2nd -19th January 2025
The Sail to Cape Verde was unspectacular, not having written anything in the logbook makes it hard to recall, but we were still recovering from some heade-achey fluey feeling so rested allot for the 320 miles to Boa vista.
It is definitely not the most beautiful island. A grey industrial harbour area with ware-houses and dispensaries is the first thing you see blocking the view of a flat landscape. Many boats were crowded into the small anchorage between land and the very active ferry channel and often you could hear the horn beeping at some boat or other that had drifted or anchored too close to the channel.
Colourful houses in aggressive greens, pinks and oranges shone in stark contrast to the concrete of Senegal. It actually didn’t feel very African, maybe more like what Brazil is like, with many little bars with wrinkly men playing Portuguese love songs on out of tune guitars, chain smoking straight cigarettes and drinking tiny beers.
“No stress” was the vibe here, written on doorways, football shirts and souvenirs and the pace of life very much reflected this philosophy. Most places accepted euros which was a relief since the cashpoints were always out of money and no one was stressed, so it seemed nobody filled them again. It was at this anchorage that someone sold us a wind generator that we had been wishing for just in time for our crossing! After a few days of meeting up with our friends and their cat again, hanging around in little bars with hitch hikers and trying to find affordable chocolate we sailed the 100 miles to Ilha de Sao Vicente behind Frifararen- Otto and Tamara’s boat where we could fill up our gas and supposedly cheaper supplies to prepare for crossing the big ‘pond’ as they say in German.
The captain has fur
He is soft and serious
yet slightly fishy
On the way we caught our first Tuna. Its powerful silver body twitched long after death and really let you now that it had been alive. Over the VHF radio Tamara recommended taking out the gills and pulling it behind the boat to wash out the blood.
About 10 minutes later I saw a fin in the water and mentioned that maybe a shark was trying to get our fish to get Niels’s attention. He didn’t believe me until it was right behind the boat, its wide head and calculated movements so unlike any creature we’d seen before. We reacted fast and pulled in the rope just in time, looking down in wonder at this wide hungry beast. Niels immediately wanted to hang it back out and see if it came again but I felt very protective about our first Tuna.
Sao Vicente is geographically much more impressive that Boa Vista. It looked allot like the North coast of Scotland with big rocks rising out of the sea and grey green mountains framing the horizon. At sunset the clouds and mists would hang around them impressively like a dramatic golden cloak in the darkening sky. Town here was also prettier despite having several Highrise blocks and big shiny offices. The buildings were pale pink or green or blue with white detailing at the edges making them look fancy despite the peeling corners. Some alleys were full of women sat with buckets of tomatoes and peppers and herbs in their laps. People spoke Portuguese and French, or we got by with hand gestures. It did seem poor and several people were scarred with the aftermath of childhood polio, much like in Senegal. There were often men begging outside supermarkets, mostly for powdered milk.
The supermarkets were still expensive and the gas people tried to rip us off but it worked out in the end. We did some huge supermarket runs, still grateful to have things left over from Senegal and even Spain as it had been much cheaper there. Food shopping was complicated since it was never clear if we were being ripped off and if we could or should haggle, and many shops didn’t have specific items so you’d have to go to several, which often led to eventually finding better deals for something you’d already bought.
My old phone was only just working and we used Niels’s phone to keep in touch with family and friends. Unfortunately, 2 weeks after the little shore-landing-capsize incident on the beach in Dakar Niels’s phone went black and wouldn’t come on again. Of course it wasn’t backed up or anything and we were dismayed to find we’d lost Adama and Bouna’s contacts with it. The day was saved at the local phone shop where a very friendly man put a new screen on and despite the colours all looking quite different to before, we got all the photos and contacts back.
Once back online Niels saw a message from an English family who we had seen back on the Guadiana river. They had a parcel with spare parts for our windsteering which we’d ordered in august and hadn’t arrived before leaving to the canaries. They had sailed it to La Gomera but missed us by a few days, then on the Cape Verde islands it turns out that they were on the same anchorage without us even noticing. After we hadn’t replied (since Niels’s phone was dead) they had donated the parcel to a boat shop in case we wanted to pick it up there, and if we didn’t they could have it. The German shopkeeper told Niels he didn’t have it.
“but I can see it its right there” explained Niels… no we’ve already used it…”I can literally see the contents on that shelf”… well I’ve already planned in into a project, I can order some more and you can buy it off me… Eventually after much indignation from Niels, he got the parcel.
There was still allot to do before leaving, and most of it Niels was the only one who knew how which was frustrating.
He built a mast for the wind generator out of an aluminium boom that we happened to have lying around and had the ideal dimensions, we oiled and cleaned our broken winches, took apart the windsteering again replacing the bearings with better fitting ones, did some work on the outboard engine, tried to waterproof the storage area under the cockpit that had our electronics in.
We also waterproofed the window above the bed and the housing of the sliding roof in our doorway, packed and repacked all the food under the bed, in the bilge, under benches and in cupboards.
At the markets we bought a huge banana trunk and many squashes, eggs, apples, cabbages and courgettes since they last the longest.
It was all allot and meant that we weren’t ready to leave by the time our friends were which was a bit disappointing. They set off early on the 13th, and we continued preparing for 6 days before finally following suite in the afternoon of the 19th of January. As prepared as possible with enough food easily for a month or two, as many podcasts as my phone had space for, a tank full of water we planned not to touch unless our water-maker broke, (instead we’d make our water daily) fuel, and most importantly squirty cream to celebrate my 24th birthday somewhere on the Atlantic.
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