Santa Maria, Ilha do Sal, Cape Verdes

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.