Água de Pena

Água de Pena is a civil parish in the municipality of Machico on the south-east coast of the Portuguese island of Madeira. The population in 2011 was 2,434, in an area of 5.15 km².HistoryThe area of Água de Pena was first sited by the crew and explorers with João Gonçalves Zarco after he disembarked along the coastal spillway of Machico, likely around July 1419; the escarpment of Penedo overlook the beach of Machico, and the crew encamped in the shadow of the promontory overnight, before exploring the island the next day. Father Gaspar Frutuoso later recounted: "And, the following day, running further ahead, always following the land, they found a fresh valley and warm pasture with a ravine of water, which fell to the sea with much freshness. There he made some men, who went to find another spring, that exited a large, old and smooth pebble, and was so precious and cold, that he ordered a flask filled in order to take to the Infante; and because of this port (wherein he found the same), the Port of the Pebble, which is today called, became the small port's lands that constituted the future parish of Água de Pena."It was this second parish that made the discoverers call port on this ignored island. The Porto do Seixo was written into the history of the discoveries as the first locality visited by the discoverers on the second day of their exploration along the coast. But, it is unclear the origin of the parish's name; there are various hypothesises. Some indicate that the primitive name was actually Água de Penha and not Pena: a common mistake/corruption during the era. The use of penha (rock) is a better translation for the description recounted by Frutuoso, since the story indicated that the water sprang from a pebble or rock. A similar tale from the parishes early history also recounts that the parish's name "...was derived from a crystalline spring on the abandoned lands of Henrique Teixeira, who had many lands to the west of the village of Machico". Similarly, pena is the Portuguese word for feather, but it is also the Portuguese term for the moulding surfaces of an anvil (parte espalmada da bigorna), which was also inferred from the promontory on which the parish was built, which is also like an anvil (bignora).