The beach is also known for therapeutic properties of its sands, scientifically proven fact, indicated for problems of rheumatic forums and ortopédico.1

The beach of Porto Santo is usually divided into areas for better administration: Calheta, Cabeço Bridge, Ribeiro Cochino, Ribeiro Salgado, Fontinha and Penedo. Since the area of Fontinha is the only blue flag.

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 (1348–1349), a Castilian monk also identified the location of the islands in their present location, with the names Leiname (modern Italian legname, cognate of Portuguese madeira, “wood”), Diserta and Puerto Santo. Indeed the move by Portugal to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Spains 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 theHenry the Navigator. 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 (en: “Holy Harbour”) 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 weedsthat accompanied the settlers.^[4] As a result, “the Porto Santo of 1400 is as lost to us as is the world before the Noachian flood”.

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.

So build up the Levada in nearly inaccessible places, almost all of the island, in the form of channels or narrow aqueducts and many long, that carry water from springs and streams, along the steep slopes. Nowadays, the Levadas are a cultural landmark of Madeira and further are a tourist attraction and is already known internationally.

They have a very important role in the management of water resources and concomitantly provide sustainable enjoyment of the Natural Heritage.

The levadas originated out of the necessity of bringing large amounts of water from the west and northwest of the island to the drier southeast, which is more conducive to habitation and agriculture, such as sugar cane production. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese started building levadas to carry water to the agricultural regions. The most recent were made in the 1940s. Madeira is very mountainous, and building the levadas was often difficult. Many are cut into the sides of mountains, and it was also necessary to dig 25 miles (40 km) of tunnels.

Today the levadas not only supply water to the southern parts of the island, they also provide hydro-electric power. There are more than 1,350 miles (2,170 km) of levadas and they provide a remarkable network of walking paths. Some provide easy and relaxing walks through beautiful countryside, but others are narrow, crumbling ledges where a slip could result in serious injury or death.

A popular levada to hike is the Levada do Caldeirão Verde which continues as the Levada Caldeirão do Inferno. Altogether it is about 23 miles (37 km) long. Along both parts there are long sections which may cause hikers to suffer vertigo; and several tunnels for which flashlights and helmets are essential. The Levada do Caniçal is a much easier walk. This levada runs 7.1 miles (11.4 km) from Maroços to the Caniçal Tunnel. It is known as the mimosa levada because acacias (commonly misnamed mimosas) are found all along the route.