2023 was such a great year for us that we were sorry to see it end. However, I can think of no better way to celebrate the New Year than this. We spent a few glorious days on the beautiful island of Madeira with our dear friends. This autonomous region of Portugal is an easy one hour and 45 minute flight from Porto. The icing on the cake was seeing the world-famous fireworks from a small sailboat that bobbed in the harbor amongst eight cruise ships and dozens of other small boats. Fireworks are set-off simultaneously from about 28 different locations across the island.  If you haven’t rung in a new year this way yet, it should definitely be on your bucket list. In spite of a threatening forecast, we were fortunate to get zero rain, T-shirt temperatures, and exceptionally calm seas. Here are a few pictures from our short visit plus a bad cell phone video of the fireworks. The video does not do it justice and about half-way through I just put the phone down to soak it all in, so it does not include the finale.