The weather is turning beautiful here in Madeira and therefore it must be about time for us to leave.  With the end of our stay in sight we used today's fine weather to play our last round of golf, finishing out our three-round "Madeira Golf Passport".  Once again we played Santo da Serra Golf Club, originally built in 1937 as a nine-hole course but redesigned by Robert Trent Jones and rebuilt between 1991 and 1998 as a 27-hole course.  We believe this course to be by far the best on the islands and the staff was kind enough to include in our round the nine holes we had not previously played.  

The last time we played this course it was not overcrowded but certainly had a pretty full complement of golfers out there bashing away.  Strangely today, even though we were playing at about the same time and also on a weekday, it seemed practically empty.  This made for a fast round and, shaking off our Porto Santo blues, we actually played pretty well.  We were not assigned the "Machico" nine holes with the ravine carries so our perfect record on those remained intact.  The new back nine did not have any ravines though it did have a lake or two that we somehow managed to avoid.  In all, it was a beautiful day with enjoyable golf and we will leave Madeira with nice golfing memories (we have already suppressed memories of Seve and the holes from hell).

We thought that we were pretty serious about playing golf on Madeira since we had played four rounds in 19 days, but we met two ladies from Sweden on the course who are here for eight days and are playing every day.  If you are an avid golfer in Sweden your winter playing opportunities, as in Alaska, are likely limited and this is what you do.