Porto Santo Island


Porto Santo Island is a Portuguese island northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean; it is the northernmost and easternmost island of the archipelago of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Europe and Africa.

History

It appears that some knowledge of Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before the discovery and settlement of these lands, as the islands appear on maps as early as 1339. From a portolan dating to 1351, and preserved in Florence, Italy, it would appear that the islands of Madeira had been discovered long before being claimed by the Portuguese expedition of 1418. In Libro del Conocimiento, a Castilian monk also identified the location of the islands in their present location, with the names Leiname, Diserta and Puerto Santo. Indeed, the move by Portugal to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Spain's efforts at the time to claim and subdue the Canary Islands.
However, humans never recorded the discovery of Porto Santo Island or the other Madeira islands until 1418, when Porto Santo was accidentally discovered after captains were storm blown into its sheltered harbor. They were in the service of Infante Henrique of Portugal. João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira had been ordered by King John I to discover new territory west of Africa and had been sent off-course by a storm while making the volta do mar westward swing return voyage. The island's name Porto Santo was derived from the sailors' stories of their discovery of a sheltered bay during the tempest, which was interpreted as divine deliverance. The first Portuguese settlers arrived in the 1420s.
Bartolomeu Perestrelo, a member of the team that later explored the Madeira Islands, became the first Captain-donatário of Porto Santo, by royal award in November 1445. It was he who released a female rabbit that had littered on the voyage, with her offspring, which multiplied catastrophically in a xeric island ecosystem that had evolved in isolation and had never known a flightless mammal. The loss of the native flora laid the island slopes open to erosion and colonization by European weeds that accompanied the settlers.
During the first centuries of settlement, life on Porto Santo was harsh, owing to the scarcity of potable water and the depredations of feral rabbits; there were also constant attacks by Barbary Coast pirates and French privateers.
The New World explorer Christopher Columbus married the Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, the daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrelo. For a while they lived on Porto Santo. The home is now a museum.

Geography

Physical geography

The island is characterized by two areas: the accidented northeast, and a coastal plain in the southwest. The mountainous northeast part of the island, consists of two geomorphological structures that includes: an area of peaks, Pico do Castelo, Pico da Juliana, Pico da Gandaia and Pico do Facho ; and between the eastern coast and this area, a series of minor peaks, Pico do Maçarico, Pico do Concelho and Pico Branco. The southwest part of the island, although relatively flat, includes a series of elevations 100 meters in height or greater, such as Pico Ana Fereira, Pico do Espigão and the Cabeço do Zimbralinho. The slope of the western part of the island slopes from 150 meters to the south coast reaching the sandy beaches of Porto Santo. A third system, in the west-northwest, that includes Cabeço da Bárbara Gomes and Cabeço das Canelinhas is distinct from the areas identified. The island is encircled by an oceanic platform between 20 and 37 km2, with a minimum depth of 8 meters, and limited by the flanks of a large submarine volcano.
The island's submarine activity occurred during the Miocene epoch, producing basaltic eruptions that persisted to the Quaternary period. There were three phases of distinct volcanism, followed by periods of calm associated with sedimentation:
1st Phase - associated with basaltic lava, pyroclastic flows, trachyte domes that were to form Pico do Concelho, Pico do Facho, Pico do Juliana and the Ponta da Calheta. This period was followed by a period of marine fossil accumulation, concentrated in the northeast of the island to about 300 meters altitude ;
2nd Phase - this was a period of fissural volcanism that cut across and metamorphosed the older formations, occurring in the early Pliocene period;
3rd Phase - was an intrusive phase, resulting in a number of faults and dikes that cut across the Calcareous fossils. Likely occurring in the Pliocene, it was followed by deposits of layers of detritic and calcareous sediments, that included brownish-red alluvial layers, along the island's flanks and beach.

Climate

Porto Santo has a Hot Semi-Arid Climate.
Unlike mountainous Madeira, which traps as effective rain the moisture of oceanic currents due to high orography, the comparatively low profile of Porto Santo results in a dry climate.

Human geography

The main urban area is the city of Vila Baleira, also known as Porto Santo.
Although a small island, the Porto Santo community has its own schools, health-care centre, police detachments, a gymnasium, churches, several local squares, a Congress Centre, museum, shopping centres, bars, hotels and restaurants.

Economy

The main industry on the island of Porto Santo is tourism, which has emerged through hotel construction in the 20th century and is based on the attractions of the beaches and temperate climate.
The island has a golf course that was designed by Spanish golfing champion Seve Ballesteros; Porto Santo Golfe hosted the Madeira Islands Open in 2009, as part of the European Tour. Once the planned second course is completed, Porto Santo Golfe will be the largest course in Madeira: there is currently one 18-hole golf course and one nine-hole course. In addition, Porto Santo's Golf Complex includes eight tennis courts and an equestrian centre.
The island has an international airport, with daily flights to Madeira Airport. The Porto Santo Airport has connections with both domestic and international flights. The airport regularly serves as a diversion location for aircraft unable to land at Madeira Airport, due to the latter’s frequent closures as a result of high winds coupled with its strict meteorological requirements for landing.