably priced and very good. The afternoon heat was considerable enough that the post-lunch walk became an exercise in shade management — a series of short sprints between patches of shadow, punctuated by moments of completely stationary appreciation of the scenery.

Vicki’s commentary throughout the taxi tour deserves a special mention: every corner negotiated at anything above walking pace was accompanied by a series of sound effects of increasing drama that our driver appeared to find simultaneously baffling and entertaining. The consensus was that she should be given a personal transport budget and a stunt driver.

Day 8 (Monday 8th July): Going Home

The dreaded final morning. The journey was, mercifully, relatively uneventful — save for a slight delay on departure, caused by the wind at Funchal airport. Madeira’s airport is notoriously unforgiving in strong conditions: the runway sits on a headland with the Atlantic on three sides, and when the wind is wrong, it is simply wrong. The pilot’s judgement was sound, the delay modest, and Bristol materialised below us in due course, looking as Bristol-like as ever.

Luggage collected, car retrieved, dog reunited with its’ owners. Back to real life.

Beyond the Dive Boat

Dolphin & Whale Watching

Mentioned above but worth repeating: Three species in one morning: Atlantic spotted, striped and bottlenose dolphins, each encountered separately on the same excursion. The spotted dolphins were the showboating star attraction; the striped dolphins required actual pursuit; the bottlenose were gracious enough to accompany us home. Organised through DivePoint, departing from the yacht marina. Highly recommended.

Food & Drink

The Beer House on the first evening established the tone: a knowledgeable waitress, a tasting flight of local beers, and a warm welcome that prompted generous reciprocity when the bills arrived. Monte was the winner. Fish and chips to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The highlight on paper — and in practice — was the restaurant recommended on Day 4 by ‘Jack’ the Pestana rep, saved for the final evening. Steak of exceptional quality, fish to match, bread rolls and garlic butter that will be thought of wistfully for some time. We would go again.

Elsewhere: the cable car station restaurant on Day 5 delivered a perfectly good meal, helpfully positioned just far enough from last night’s steak for a fair comparison. The old quarter restaurant we returned to from 2023 produced the same owner at the door and the same warm meal. The beachside lunch on the island tour was relaxed and excellent. The tea room on Saturday — scones, cake, that dog in the yard — was a small, perfect thing.

Getting Around

A note on transport, which became something of a running theme. The public bus from Funchal to the hotel — taken the first evening after dinner — was quick, cheap and steep-walk-avoidant. It was taken again after the dolphin excursion. On one occasion, a suggestion that the bus be used when taxis were available prompted what can only be described as principled resistance from one member of the group, who felt strongly that a perfectly good taxi service should not go to waste. The buses, in the end, were usually cheaper. This information was received with the scepticism it apparently deserved.

Highlights, Lowlights & Things That Definitely Happened

• The great bicarbonate of soda debate at breakfast on Day 2, which produced the kind of consensus rarely achieved in international diplomacy. Bicarbonate of soda: universally endorsed.
• The enthusiastic waitress at the Beer House, whose reverse-discount approach to billing — in which the tip appeared to be built into her general manner rather than the mathematics — was warmly appreciated by all.
• The taxi driver on the island tour, who at some point acquired and distributed a quantity of onions with an air of complete normality that none of us felt quite bold enough to question.
• The lift door close button, which — in a hotel of this size and quality — apparently did not exist, or existed in a location accessible only to those who already knew where it was.
• Nigel’s levada walk, advertised as ninety minutes, which covered terrain that Nigel’s memory had apparently edited significantly in the intervening years since he last walked it. The cable car down and the gelato at the bottom were well received, though the full restoration of goodwill took until dinner.
• The variety of chillies at the Saturday market, which was genuinely staggering. One could spend a morning there purely on chillies.
• The group debate — conducted opposite a rather empty-looking restaurant — about whether it would be neighbourly, or just unusual, to offer to sit in the window for a small fee to make the place look busy and therefore more attractive to passing trade. No consensus was reached. The restaurant remained empty.
• Geoff and Tims’ sneaky dive; having completed the penultimate dive of the trip, quietly organising a bonus 25-minute dive off the house reef to use the remaining gas in their cylinders. The rest of us chose to regard this with admiration rather than envy.
• Tim going for a swim from the hotel’s coastal access and coming ashore at a different hotel entirely. He was philosophical about it.
• The search for Vicki’s hat, which consumed the best part of ten minutes of collective effort across the taxi floor, the boot, various bags and several pockets — before being discovered on the headrest, where it had been throughout.
• Vicki’s expression of pure, theatrical outrage upon discovering that a certain restaurant expected customers to cook their own meat on a tabletop grill. The outrage was entirely performative, the steak excellent, but the expression was a highlight in itself.
• And nine euros for half a litre of tap water at one restaurant, which will serve as a cautionary tale for some time. We have named it the Hole in the Wallet. It is not in this report as a recommendation.

Final Thoughts

Returning to a place you loved and finding it just as good — better, even, for knowing where to go and what to look for — is a particular kind of satisfaction. Madeira, DivePoint and the Pestana Carlton delivered everything we hoped for and rather more.

The Cerqueira, dived three times across the week, revealed something new on each visit. The Garajau Marine Reserve rewarded every dive with something unexpected. And the Galo Cave — which we almost didn’t seek out, given Wilfred’s measured assessment — turned out to be the kind of dive that recalibrates the scale against which you measure the others.

As for the camera: still somewhere on the seabed west of Funchal, keeping the sand eels company. There are worse resting places.

Would we go back? Probably not — there are too many other places on the list. But Madeira has a particular quality, a combination of warmth, landscape, food and underwater life that is difficult to replicate. Never say never.

Thanks

Our thanks to Geoff, Teresa, Nigel, Sue, Tim and Vicki for making it such a wonderful experience — good company makes everything better, and this group consistently punches above its weight in that department. Thanks also to the team at DivePoint Madeira, particularly Mark, Wilfred, Miguel, Sara, Paolo, Alfonse, Pablo and Anna, for looking after us so well above and below the water.

Until the next one.

— Kevin

Photography by Kevin & Nigel (underwater). Dive logs and further details available on request.