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Today we started with a good clean of the boat inside and out as it soon gets dirty walking to and from shore. Next was the long job of getting back up to date with the blog now we have power and Wifi at the same time!
Throughout the day there has been an influx of boats, not only the On Deck racers but also a couple of cruisers and two catamarans (Lagoon 440 and a very plush Antares). So it has been fun watching all the comings and goings. Tonight is Halloween with a big party with live music at the Mindelo Hotel or the On Deck party at Club Nautico so I think it will be a big night… don’t be expecting the next blog update early tomorrow…
New arrivals at Marina Mindelo
Thursday was quite an early start for me, as we were breakfasted and packed for the day and enjoying an expresso with Tim in Club Nautico by 9am. We were soon joined by a friend of Diss’s brother in his truck and agreed a route for the day. We climbed onto the wooden seats in the pickup under a tarpaulin roof and set off. We travelled through the town which sprawls further than we’d realised, mostly residential but with football grounds and schools on route.
We then started to climb into the countryside, now realising that the bumpy cobbled roads of the town centre spread throughout the island. There were many areas cleared for cultivation with farms complete with free range roosters and donkeys alongside.
Plenty of fresh air and views over Mindelo
View of the interior of the island from Monte Verde, largely uninhabited
Kevin & Tim at Monte Verde
Kevin & Jo overlooking Mindelo
The buildings were mostly block or concrete and widely spread out as we moved towards Monte Verde the island highest point at 750m. The land is fairly green with a light mossy cover and bushes over a reddish rock. It was rather refreshing on the back of an open pickup but the views made up for it as we climbed the side of the hill and looked down over Mindelo. Our guide stopped the truck for photos a couple of times as we moved round the side of the hill to then look over the east side of the island out to Santa Lucia and the other islets beyond. There were several fields of maise but also some native flowering plants which attracted several very large and colourful butterflies.
Looking East over the islands of Santa Lucia, Branco and Raso
Next we moved on to a small village called Salamansa where we got off the pickup to have a wander round. We came across a local guy building an open wooden fishing boat, plus about 10 others standing around to supervise. This village was considerably poorer looking, not benefiting from the tourist money coming in. The villagers were very friendly and waved to as we wandered through, especially the small children. There were a few bars mostly named after Portuguese football clubs. The crowd of women at the central well and others impressively walking around with large buckets full balanced on their heads, suggested that there was not running water to the houses there.
Boat Building in Salamansa - under supervision
Public meeting at the well
We moved on to the resort town of Baia das Gatas which is centred around a lagoon and beach sheltered by a reef and breakwater, to provide a large shallow swimming pool of lovely clear water whilst seeing the large breakers just the other side. Tim and I decided to go from a dip as Kevin enjoyed a bit of rock pooling. There were a few other French tourists in swimming too, but other than that the place was fairly deserted. We went to a restaurant Archote 2 for lunch but were the only diners. However, we had a very nice grouper each with rice and salad. I chatted to our guide in a strange mix of Spanish and French, which he seemed to understand. Like many Cape Verdeans he has many relatives around the world, some in Boston (where many emigrated on whaling ships in years gone by), but also Luxembourg, Holland and Sweden.
Tim on the beach at Baia das Gatas
Finally we called at Laginha beach just north of Mindelo for a drink at the renowned Caravela beach bar. We watched a group of locals playing football on the beach as we relaxed after a long day’s sightseeing. We got back just in time for my scheduled Skype chat with my sister Donna to wish her a happy birthday.
We met Tim for debrief at Club Nautico later, where we met an old sailing friend of his called Sarah and Lutz’s daughter Joanna who are working for On Deck and had arrived in Mindelo as the forward party for a group of yachts arriving the next day. On Deck are a UK company who sell crew places on a fleet of 65ft Farr racing yachts in legs on their route from England to Barbados via Madeira and the Cape Verdes. Sarah had been arranging for music and drinks in Club Nautico the following day as they’d be arriving earlier than planned the following morning, having left Madeira the previous Sunday. We grabbed a pizza from the little trailer next door to Club Nautico for a very reasonable 400 Escudos each (£2.35) which were excellent before returning back to the boat.
Locals fishing on the town waterfront
Tim had made the excellent suggestion on Tuesday night of hiring a car to tour the island, so we agreed to meet to go into town to find the hire car company. We also had a bit of a wander round the shops and the market stalls to the east of town. We’d been looking for WD40, an essential part of any tool kit, but our stocks were running low and our mission was not successful. We found a few more minimarkets but there doesn’t seem to be a supermarket in the town at all. We did however manage to buy a world band radio, Tim had also dunked his on route from Angola and as a solo sailor was keen to replace it before the next passage. There were a few market stalls with them available, apparently mostly Chinese and amusingly several with brand names just one letter different in spelling to some famous global brand. We managed to negotiate for 2 for 2000 Escudos (about £7 each), so now we can listen to the BBC World Service on route and hopefully pick up a few local stations in the various places we end up.
Finally, we managed to find a good bakery and the car hire shop, however, later we met Max’s girlfriend Diss who said her brother could provide a chauffeur driven tour for the same price in his new truck, so we arranged to meet him at 9 am the next day.
Tuesday was a fairly quite day onboard catching up with a few admin jobs on the internet and doing some boat jobs. Kevin got to do some engineering which always pleases him by helping Tim rebore a helicoil on his engine which had been leaking. This didn’t mean anything to me either but Tim seemed pretty chuffed when it was all done! A few beers again in Club Nautico again that night, Tim introduced us to some of the locals he’d met Dee a boat boy who’d helped him check in and Max a French merchant seaman who works for Shell and lives in Cape Verdes on his 3 months shore time.
Monday morning we had a slow start waiting for the marina guys to remove our battery charger so that Kai could take it to the workshop to have a look. Luckily for us by early afternoon it was returned in full working order, free of charge, which was excellent service. The Wifi was also back up so we were back in touch with the world!
Next job was a bit of provisioning as I was craving some fresh fruit, we decided to try the Mercado Central market hall. We had a great time wondering round the stall of local produce, the ladies on the stalls were very friendly and taught me a bit of Creole as we shopped. We bought local potatoes, eggs, oranges, bananas, apples, papaya and pears for probably tourist rates, but I enjoyed it anyway.
We had dinner at Casa Café on the waterfront which is recently renovated and very nice inside with a chilled out atmosphere, again catering for locals and tourists. We then met Tim for a few beers in Club Nautico followed Deep Water on DVD on the boat as Tim hadn’t seen it. Deep Water is excellent, very well portrayed docufilm by Channel 4 about Donald Crowhurst who went missing during the Golden Globe race for the first solo non-stop round the world yachtsman which was won by Robin Knox-Johnson a British sailor that Tim has worked for in the past. It is a thought provoking which perhaps explains why we were then up until after 2am putting the world to rights over some Portuguese red wine in the cockpit or perhaps it was just the wine!
Sunday as is now tradition was a day of rest, a bit of reading and not much else, Wifi being down and no engine charging to run the inverter to power laptops. Tim joined us for dinner bringing an excellent bottle of South African red wine from his stores.
We awoke on Saturday morning after another very disturbed sleep due to the swell and snatching of the mooring lines. We were effectively bracing the whole of the pontoon astern to the main walkway pontoon, the only other connection being a couple of ropes lashed round a tyre to smooth the snatching. However just the sheer windage of the boats of the pontoons were causing so much movement and noise that even though the wind had now reduced a little there was a continuing movement such that moving around the boat need a hand hold even though the boats on anchor behind the marina looked to be affected little. We decided to take the advice of Kai, one of the joint owners who had greeted us the night before to move along one slot to lie off the fixed mooring buoys in front of the pontoon and away from the walkway pontoon. After confirmation from Lutz, the other joint owner, four attendants were dispatched to assist, two in the marina RIB to secure the bow lines to the buoys and two ashore on the pontoons under Lutz’s guidance. We were soon re-secured which although requires more athletic leaping to the pontoon for me means the movement is now much reduced and would hopefully mean a better night’s sleep.
Next job was to get water and power aboard now we had cycled the batteries from the engine charging the day before. We connected the power and immediately our battery charger blew the circuit breaker whilst emitting a rather worrying smell of burning, hmmmm. The shore power however was working direct to the boat but the house batteries would not now be charged as we planned. There was considerable back and forth about this and then other subsequent power problems with Lutz, checking sockets etc. Eventually we spoke to Kai who happens to be marine electronic engineer and he said he would have a look at our battery charger for us on Monday morning.
We decided to take a wander ashore around Mindelo, the marina is right on the edge of the town, which is an interesting mixture of elegant colonial buildings some dilapidated, some recently refurbished with some rougher block buildings further back.
Main street in Mindelo
Town Hall in Mindelo
There is much more of a sense of traditional Cape Verdean life with ladies selling banana or even fresh tuna from large bowls balanced on their heads, there are groups of roadside stalls all selling locally grown fruit and vegetables all the stall holders amiably chatting together and locals stopping to buy or just pass the time of day. There are lots of tiny bars, so small the regulars just all sit on the steps watching the world pass by. Chinese imports seem to predominate with many shops selling random selections of goods. We were not hassled at all as we walked round, there is the occasional beggar but no more so than your average UK city. We passed a door to roof top café and decided to grab some lunch, they provide cheap international calls, internet, cheap food and beer and unsurprisingly there was a mixture of locals and tourists. Kevin enjoyed a ham burger and chips, which although not so traditional salved his meat cravings for a while.
We went back to the boat via the supermarket for a siesta, after our few broken nights sleep. We awoke to tidy the boat a little then head ashore for some food at Club Nautico, this time two large tuna steaks served with rice and salad which were excellent. We were joined later by Tim, a solo British sailor who Kevin had met earlier that day. Tim had arrive a week or so before from South Africa where he had bought and fitted out his boat with his brother via Angola after having to stop off with equipment problems. They enjoyed a very friendly welcome in Angola and marina facilities before Tim’s brother flew home and Tim made the rest of the trip solo on his 32ft double ended steel ketch after 40 days at sea. We had an interesting night exchanging sailing stories as you do.
We awoke at 6.30am on Friday morning after a disturbed night of anchor alarms sounding as we swung round 360 degrees more than once in the variable winds – the ideal conditions to trip our unreliable anchor. We decided that the rather unappealing looking Tarrafal town was not worth a third night of broken sleep plus due to some news from home the night before we wanted to get to an internet connection sooner, so decided to take advantage of our early start to make the passage to Mindelo.
It took nearly an hour of motoring to clear the land shadow of Sao Nicolau, so effective is the shelter there. The sea was oily calm as we departed as both the swell and wind is blocked by the island. As we moved further into the channel between Sao Nicolau and the uninhabited Ilheu Raso, we started to see small schools of tiny flying fish leaving the water. These were shortly followed by tuna following them clearing the surface of the water as they pursued their prey. We’d never seen tuna jumping before and over the next few hours we were surrounded by them as the water literally boiled with fish around us. Artic skewers circling would be the first signs of fish in the area, drawn in by the tuna forcing their prey to the surface. It really was amazing to see so much signs of life, the water was so clear we could actually see the fish swimming along beside the boat just beneath the surface. The most dramatic of all was a tuna which Kevin spotted which surfed up on the crest of a wave and leap out of the water just astern of the boat, forming an arc of about 8 feet before he dived back in, almost as if he were curious about this big white fish and had come to have a look.
It was a pleasant sail toward the island of Sao Vicente, Mindelo the main harbour of which lying on the north west coast in a bay providing natural shelter from all directions except westerly, but even this is reduced by the presence of the island of Santo Antao lying 8 miles to the west. We passed the three uninhabited northern islands of Raso, Branco and Ilha de Santa Lucia on route with their dramatic steep coastlines and volcanic appearance creating their own acceleration zones and land shadows. Finally we left Santa Lucia to starboard and proceeded along the south coast of Sao Vicente, the wind was gusty all along the coast although it was from the North-Easterly trade as it seemed to track along the steep coast line veering behind the boat to push us along the route with gusts coming through the valleys. Sao Vicente like Sao Nicolau looks uninhabited as you approach from the south east, with the first signs of habitation not visible until Sao Pedro in the South West where the airport is located. Rounding the lighthouse at Punta Machado, the wind veered round still further as it funnelled down the channel between Sao Vicente and Santo Antao creating a 20-25 knot headwind and a wet beat into Mindelo. The first signs of the harbour as we tacked up the channel is the small islet (Ilheu dos Passaros) opposite the bay which is painted white on top to distinguish it by day and a lighthouse by night. The town of Mindelo gradually came into focus as we slowly made our way northwards and eventually turned east into the harbour. Marina Mindelo is not immediately obvious as you approach being sheltered behind the breakwater and ferry berths. We called on the VHF Ch09 as instructed as we approached but no response was found despite someone else trying to relay the message for us in Portuguese. However, we were waved in to the east side of the pontoons by one of the attendants as we approached the marina, eventually being shown to the north side of the first finger for a stern-to berth alongside the main walkway. The depth sounder was reading 1.9m as we approached, this being the shallow side of the marina and from the photos we have seen recently used mainly for catamarans.
We got the mooring lines ashore to the two attendants who came to assist and were soundly secured however, it soon became clear that the pontoons themselves were moving considerably, there being no piles in the whole structure of 150 berths. We secured the lines as tightly as we could but there was still a lot of movement and snatching caused by the 20 knot gusts coming in from the shore and the northerly swell which though unusual for the time of year had worked it’s way along the channel. We went along to the reception to pay for the week, which is on a concrete pier leading ashore. This area is very new (the marina only opened in June) and is nice with a shaded seating area and glass fronted offices. We checked in with the helpful receptionist who spoke good English, paying 196 Euro for the week, this being the most expensive marina we have yet visited but being the only one so far in the Cape Verdes has a captive audience. We had decided in order to get a good rest before our Atlantic crossing that we would treat ourselves so we could sleep well, have hot showers etc. However it soon became clear after checking in that some of the facilities listed on their website are not yet available, or infact built, namely the restaurant, showers and toilets. Additionally the independent water supply is not available, though local water and power is on the pontoons and Wifi is available at additional cost. Finally security is good with a 24 hour guard and swipe card access to the pontoons.
We were directed to the Club Nautico opposite for showers, so we decided to go and have a look. We were immediately accosted by a boat boy who wanted to help us with customs clearance and laundry, it seems that those not employed by the marina are now forced to tout for trade outside, however he was easily placated by the fact we’d cleared in already in Palmeira and we continued on to Club Nautico. Club Nautico is apparently French owned and being opposite the entrance to the marina, which is also used to as a dingy park for those at anchor (300 Escudos a day), is the yachtie hangout. It is scruffy but full of character in an old stone building with an open roof strung with a sail and walls adorned with flags and murals. The showers are just another cubicle in the public toilets and did not look very clean or inviting, so we decided to shower on the boat and just have a beer. After a couple of beers followed by some food and shower on board we turned in for an early night.
Sunset over Mindelo
Sao Nicolau is volcanic and rises steeply from the sea, with only one small set of lights of Preguica visible on the whole of the south coast as we approached which seemed to be a very small settlement where the airport is located. The capital is unusually inland, as a result of the pirates of the past and was not visible from our approaches, the island looking largely uninhabited. As we rounded the southern point of Punta do Fidalgo the classic venturi affect of the tall island set up and we managed to switch off the engines and sail up the west coast to just short of the only settlement there of Tarrafal. I even saw three pilot whales as we turned North, not to mention the ever present flying fish which seemed to be twice the size here.
Tarrafal, being a port town like Palmeira was not very inviting to eye as we approached with a high proportion of unfinished buildings and industrial concrete constructions along the waterfront. The anchorage however is very sheltered due to the shape of the island blocking both the prevailing wind and swell. We entered the harbour about 9am, there were a few very mixed yachts from small cruising monohulls some of which looked to be quite an age to a new Lagoon 440 catamaran which we had met in Palmeira. Kevin saw a black shape in the water as we came round to anchor which could have been a small pilot whale, which had me looking over my shoulder a few minutes later when I got in to check the anchor! The water was quite clear but the black sand from the beach reduced the visibility. Our anchor was just not digging in well in the fine sand and several attempts were made before we had any sort of hold. We decided against a second anchor as it was very sheltered here and we were not planning to stay too long.
After some breakfast and a bit of drying off in the sun which was already very hot due to the lack of wind, we both decided we were feeling rather tired from our night watches and decided to go back to bed for a nap about 11am. We didn’t wake until about 1.30pm, and took a seat in the cockpit to read and cool down. We were watching the world go by on the shore and reading books. There were fishing boats coming by very close astern to have a look at the new arrivals. One passed by very slowly as he was towing a fish pen alongside, apparently the local way of ensuring a fresh catch as there were a few others moored closer to the dock and may have explained the inquisitive creature Kevin had spotted on the way in.
The late afternoon saw some land gusts gathering as they blew down the steep hillsides above Tarrafal causing all the boats on the anchorage to swing and bob around. We seemed to have chosen quite by chance a spot just close enough to the pebble shore to miss the rebound effect that was causing all the other boats quite a lot of rolling in the swell. However, despite this with the 25 knot winds which had come up and still not being sure of our anchor set we postponed our exploration ashore until things settled.
The fortnightly ferry arrived as we were sat out having dinner and we watched as first the passengers disembarked and then presumably freight – well whatever it was it caused quite a significant list to starboard as it was removed. Sabina and Till never did arrive, so we assumed that they had decided to stay a little longer in Santa Maria. The sunsets very quickly at this latitude as before we knew it, darkness had set in and we were under a fantastic starry sky with very little light pollution from the few street lights in Tarrafal. All intentions to go ashore and explore were then blown as we sat under the stars with some real chillout music and reflected on how life had got us to this little anchorage in the Atlantic listening to the irresistible sound of surf on a pebbly shore.
In order to make a daylight entry to Tarrafal we had not planned to leave Santa Maria until the afternoon. Therefore, we had a good rest and in the morning we tidied up the boat. We went ashore to get the latest weather forecasts and make our final blog updates plus say our goodbyes to Akin & Maria.
We decided to call in to the Beach Club for lunch and Kevin enjoyed a nice Tuna steak with Peppers cooked rare, I quite sadly ordered Pasta Pesto which although we have this regularly on board was just what I felt like eating. We had water with our meal in preparation for our passage ahead that night. The water in the bay at Santa Maria was looking exceptionally clear again for the second day running and you could see the weed on the seabed for quite a distance as we sat by the shore enjoying our lunch.
We checked the weather forecast again when we got back to the boat and the bad weather which we were expecting to raise the swell seemed to have dispersed and it now looked like all would be ok to stay in Santa Maria. However we were all revved up for a move now and decided to progress onward to the island of Sao Nicolau. We had arranged to meet with Till & Sabina to show them the weather forecast and exchange a few files etc, so around 3.30pm they came across and we agreed it looked a reasonable forecast to either stay or go. All decide they would depart though and we decided to head off straight away to clear Sal by daylight and waved goodbye to all on Aikane who were not yet ready to leave and said we’d see them in the morning.
We made a great start to the passage with some nice 15-20 knot winds which although were a little variable stayed through until about midnight when we had to start the engines. It was a really clear night and but for a couple of other ships as we left Sal we did not see any other traffic. Unfortunately with swell on the beam and rather variable winds it was a bit harder work from a sailing perspective to try and keep the sails filled as we tried to optimise the course to flitting between goosewinged downwind and a broad reach as the wind veered. At 3am the wind came back slightly and we could sail again for an hour or two but by dawn it had fallen away to less than 3 knots as we rounded the south coast of Sao Nicolau.
The weather forecast is showing an anticyclone moving north up the east coast of Africa in the next couple of days, which although is far enough away not to affect us with its stronger winds the swell it generates will be coming into the anchorage by Wednesday evening. We have therefore decided to leave slightly early for Tarrafal on the island of Sao Nicolau which is about 85 miles sail from here on Wednesday afternoon to arrive Thursday morning.
We went to the internet café on Tuesday morning and only managed a few minutes of internet time before another problem occurred with the system. We again managed to resolve it, but by this time we needed to get to the supermarket before siesta closing and so we did not manage to get the blog updated and latest weather so we will be heading in on Wednesday morning before we depart to get the latest forecast. All indications are though that the hurricane season is coming to an end the water temperature here has dropped a full degree, the heat of which provides some of the energy required for the propagation of hurricanes. Additionally, the forecast is for consist 10-15 knot wind across to the Caribbean at the moment. There has been only one anticyclone in the last couple of weeks and it did not develop into strong winds and dispersed before it reached the coast. So it is looking like it is settling down for our passage.
We spent the afternoon doing a bit of cleaning, charging the batteries etc and beginning to store things away ready for our overnight passage. Sabina and Till joined us about 18:00 and we had a very pleasant evening with them, Kevin cooking one of his excellent paellas. Kevin again showed the forecast to Sabina, as the system moving up Africa is also affecting the tradewinds south of the Cape Verdes which they wish to use to get to Recife. The doldrums were also showing as being further North than usual for this time of year which will also affect their passage. Till has flights booked from Recife, so they need to leave soon but after discussion it looks like it will also be good for them to head further west to Sao Nicolau giving them a better start point to miss the doldrums and stronger winds in a couple of days more for their departure once the African weather system has passed.
After a full day on board on Sunday we decided to go for a walk ashore on Monday morning. Therefore, 08:30 am found us walking along the beach to the sand spit to the west of the bay. I’d hadn’t realised at first it was a Monday, but we certainly enjoyed the contrast to previous Monday mornings when we realised. We haven’t spend much time on the beach, as neither of us are really sun worshippers but it is a beautiful one. The sand is very fine and it was certainly good exercise for our sealegs!
The swell was much reduced on Monday and the water was lovely and clear. There were two sandpipers dodging the waves to forage for food as each wave passed. Next we returned to the pier café for water and expresso for me and bacon and eggs for Kevin. We watched all the busy Monday morning activity on the pier, the diving boats and fishing charters departing and the local fishing boats loading up.
After breakfast we decided to head to the internet café and we spent a couple of hours catching up with the world and looking ahead to future destinations. I have been trying to look into potential events which we might be able to attend in the places we will visit. The Rugby World Cup in New Zealand is definitely on the list, but we’d also like to see some club games in Tonga or Somoa. There is also a Scallop Festival in New Zealand in August each year which combines excellent local white wines with fresh seafood, perfect.
Next we went to the Beach Club bar, situated on the beach itself beside the surf club with the webcam above. The Beach Club is very cool in the sun and has wood floors, white canopies and whicker chairs. The food also looked excellent and there were quite a few diners. We decided though that we would head back to the boat for lunch. However, on route we found that the massage area at the poolside of the hotel behind the Beach Club was open. Kevin had an achy back for a few days, so we decided to treat him to a 30 minute massage which he enjoyed in the shaded massage tent whilst I flicked through an old copy of Hello magazine.
Finally, we returned to the boat and jumped straight in the water to cool down. We were drying off in the cockpit in the shade discussing our various findings on the internet when a yacht slowly appeared in the distance. As it approached closer we realised it was Sabina, a German lady skipper that we had met on our last day in Las Palmas when picking up a weather forecast in the internet café. We struck up a conversation as she was heading in the same direction, but she was heading via El Hierro.
When they had anchored just behind us we headed across to say hello. It seems we had just missed each other in Palmeira but she had come down to Santa Maria with her new crew Till from Stuttgart before crossing to Recife in Brazil in a couple of days. Zidane had also joined them for the day’s sail from Palmeira so it was a welcome catch up with all. We compared notes on weather for our previous passages etc and the boats we had seen on the way. Inevitably, beers were opened and we ended up staying for dinner with them, Sabina preparing a lovely pork and lemon rice for everyone. We invited them over to us the following night for dinner.
You know when you were a kid you thought that that no matter how far you went, your parents can still see what you are doing... well it seems they still can. We have been spotted on a webcam, for all those who believe our blog to be an elaborate hoax:
http://www.caboverde24.com/surfwebcam/
We are on the far left of the shot:
Today has been pretty leisurely, a bit of reading, a bit of cleaning. A bit of sunbathing on the trampoline (although it was pretty overcast) and composing emails and catching up on the blog. Kevin has been reading the Windward Islands Pilot guide and we are both getting very excited about where we will be visiting in the Caribbean. It has been pretty swelly again today and we are looking forward to some improved weather and hopefully some diving next week.
Saturday morning we woke with the sun about 06:30, however we could tell from our bunk there was a bit too much swell for our little RIB for diving that day. Kevin had found a decent local forecast on the internet the day before which suggested that after the weekend we should have a really calm week next week, so we decided to wait until then.
We were sat in the cockpit reading and enjoying our morning expresso when a dive RIB came by even closer than usual. We both looked up to see Mark waving at us, as he’d said he was dive guiding that day as a good start to his birthday. He didn’t have time to stop by, but wizzed off to join the other diveboats on the horizon. He did call back past on his way back, this time armed with his camera, so he could take a photo of the boat which he complemented as he zoomed off again, saying he’d see us later.
We pottered around on the boat until just after lunch when we got showered and dressed up for the party, then head in on the tender. One of the locals who is always on the dock and trying to provide dingy protection services was aiding a French couple who recently arrived. Suddenly, an altercation began between him and one of the other locals who had been gutting fish on the pier and therefore it involved a bit of jousting with the knife he had in his hand. It passed quite quickly with no real aggression other than a bit of shouting from the fisherman and placating from the boat boy. We had no idea what started it, but hoped perhaps it was a reaction to the racket that these guys are trying to pull, nonetheless, it did unsettle our plans to head too far ashore from the boat.
We checked on emails and had a quick Chillout beer before heading to the meeting point for the transport which would apparently take us down the unmade road along the coast to another beach where the party was occurring at a bar with a reggae band. The aim was to be there initially for the Happy Hour from 4pm until 6pm which suited us as we would not be back too late to the boat, arriving back just after dark. We waited and waited for the transport having seen both Laura and Mark individually on the way who had reassured us of the location for pick up, but as they lived further out were making their own way after going home to clean up. Anyway, by 4.45, we decided rather than take a taxi down some unmade road to a place we weren’t quite sure the name of, to undoubtedly end up coming back rather later than originally planned we would just go to our usual favourite the pier restaurant for a meal instead. The events on the pier that afternoon meaning we were not quite so comfortable as previously to leave the boat and tender too long. This plus the day before when we’d come back to find a young local in our tender as the regularly jump off the pier and swim round the boats through the day. Kevin shouted at him to get out and he leapt off pretty smartly. However, we found when we got back to the boat that the snapshackle which holds the bow strop for the davits was missing. This was more of an annoyance than anything as they are only a few quid each and we had a spare but form now on we had to detach these before leaving.
Anyway, we had a lovely meal – Kevin had the tuna with mango and caramelised onions which is only cooked to a rare state if there is such a thing for fish and was extremely tender and tasty. I had the seafood linguine which was also very good, but used less of the local products being with imported shellfish (Mussels and prawns). A very nice bottle of dry Portuguese white wine with our boat and tender in sight and a very nice evening was had by all.
When we head back to the boat in the tender with our head torches for light we were treated by a fantastic display of flying fish in really shallow water by the beach who started jumping frantically as we approached.
We had decided that we would have a day ashore today, which was just as well as the swell had been picking up over night and it was really quite rolly already at 7am when we set off for the pier after a light breakfast. At that early hour there was no problem from boat minders and we moored the tender and chose to head West along the beach as we had not seen that area. There was a nice cobbled path almost the length of the beach, with various hotels, wooden chalets and apartments to the north of the path and a few rustic looking restaurants built on the beach itself to the south. At the end of the path we cut back to the road behind the hotels to walk back into town and were quite surprised to find vast areas of cleared ground for development only one row back.
Developments in Cape Verdes
Generally those that have been built are quite well done with only a few exceptions but there is obviously plans for many more and apartment blocks and cranes can be seen well into the distance. The Riu Hotel, the Moorish development we saw on the way in, which I think is perhaps an all inclusive, commands the western beachfront and have taken a good spot bounded by sand dunes.
Hotel Riu
When we arrived back into town the café/restaurant overlooking the pier was opening and we decided to go for a coffee. Kevin saw bacon and eggs on the menu and decided to try, so I had a croissant. We were suitably rewarded with a good breakfast and great views of the beach and our boat and tender, which were all sound.
View from the cafe by the pier
Next we decided to go to an internet café and I directed us to a different one very close by that I had tried the day before and looked immaculate but the system was down. When we walked in, we could see again error messages on the screens and the owner apologised that again the system was down. Kevin and I looked at each other in acknowledgment before Kevin started with… So what seems to be the problem. Half an hour later after bypassing a faulty gateway server for him and reconfiguring the workstations, we had it running again, I even learned a bit of Turkish as the administrator laptop had a Turkish version of Windows. Akin Yildirim and his wife Maria Joao Costa Dihinho who is originally from Sao Vincente (Cape Verdes) but has worked a number of years in Holland who own the internet centre are now living here on Sal. After a brief complementary internet session and a cappuccino delivered to the desk by a grateful Akin. We sat around for a chat to be also joined by a very nice German lady called Corinna Gewers from Hamburg who has lived on the Cape Verdes for a few years and is also a keen sailor. Akin was fascinated by our decision to leave the rat race, though as he and Maria had worked in big cities before they came to the Cape Verdes themselves in some ways they had done the same. Although as we know running your own business is far from an easy life. Akin is also a very talented photographer and this forms the other half of his business, with his shots adorning the walls of the café. He gave me a few tips on my blog photos, so you’ll all have to leave comments if there is any improvement!
After a very pleasant hour with them, which also allowed us to miss the rain outdoors we were on our way with some tips from Corinna of what to see on the island (we have her card if anyone is planning to visit and needs a guide).
Next was time for the Chillout bar, we stopped for a beer and to watch the world go by, we were offered a number of designer watches and sunglasses as we chilled out, though they were not too persistent when we said no. There were all manner of people passing by, tourists, locals, mixed groups of the two, school children etc. The traffic we spoke of previously appears to be much the same taxis and trucks going round in circles, petrol must be cheaper here!
Chilling out
Finally, when sufficiently chilled out we set off again for the old town, to be commandeered within literally 200 yds by one of the locals apparently from the island of Fogo, who started the tale by his pleasure at seeing the English in Cape Verdes, he attributes the recent massive development to the English and the higher employment this has resulted in than to the previous Portuguese rule. There was also tales on a new born son and a celebration occurring, if we could just follow him to where it would be we should join them the following day. Obviously, this turned out to be his craft stall, still as we had wanted to pick up some souvenirs that day anyway we picked up some nice carvings.
It was now about 2.30pm, so we decided to head back to the pier café for lunch before returning to the boat. We could see the swell was up even further and we wanted to keep an eye on things. Kevin had a very good tuna steak and I had a pizza which with deserts and a beer was about £10 a head.
Boarding the dingy and the boat was quite an adventure in the swell, but we were soon on board. The anchor was holding well though we were swinging around, the sky was quite black and the swell continued to build through the night. We played cards for a while, then Kevin decided to take a night anchor watch with a DVD, whilst I none too keen on the long swell went to bed. After reaching some pretty big swell heights through the night and surprisingly in that and the pitch black the arrival of a German catamaran in front of us, all was well and this morning the swell has died right down to a gentle rocking again.
On Friday we headed ashore again to catch up on emails and upload some more photos on the blog. As we were finishing up some other Brits came in the internet place to get passport photos done for residency permits as they had just moved over to set up a property management company. I was Skyping my Dad, who has just got back from Lanzarote. Kevin got talking to them however and as seems to happen quite regularly they turned out to be from Leigh, near Wigan which is not far from where Kevin grew up. These Wiganers seems to be able to find each other wherever we go!
It was lunchtime by now so we took a seat in the Chillout bar to watch the world go by for a while before heading to Café Creole for lunch. I popped into the Ladies as Kevin was ordering only to return to find Kevin talking to another couple on the table next to ours. These people were not from Wigan however, Laura was from Ireland and Mark from Southern England. They are both over working for a property investment company; Mark has lived in Cape Verdes for 2 years and Laura for 18 months. It turned out it was Mark’s 40th the next day and we were invited along for his party someway up the coast the next night. Mark is also a freelance diving instructor and gave us some tips on dive sites as we mentioned that we hoped to go the following morning.
After all that socialising we returned to the boat to cool down with some snorkelling. First job was to check the anchor after all the heavy swell we had been having. We knew we had moved slightly back on the anchor but it seemed to have dug in again. We found when we dived down that our second anchor, a Danforth, was well held in and had obviously held us through the swell, whereas our troublesome CQR copy had pulled out again. Therefore Kevin donned the dive gear again to unshackle the Danforth so we could reset the CQR. We realised again the benefits of being able to dive and having the kit on board as without we would not have been able to rig the anchors in series as we have and without which with our ineffective CQR we would definitely have been dragged the night before. This job done and now both diving cylinders drained, we set about refilling cylinders ready for diving the next day.
We had dinner onboard again ready for an early start to beat the dive schools out to the dive site which is almost due south of where we are anchored. Apparently there is a 1930’s wreck now quite smashed but with a lots of life which is buoyed by the dive schools, so we may not be welcome to use their buoy, hence an early start to get in before they arrive with their trainees to disturb the visibility.
Tuesday started with a few pages from Joshua Slocum (I am also on the reading scheme now!) and a quick final blog update before our morning expresso and heading ashore. Kevin was determined to clean up the weed that had grown on our waterline during our extended stays in marinas in the Canaries, so he dropped me off at the pier by tender. As we approached two locals were literally racing forwards to get the boat watching fees for the day, but were sorely disappointed when only I got off and Kevin departed again.
Town Square, Santa Maria
I made my way straight to the internet café to get us up to date with the world again. The first one I entered, as per our guided tour from Samba, was very clean and air conditioned and a very helpful guy in attendance who helped me to a seat. The connection was pretty quick and I enjoyed the backdrop of the tuneful African voices behind me on the international telephone lines to relatives elsewhere. Unfortunately the USB port was not working on these machines, so I just caught up on a few blogs of other sailing friends and checked our emails. Following a nice welcoming chat with the attendant and his friend (whose names I’m afraid I won’t attempt to spell), I made my way to the other café in town hoping to be able to upload the many pages of emails and blog we had prepared.
View from on anchor
As soon as I entered the second place I ask the girl behind the counter if it was ok to use a USB key, she looked at me blankly but the enterprising I assume owner, beside her, complete with a wadge of notes in his hand said yes, but it would cost more! I enquired why and he just said it was the additional cost of bandwidth for upload and download, he quote 300 Escudos (£2) for the hour, so I decided to go ahead. 40 minutes later there was another general powercut, but luckily they had a generator rigged too, so within 10minutes service was resumed. I got talking to two nice Irish ladies beside me who were on holiday here for a month and seemed to be enjoying it and like all the Irish I seem to meet were very well travelled and commented knowledgably on the places we are intending to visit.
Beach at Santa Maria
Internet jobs done I had just enough time to dash back to the pier in time to meet Kevin for my lift back to the boat including a tour of the one newly restored hull. We had a very traditional lunch of egg, chips (well potato wedges) and beans! Kevin now having his appetite back and craving some good home comforts. An idyllic afternoon was spent reading and when it got to hot cooling off with a swim in the beautiful clean waters off the boat. Our little weather station was reading 37.5 degrees when it swung round into the sun and amazingly our instruments were reading a water temperature of 27 degrees! It certainly was blissful to slip into as we did frequently through the afternoon. The swell had crept it’s way into the bay in the afternoon, which resulted in quite a nice gentle rocking on Invincible, however the two French monohull’s were less impressed, one left straight for Brazil and the other laid a second stern anchor to point them into the waves.
We had thought to go for a drink ashore in the evening, however, by the time we had had our dinner and a glass of wine it was dark already and the full moon was so spectacular it seemed a shame to go into artificial lighting. So we sat out in the cockpit lit only by the moon listening to music and planning our journey ahead.
View along the beach from the pier
We decided to head south to the more tourist area of Santa Maria today. We needed some more water before leaving so we waited for Zidane to do his rounds and got him to refill both 20 litre jerry cans before we departed just after lunch. It is only 12 miles down the coast to the other end of the small island of Sal. We decided to motor sail as we wanted to get a good charge in the batteries, so raised just our jib which gave us a reasonable pace in the 15 knot winds. A French Beneteau Oceanis 46 left at exactly the same time as we did and were under full sail, we kept pace with them all the way and eventually anchored within moments of each other off the beach in Santa Maria.
It was a lovely sail down the island, it has mostly been cloudy in Palmeira, we suspect in the way that the north of the islands in this area tend to attract the cloud. However, there was only high light cloud in blue skies on the way down and a light swell making for a lovely couple of hours of sailing down the coast.
Coast of Isla da Sal
As soon as we passed south of the airport we saw signs of the development on Sal. The large white sand beach on the south west of the island, Baía da Mordeira, had a large development of red roofed white villas. As soon as we passed the westerly point of the island we could see a number of cranes towering above Santa Maria in the distance. The anchoring in Santa Maria is round a large sandy spit (which extends a mile or two south of the light at Ponta do Sino if arriving at night), the sand is a beautiful light/white and the azore water over them is like something from a picture postcard. The beach extends two or three miles along the south of the island. The area back from the beach is quite heavily developed compared to the rest of the island spreading along the length of the beach, but does not extend far back. However, the appearance from our anchorage is that the developments are sympathetic and low rise with plenty of palm trees etc to landscape the buildings. One of the developments on the far west side of Santa Maria was in a Moorish style and although not completed yet looks very attractive.
Customs House
After our struggles with the anchor in Palmeira (Kevin has already persuaded me we should upgrade to a Rocnor in the Caribbean), we laid two anchors in series here as we are planning to stay a little longer with the assistance of the diving gear and a large fender to float out the second. Kevin reported the water to be warm and very clear with a few flat fish even in the busy local anchorage where we are moored. Now much more confident in the hold, after swabbing the decks to hopefully finally be rid of the persistent red dust we headed ashore by tender. There were a number of people fishing off the pier both local and tourist and we could see hundreds of small bait fish beneath us as we went to tie up. We had contemplated pulling the tender up the beach as we saw a local from another boat doing, however he then removed his outboard and not wishing to carry ours around all night we opted to tie up to the pier as per the pilot guide.
As soon as I picked the painter (rope from front of dingy) we were directed by some locals to use a stainless steel rail on the pier. They took the line and tied us up, then came the inevitable…I’ll look after your boat, not safe to leave here, they pinch your engine etc. We agreed that we’d be gone for two hours and that Van Damm would mind our tender, perhaps naively we did not agree up front on a fee. We walked round the old customs house which had been recently renovated and connects the pier to the town. Within literally two minutes of walking we were joined by another local, whose rejoiner was to comment on my behind, perhaps not expecting me to understand the Portuguese. He was however a nice enough lad called Samba who proceeded to show us round the town, his English was pretty good and offered us a little advice on the cheapest supermarkets, cigarettes, beers etc. He joined us a drink (Coke for himself) and beer for us at the Café Creole. The town was very busy and there were dozens of tourist shops, most of whom employ a fairly hard sell approach if you even glance in their direction, so we were quite pleased to have a guide to avoid the hassle.
Beach at Santa Maria
There are a lot of tourists in the area, so we are told predominantly German, English and Italian, but also Polish, Norwegian, Spanish etc etc. The town is quite nice, though the traffic is fairly busy comparatively, there are people everywhere wandering around though few it seems stopping for drinks in the bars. Whilst we were in Café Creole, the power to the whole town failed, Samson shrugged and said this is Africa man, no stress, obviously a common occurrence. Later in the Bar Calera we saw an candlelit procession from the church, I’m still not sure if the candles had a religious or practical significance, however, it was good to see an aspect of local life not tainted by tourism as around 20 locals filed past in procession singing.
Candlelit procession during blackout
We wondered around a bit more in the dark, visiting the Hotel D’Agua which was still lit up, obviously they have a generator for such occasions. The hotel is lovely, runs right along the side of the beach with wooden walkways and subtle lighting. Though again, there were only about 4 or 5 diners in a restaurant of about 80 covers.
We returned to the tender to find that Van Damm wanted to charge us 2000 Escudos for less than two hours of work, which would compare favourably to the UK minimum wage. We eventually agreed 500 Escudos, which we learned this morning from Max, our Austrian neighbour who spends 6 months a year in the Cape Verdes on his older catamaran that is the going rate. Annoyed but not surprised by this reception to Santa Maria we have decided to do shuttle runs individually during the day, as even this rate is the same as we paid for two rounds of three drinks ashore.
The weekend also passed quietly in Palmeira harbour, Kevin was feeling a little recovered from an upset stomach so we decided to venture ashore for internet and a beer on Saturday night. We tendered in negotiating the many webs of mooring lines in the vicinity of the jetty and tied up nearby to another dingy off a neighbouring boat and stepped ashore.
This was Kevin’s first step on land in 10 days! We first of all headed off to find somewhere to dispose of our rubbish and were directed to apparently a dead end road, at the north end of town not far from the harbour. We first of all thought we’d gone the wrong way until we saw Zidane who also directed us that way. We carried on and found it opened out onto a waste ground at the end of the road and alongside the main cargo pier, in the middle of this stood three large metal dustbins, though rubbish was all over the ground too. First job done, we set off to find the internet place I’d seen the first day here.
We wondered round the streets, where there were lots of locals just hanging around chatting, stray dogs everywhere and small cigarette and other stalls on corners. We found the internet place just as it was turning dark, but as per my first visit it was closed. It would appear in fact to have shut down. We decided to go and get a beer, there is very little in Palmeira- 3-4 bars, a tourist souvenir shop, a couple of mini-markets and bakeries. There is very little sign of recent development and the original housing stock is pretty cheaply built block type structures. The streets are cobbled and reasonably clean. There is still a very well used public shower block, a blue building in the centre of town managed by a local lady, we saw several people using it or walking back with towel and shower gel in hand, so I assume that some houses do not have those facilities at home.
We passed quite a nicely lit Italian restaurant with just two men sat outside, neither of which were locals and we wondered if they perhaps owned it. We decided to head to the bar at the pier side as it was now dark so we could keep an eye on our tender. The bar is a small wooden built hut with large overhanging roof under which was about 12 people sat having a drink, a few were locals but the larger number were what appeared to be emigrated residents, However, there were at least double this number of locals just hanging around the harbour or sat up on the wall behind. There were a group of about 6 white guys speaking what appeared to be Portuguese. I had seen them around before and they appeared to be living locally. We took a seat and the waitress came over and offered us Super Bock or something else we didn’t catch, so we opted for Super Bock which turned out to be a Portuguese beer of over 5% proof! The waitress then disappeared off with her toddler son on one hip returning with a large Tupperware box. When she returned quite a number of people rushed in and came out with some sort of snack food in a napkin, so I assume that it is a regular takeout food.
Kevin was still not feeling 100%, so we just stayed for one beer each (200 Escudos ~ £1.30 for both) and head back to the boat.
Friday 11th Oct – Porto Da Palmeira, Ilha do Sal, Cape Verdes
We have had a fairly leisurely start to our Cape Verdes travels, as we are still now resting at anchor in Palmeira. The anchorage is fairly crowded and the holding is not great at the south side of the bay with some gusty winds in the afternoon we dragged a couple of times. We have now moved in much closer to the beach with our shallow draft and have finally got some nice sand under the hook.
We have been enjoying a bit of a rest, after a few busy weeks and Kevin has been avidly getting through the books he got for his birthday – Sailing Around the World Alone - Joshua Slocum, A World of My Own - Robin Knox-Johnson and The Long Way – Bernard Moitessier – I think you can see the theme, though hopefully he won’t get too keen on the idea of solo sailing!
Palmeira is a pretty busy port and everyday there are vessels coming into dock piled high. Most of them look like they have seen better days and it is quite amusing to see the variety of things piled on top. There is the sounds of drums every morning, which coincidentally seems to occur around the same time the tourists arrive in their flashy white Land Rovers, still I’m sure it is all really authentic local custom.
We plan to do a bit of exploring ashore tomorrow and will report back with some pictures.
The next morning we woke up from a deep and relaxing sleep, relieved to be in the first quiet spot for weeks with the traffic and late night drinkers in Las Palmas and the squeaky pontoons in Tenerife. We came on deck to find all the other cruisers taking swims off the back of their boats, though with the rather murky water we decided not to take part. A French boat we had been moored alongside in San Sebastian, La Gomera had appeared overnight and was alongside us on the anchorage, which just shows you that it is a well trodden route. We were dividing up the jobs for the day, going ashore and checking in with the authorities or staying abroad to scrub decks and watch the boat (after all these theft tales we had heard). As I am the one with the language skills and a more of an inclination for paperwork (rather than loathing) and being 5’2” and not very menacing it looked like I was on check-in duty.
Cape Verdes courtesy flag flying
As our tender was still lashed to the trampoline and outboard in the anchor locker as we were not intending to stay long in Palmeira before heading south to the anchorage off the beach in the tourist area of Santa Maria, £1 seemed a great deal to get a taxi ashore and when Zidane passed by in the morning we called him over and explained that we had no Escudos but were on our way to get some if we could use his services. He said no problem, are you going to get your stamps (passport stamps)? He was obviously well used to this routine and waited off the stern whilst I gathered our papers and joined him. I was quite anxious to be honest to be about going ashore alone but we also have reason to suspect our anchor and as it has dragged twice since we got here leaving someone aboard seemed sensible and Kevin is much more capable of resetting alone than I am. So I climbed in to Café au lit, Zidane’s boat and we motored ashore, we passed a French boat departing who called happily to Zidane by name, obviously a previous happy customer and I started to feel more relaxed.
Zidane in Café au Lit
We arrived at the dockside which was crowed with locals and other boats, plus a group of about 5 tourists wearing the large orange solid foam lifejackets that they have as safety gear on ferries looking about as far out of place as it is possible to be. The dock was covered in fish blood and flies and they looked disgusted and anxious as they waited, as Zidane informed me for the inevitable tourist submarine (just how far do we need to travel to be away from those?!). I climbed ashore and waited for Zidane to tie up the boat so I could ask for directions to the harbourmaster’s office which according to the pilotbooks was the first stage of check-in, followed by a trip the airport to see immigration and get the passport entrance stamp that was needed. The pilot books also stated there were no taxi’s in Palmeira and that the airport was 3 miles away, it didn’t bother to suggest how this obstacle might be overcome, but I suppose the facts were there!
Luckily, Zidane just said to follow me and we walked past the crowds of locals up the cobbled streets and into the town, Zidane carrying some laundry, another of his duties that morning. He walked me straight to the local police station, which was several streets back and consisted of one small room, one desk and one policeman in uniform behind it. Zidane explained to him what I was there for and said he would come back and collect me after he dropped off the washing leaving me with the policeman. The policeman looked completely uninterested in proceedings and just held out his hand for our passports, it happened to be Kevin’s he opened first, which raised the first smile and he made some comment which I understood to be that it doesn’t look much like me. I explained Kevin was on the boat, he just shrugged, stamped and dated both passports and turned to let me go, he said something about airports which I didn’t understand. Zidane came back and explained, no that was it, no looking at boat papers, no recording of boat details etc which we have been made to do everywhere else, just a stamp in and then a stamp to leave and that’s it.
He then asked if I wanted him to show me where to get money and I said yes, we walked a few more streets to a builder’s merchants on the edge of town and again I am beginning to wonder what on earth is going on. However, we step in the door and sure enough just inside is a girl sat in a ridiculously small booth with cambio written above it. With not a soul around and this being the only apparent function that she performs, I could only imagine the slowness of this job, perhaps even more so that the 5 women in fluorescent tabards I had seen in the town apparently employed to sweep the dust of the road before the next breath of wind blows it back. Anyway, lesson learned number one, here I could have got Escudos (not obtainable outside the country) in exchange for Euros in cash, but not from a visa card and we had been so pleased with our efficient spending of all our Euros before we left. We had expected to go the airport and knew there to be visa ATMs there which is the way we get currency elsewhere, ah well we’ll know next time. Zidane now recognised what I really needed was to go to the next and major town Sal - Vila do Espargos to a bank. He said no problem, but we would need to go to his house so he could get money for a taxi. I was thinking that he was going to leave me to the trip, which I wasn’t too sure of after proving to myself in the last half an hour that I wouldn’t have got anywhere that morning without his help I followed behind. We went through a door on the street to a courtyard where his home was which appeared to be a couple of rooms, he introduced me to his daughter, a beautiful little girl of about 18 months and his wife before we were off again.
He immediately hailed a minibus that I had heard much about that we’d understood from the pilot guides didn’t operation up this end of the island, to my relief he got in beside me obviously intending to stay throughout. I realised that we would need to pay for this service but knowing that it was only £1 for a boat ride wasn’t too worried about the resulting fee, being more than happy to take his help. After a couple of trips up and down the high street picking up more passengers before the driver was prepared to set off we left town through the fairly green countryside and into Espargos about 2 miles away. When we got out everyone seemed to pay the same fixed fee by coin with no haggling and Zidane walked us a couple of streets to a bank nearby. Inside there were crowds of locals queuing, Zidane picked up a number from the queuing system which read 101, although the electronic board was only at 61 with 4 desks operating. I was thinking the aircon was worth the wait but Zidane headed back outside and said we’d try the other bank. This turned out to be two ATMs in a small booth, Zidane waited outside whilst I got cash out, feeling quite amused to be selecting how many thousands of Escudos I would like.
Zidane then asked if there was anything we needed such as the supermarket whilst we were there and thinking that I needed to break a note, the smallest dispensed being 2000 Escudos (about £12) as I couldn’t imagine what value the coins they were using could possibly be. I suggested we needed some bread so we headed to a supermarket which was more of a minimarket by our terms but seemed pretty well stocked to me and despite the hype of high prices the only one I notice for tinned butter of the same type we had bought for passage / stocks was half what we had paid in Tenerife. However, they had no bread so we headed back to Palmeira as there was a bakery there. In the bakery I was immediately conscious that I had chosen the wrong product to break the note as the table behind the counter with a calculator on it which I took to be the till had just a pile of coins and no notes. I was quite unsure what to do next not sure whether Zidane would continue to keep subbing me, the assistant was meanwhile proffering the chosen piece of bread with a plastic bag over her hand which I assumed she was going to put it in so nodded that was the bit I wanted. Slowly it dawned on me from the surrounding expressions that this was not a land of much packaging and took the bread she was offering and just put it in the bag I was carrying as is. I started to get my note from my purse but Zidane stepped forward to offer a coin to the now unamused looking assistant.
Phew, all that over we were heading back to the boat, I was thinking that Zidane was the best thing since sliced bread and along with Auto the autopilot was great member of crew. When we arrived at the dock there were crowds of locals gathered round and from the several we had passed carrying a large Bonito (fish, very expensive from European supermarkets) in each hand, a fishing boat must be in. Sure enough on the jetty there were fish being thrown up to the dusty dock and people carrying them away. I didn’t see any money being exchanged or any sort of ordering system, but it was clearly a well understood routine. There were several people on the nearby slipway beheading the fish on the waters edge before taking them home, a regular practice from the black and grimy appearance of the slipway which obviously made it live up to it’s name as one of the locals ended up in the water fully clothed much to the amusement of his friends.
This time as well there were a group of very pale looking new tourist arrivals who were standing by the dock apparently waiting to catch the charter catamaran. They had arrived in a fleet of brand new white Landrover Defenders marked up with the TUI tour operator signage which nearly ran myself and Zidane down on the way in. They are obviously not quite so accepting of the local custom of walking in the middle of the road like it is an extension of the pavement… obviously signs of changes to come in the Cape Verdes with the tourist invasion that Zidane and I had just been chatted about.
When we got back to the boat, having agreed with Kevin that we would see how I got on with the check in process before we engaged him for other services, we decided that the guy well deserved the business and we gave him our rubbish to dispose of and two 20 litre jerry cans to fill with water. I regaled to Kevin my adventure whilst Zidane headed off with a smile. When he returned we exchanged the 25 litres of water he’d managed to get in each jerry can for a bag of laundry to preserve our water. I had understood this to be a service that is provided by a local lady in the town rather than Zidane, all the better at least it distributes the work further.
I think that there is a general feeling of suspicion to boat boys and in general the perception seems to be they like some young scruff in a rough neighbourhood who offers to look after your car, otherwise he’ll damage it himself as soon as your back is turned. However, having spent the day with Zidane who can speak 5 languages who arrived from Senegal as a child and who has established himself with his boat and performs such a great service, I am certainly inclined to use the services of boat boys in the future. Yes, you probably can go and do the same things yourself and they will doubtless mark up the prices of the things they sell you, but they aren’t doing it as a favour they are running a business with a boat to maintain and providing a service. We were charged 3000 Escudos, about £20 for the full day of Zidane’s services, including a service wash delivered back dried and folded the same day to the boat at 8.30pm that night. I think that is excellent value, perhaps it does compare over favourably with local wage rate but compared to an Irish pub in Santa Maria which according to the Lonely Planet guide charges £16 for an English breakfast in a place where beer costs 80p and water is the same price as petrol who is really overcharging?
We gave him some chocolate for his daughter and a packet of cigarettes for himself in gratitude for his service which he seemed very pleased with. It seems a lot of the cruisers here prefer to make their own way and we have seen no one else using the taxi service though a few others having laundry etc done. They probably like ourselves arrived with food enough for their stay in Cape Verdes and are therefore contributing little at all to the local economy. We have always previously when using holiday cottages etc made a point of shopping locally, but on this occasion because of the Atlantic passage to follow we have stocked up before arriving but feel happy to try and work with the locals more and are planning to go for a meal ashore tomorrow, anchor set allowing and will be using Zidane’s services to do so.
We were up early on the 2nd Oct for a good breakfast and shower before a last run through of our departure checklist. We dropped the lines from our berth along the wall (Duque) of the marina and motored slowly over toward the fuel berth. One of our neighbours, a Spanish boat, shouted over to ask if we were headed to the south of the island. No we replied, the Cape Verdes then the Caribbean, much to his surprise, he wished us luck and said maybe we would see him next year. We smiled but hoped not as this would suggest a problem with the plan; this really did feel like we were setting off to the new and unknown. Although I had never visited the Canaries before we arrived to Graciosa nearly five months before on 14th May, Kevin had and so now we were really starting the adventure for him.
It felt quite unfamiliar to be setting off on a long passage again after such a long time of day sailing between islands and we were pleased to have fitted a couple of night sails in to keep from feeling too rusty. We were feeling confident with the boat and our level of preparation after over 3 weeks in Las Palmas of pretty constant work. We filled up at the fuel berth, exchanged our camping gas cylinder and handed in our marina keys, bought some chocolate for on route with the coins completing the last of the items on the checklist and set off.
As had been pretty constant for the last couple of weeks in Las Palmas it was grey and overcast but as soon as we left the north of the island heading south the clouds cleared, sun appeared and the swell reduced so we were rewarded with a good start. Within two hours of leaving the marina we had seen two separate pods of dolphins though they didn’t stay long enough to photograph – they seem instinctively to react to my saying I will fetch the camera. Next I was at the helm and saw heading towards us a pod of about 6 pilot whales travelling close together and heading north passing within a few feet of us. This was the first time I had ever seen them so close, very sleek and almost as soon as I’d called Kevin on deck they were gone into the distance. This felt like a great start to the trip as we watched the familiar coast line of Gran Canaria pass to starboard. We could not relax completely though as we were approaching the last of the wind acceleration zones, we saw the white tops ahead and dropped to 2 reefs in the main which but for one morning later in the trip was a sail plan that would see us all the way to the Cape Verdes.
The only aspect of the preparation which had not quite worked as planned was the log was not working, this is a little paddle wheel under the boat which tells you the boat speed and distance run, plus allows the computation of true wind speed (i.e. not that you can feel which is added to by the movement of the boat but the actual local wind strength). All of these things can be approximated by other means but we didn’t want to continue our long journey with this as it was. The problem was the paddlewheel which protrudes through the hull from a fitting accessible in the starboard bilge (subfloor compartment) becomes fouled with growth if you have been in a marina too long, Kevin had cleaned it when in the water earlier in our stay but unfortunately you can’t tell until you set off that it is not working. Sometimes it will clear itself as boat speed picks up, but by the time we reached the south of the island we decided to pull in to the lee of Las Palomas and clean it again. This time Kevin decided to clean it from within the boat which means pulling out an approx 30mm diameter transducer creating a hole in the hull through which water gushes as you then need to quickly swap in a bung of the same size. We had never been keen on doing it this way before for obvious reasons, not least because the seal would start to deteriorate over time if done regularly but a better clean of the wheel would be possible by this method and we’d been suspicious that the wheel had not been running as freely as it should for a while from in-water cleaning. So, as soon as we had reduced boat speed Kevin swapped out the transducer without incident and cleaned it up and we were underway again with all instruments working correctly and with the offset from the track on the GPS to correct the log reading.
Leaving Gran Canaria astern
We motor sailed back out of the lee of land and soon picked up the wind acceleration zone to blast us well south of the island. We expected the 25 knot winds we experienced there to last a few hours more before reducing to the 15 knots forecast for that day. In reality those stronger winds were to last for the majority of the trip with only a few hours of slightly reduced wind strength usually in the mornings until the last day of the trip. However, with two reefs in the main sail the boat was sailing very comfortably despite quite a large swell, as we were sailing downwind (wind behind) she surfs down the waves and our boat speed was they highest average we have had on any passage so far cutting 12 hours off our total trip. The experience of the wind acceleration zones had really given us confidence of Invincible’s handling of these conditions and we were we confident to have more sail up than on previous more conservative earlier days letting her do what she was designed to do. It was exhilarating for those first few days especially through the very dark nights as there was little moon to be surfing down the waves. I took the record on surfing speed with 16 knots on one wave! The trick is to stay with the speed of the waves, not to go too slow and be overtaken by them and not too fast where you crash into the waves in front. Obviously in storm conditions there is a point by which you need to slow down, but we were not near that, catamarans are designed to sit on top of the waves and ride with it, not having the same hull speed restrictions that monohull’s have.
Shipping traffic was fairly busy for the first couple of days as we left the Canaries the latter couple of sightings off the coast of Mauritania being large (50m plus) vessels which would usually move at some speed and which we allow to pass ahead of us were moving so slowly that we had to divert someway to go astern of them as they moved west in front. These sighting were always at night and it is rather eerie when on watch alone down the coast lines of such uninviting sounding countries as Mauritania and Sierra Leone to be encountering such ghost ships, but as is usually the case the imagination is usually far more eventful than reality and we passed without incident.
Overnight passenger
We have established a routine on board now for passages that I feel nauseous and Kevin can’t sleep for two days, between us we would create one excellent sailor and one liability but the combination can be overcome! I felt slightly better currently reading John Guzzwell’s Trekka, Round the World who solo-circumnavigated in a self built 20ft wooden yacht in the 1950’s that he had the same ailment as I. We work into a routine that in the beginning I spend more time at the helm on watch during the day whilst Kevin does blog / log updates, cooking etc and I extend my night watches if necessary to let him try and get some more sleep. I think this trip it was especially exaggerated due to the increased boat speed which increased the motion and noise of the boat and both of our ailments.
Jo’s sleeping talents displayed
Kevin however was still struggling to sleep and I could see his reactions were slowing due to fatigue even if he did not yet feel tired. One night watch as he came up from off-watch again with no sleep, he trapped his finger in the sliding door as the boat lurched when he opened it. The immediate blood blister showed and I made him stick his finger in a bottle of very cold water from the fridge which kept the swelling down. With a crew of two or worse when solo sailing, injury or illness can be quite a risk, luckily Kevin soldiered on with me now taking over more of the sail handling and physical jobs which Kevin would more usually cover.
Atlantic swell
Luckily, the conditions started to ease the next day, the swell started to reduce first as we had passed south of two shallower banks and then gradually the wind reduced and the overnight sheet lightening stopped as we passed the Tropic of Cancer and we even managed to take off our oilies which we had needed for the coolness of the wind. The further south we got the flying fish became more and more abundant with sightings every 3 or 4 minutes through the day and landings into the boat at night. We’d only been conscious of a couple which had landed in the cockpit beside us on night watch but there were scales at several points on deck where they must have landed and managed to flap themselves back overboard. However, on the last day when the swell was much reduced and Kevin was on the foredeck he found 6 dried flying fish on the trampoline! We tried using one as bait as Kevin had finally managed to get his fishing rod out now, but it seems that tuna are a bit more discerning than that.
Startled visitor
As happened coming into Graciosa, by the time we were approaching Sal, with only 30 miles to go in the morning of the 6th day, we were both so into the routine that we weren’t too bothered about stopping except for a shower and a beer. I was infact in the cockpit deflating our large teardrop fenders when land was finally sighted about 8 miles off through the mist which was surrounding the island. I continued with my task, having developed a technique to tone maximum muscle groups, this job because of an incorrect adapter being rather physical, in fact it was such good exercise (I’m still ouching on stairs two days later) for arms, stomach and legs I am thinking of marketing it.
Land sighted – Isla da Sal
I was frantically cleaning the boat as we approached so we could relax on arrival, removing the salt and grime that accumulates. Kevin then announced that he was going to lance his finger and he was worried about loosing the nail. I couldn’t imagine performing this operation yourself, but once resolved he decided to go straight ahead, relieved that I or some less developed medical centre would not be doing it, I got the disinfection supplies and dressings ready for him then took the helm. A few minutes later he was back on deck feeling much better for the operation with his finger dressed as we made the final approached to Palmeira. We even had a welcoming party of a small Hobbie catamaran sailing dingy. The anchorage was full when we rounded the breakwater so we took a spot to the south and dropped our hook. It was now 19:15 (GMT), 18:15 Cape Verdes time, so we just swabbed the cockpit and saloon and cabin floors which were covered in red sand from the Sahara and took a shower before a very pleasant meal under lantern light in the cockpit.
Escorted into Palmeira by Hobbie cat
We had one final visitor before we took a well earned rest, Zidane, a local boat boy who approached in his skiff complete with rasta hat. It was slightly menancing as he came alongside without speaking at first to be honest but he pulled out a colour folder of his services, taxi service to shore (150 Escudos - £1), Laundry, water, fuel collected, etc. Obviously an enterprising guy, as we were unsure of the fairly elaborate checking in process described in pilot book to do the next day, his services could just be handy.
