THE DAYS ADVENTURES and then some!

Keeping our cell phones , the iPads and the power banks fully charged requires some organizational skills. We have one outlet adapter, with a couple of places to plug in our charging cords. You can imagine if your taking 100 photos a day it will run down your cell phone quickly. We carry power banks. I have been having difficulty posting the photos I take because I messed up my cell phone in my futile efforts to fix it made it worse. So thanks to Donna, she is able to access the photos and help me post them on the blog. However keeping things charged up has been a problem....We would leave the power banks and iPads plugged in all day and sometimes they only charged up to 3%. VERY frustrating. But today we solved the mystery.....In Portugal and probably other countries, you must insert your room key into a slot by the door to get electricity. Here is photo of that "tricky" little slot. We would plug in everything that needed charged and then leave for the day......taking all the room keys with us. DUH! It only took us 4 days to figure out what the charging problem was. So when you visit Portugal again, remember...no key, no power, no key, no lights. 

Today was the ferry boat to Porto Santo. The trip takes 2 1/2 hours each way, The ride was smooth and comfortable. The ferry has 6 decks. One deck has a movie theater, another a cafeteria and lounge. You can sit on chairs outside or in a large viewing room. Donna's husband Dan was concerned we would get sea sick but it was really a beautiful calm day at sea. Here is a photo of the ferry in the port before we boarded it. 

We spent most of our time on board in the comfortable lounge. Do you see Donna on the left. She is the one wearing sunglasses. 

During the trip over and back Donna interviewed some young soccer players who were headed to a tournament. They were energetic, friendly and full of mischief. On the way back they were celebrating their WIN!

Tonight horns are blaring all over the city and everyone is celebrating Portugal's win today! Portugal's National Football team scored another victory! It sounds like the 4th of July all over the city. Fun to hear. We don't know who they played or what the score was! But we are happy for them and cheering the victory too. 

The reason we took the trip to Porto Santos was to see the house Columbus lived in with his wife and son Diego. It is now a museum. The museum has been closed for renovations so we only could view the outside. Once Donna got some photos of the outside, we hopped a tour bus and saw the rest of the island. Porto Santos is more arid
 than Madeira but has some awesome beaches and coastline. Fewer tourists and less developed. There was a local farmers/craft market in town so we sampled some of the local baked goods and enjoyed meeting the vendors. 

This last photo is of an in ground silo that has been preserved by the city. At one time there were many of these which were used to store grain. They were also used to hide valuable items from the frequent pirate raids. Wood would be placed over the top and then sand spread over it to hide the opening. These are called a Matamorra. This one was built in the 16th century. It is basically a deep, round hole in the ground, lined with slabs of stone.

It's been a LONG day and I am tired. Tomorrow is our last day here and we plan to visit the old part of town to see the famous  painted doors and also a museum. I promise lots more photos tomorrow. But for now Good Night to all. Hope you had a good day too.