Cape Verdes - Sal to Mindelo

Matt leaves us in Sal and we take a team photograph showing off the boat T-shirts, I got these made in Gran Canaria and will arrange posting ones to Ken, Eileen, John and Pearse (previous crews).

Use this web address in your web browser to see where we are, Alan will update the boat's position around noon (UTC) most days. You should see a screen like the one below, you zoom in and out using the arrows at the top left and it is easier on a PC than a phone.
Anyway I row Matt ashore at 7 am and he departs for the airport, it was really good to have him onboard, even if he always won the gin rummy games...

We head out for the next island - Sao Nicola 60 miles westward. A rolly beam reach and we slow down a bit for comfort. Arriving at dusk we head along the South coast to a bay anchorage highlighted by Don Street's Pilot. Normally anchoring at night is not recommended but we note the bay has steep cliffs and we use radar to ensure we know exactly where we are in relation to the shore - the charts are said to be inaccurate (they are close here but 500 feet out on the next island!).
The steep cliffs shelter us from the wind and we anchor in 10 m with a scope of 5:1. Hitting the Man overboard button on the chart plotter and zooming in to the 20 foot scale allows us to monitor our position, also the echo sounder is kept on all night. If we dragged we would end up in a 1000 feet of water so I sleep soundly!

 Nice steep cliffs
There is a narrow gully with a dock just to the East of the anchorage but it would be too tricky at night.
The next island is a nature reserve - we agree it looks a bit spooky, this and the next adjacent small island is known to be turtle breeding grounds according to the pilot. In any case this one is a bit unwelcoming. There is a viable anchorage on the next island but the Garmin and Imray charts show no data - basically uncharted. Hence we head to the slightly larger Sao Luzia which has a gorgeous beach shown as a good anchorage in 10m. It is night again when we approach and we use the radar again - there is a small rock called Isla Zinho to avoid (which we do) and we anchor off the beach to the West of the rock - there is a french yacht already anchored to the East of the Rock. We note a discrepancy between the Radar and the chart of 500 feet.
The picture above is an overlay - the radar target at the 16m point is the french yacht.  note how the chart version of Zinho ( yellow bit under the "Z" of Zinho) is a bit to the right of the orange radar image above the "I" of IIheu. Radar tells the truth and we use it.

 View of the beach from the isla Zinho
In the morning we take the punt to the rock, lift it ashore and dive. Alan and I dive again on the south side of the Island while Peter and Doros stay on Shadowmere, A mid water leap from Shadowmere and an exit via the punt tied alongside works well. I use a delayed Surface Marker buoy when we ascend to 5m and this helps Doros and Peter - who could see our bubbles from the high viewpoint of Shadowmere's centre cockpit.
As usual, I need to upload edited videos to youtube but don't have good enough Wifi, here are a few tasters and I will edit the page eventually

A few stills from my GoPro Clone

A very nice dive - the variety of fish is astounding, we also see a couple of very small crayfish but do not lift them, meanwhile Doros has negotiated a good price from a small boat of fisherman ...
Later that night we enjoy our friend with a coconut curry and pasta (and a nice cold white wine)
Before - above and After - below 8-)
Before we get to Dinner we have to get to Mindelo - 15 miles up a rough channel with current against us and then 5 miles along the top of San Vicente island with the current with us but with overfalls and rolly seas. We get to Mindelo an hour before dark (it gets dark very quickly after 6:30 around here)

large number of anchored hulks here - a dozen or more, we radio the marina and they welcome us in. Nice marina - very rolly but good showers and a floating bar just beside the marina office. We arrive on a Saturday which is a national holiday and the Cape Verdeans put on marching dancers and music for us. but we are tired and go to bed without taking photos - sorry

A pleasant town, street cleaners, stuff getting built, roads being relaid and good fish and vegetable markets (as well as supermarkets and butchers) They can't process credit cards and Cape Verdean Escudoes cannot be converted back to Euros although you can pay for everything with Euros (probably a 10% penalty but given that a coffee costs 1 Euro and a Beer 2 Euro with a meal out running at 6 to 9 Euro it is not too onerous.

Here is a few shots of the Fish market taken by Doros and a street vendor also selling fish. Fish is everything here.



We don't buy any fish because Alan and Peter intend to catch Dorado from Shadowmere on the way over... details later!

Finally a shot of a van on its way to the vegetable market. We buy some bananas for the journey - we also buy 72 tins of beer but will ration this to one tin a day per crew member - in the old days Captains dispensed the rum ration (or grog) we may amend the rules when we arrive in the Caribbean as the there are 70 different types of rum and so little time!
We ready the boat for the departure; Fill the water tanks at 2 Euro per 100L - Shadowmere has 560 Litre water tanks (just a quarter ton) and we also carry 65l in 5l bottles (and beer) so we should be ok

We plan to leave on Tuesday 16th January and hope for a 16 day crossing to Barnados. As usual battle plans are the first causalities of war so we shall see. see us at https://eur-share.inreach.garmin.com/AlanDoyle


Cape Verdes (the Island of Sal)

As usual, dolphins keep us company on the way from Gran Canaria to the Cape Verdes, 800 miles with Matt and Alan. Alan was asleep for the 45 minutes the Dolphins played with us - there were 20+ of them.

 We leave Las Palmas marina in Gran Canaria around noon after fuelling and getting refunds on our gate access cards. The next 800 miles involve trying running with twin headsails and also bearing off for broad reaching. There is an unpleasant sea - two cross seas a 2m sea from the NE and a 4m sea from the NW - a weather bomb off America I think. The rolling made sleep difficult but we used 3 hour watches and 6 hours rest through the night - an evening meal at dusk and the rotated the watches so the cook had the first 6 hour sleep. Winds were more than forecast - generally force 5,6 or 7 with gusts goinf much higher - not too difficult with one foresail and the mizzen mainsail out.
 4 days out and we slow down to ensure a daytime entry - we had done 7.5 knots or 6 to 6.5 generally but we slowed to 5 to 5.5 and arrive at 10am. Landfall was unremarkable - a faint imagining of the coastline when it was 2 miles away, we had been bombarded with Saharian dust that left a dull haze on the horizon. The chart plotter is accurate - there were various warnings about WGS84 datums being wrong by 0.1 and 0.4 of a mile but imray paper and Garmin (2011) cartridges are both ok. There are also uncharted reefs but the sea swell would reveal them - we saw none.
 We had seen a strange phenomenon in the middle of the night - as well as beautiful phosphoresence we saw small flashes of light ahead, then off the the side, then behind us. Turns out that these were flying fish getting away - we find a couple on the decks in the full light of day. Poor things, not much eating on them though (we refrained...)
 Somebody thought they could shower and waste water at night and we wouldn't notice!
Ashore we chill in a local cafe. The "hut" in the background becomes our favourite place. The harbour is in the town/village of Palmeria, about 2 miles from the main town of Espargos and the only other places of note on the island is the far south  - Santa Marie which is were the tourists go. Palmeria has no tourists - the harbour has small boats although the breakwater/jetty has the odd big ship bringing in LPG I think. We get adopted by Jay - a local boatman who offers water taxi services (5 Euro a trip which is ok when there are 5 of us) as well as rubbish disposal (2 Euro), water and diesel in jerrycans and laundry. He hussles me into buying a Cape Verde flag for 8 Euro - when it comes it resembles the 50p wonders from home that go on sticks and kids wave about the place. It will serve. We go to the combined police and port offices and get our passports stamped and the boat checked in (7 Euro), we also get Matt a visa for 25 Euro. We need to check out and reclaim the ships papers and get our passports stamped again. And get a receipt which we need for the next check in (Mindelo)

 Church in the wee town of Palmeria - no tourists and full of happy, laid back locals

 We go to the airport to pick up Peter and Doros - bit weird to have Christmas stuff when the temperature is in the high twenties (22-28)
In the town of Espargos we see a snowman - surely a bit bizzarre in a country where snow has never fallen.

The main town Espargos - feels African, I have good vibes here  - there are street cleaners, people laying fresh cobblestones and the place is not poor, quite a lot of unfinished developments but people are cheerful enough. Beer is one euro a bottle, meals out 4 -6 euro for fish with rice, chips and a bit of salad, what's not to like!

We take a couple of days down the coast from Palmeria harbour - to a bay called Mordeira, Matt has two dives in search of turtles - not found but dives reveal lots of fish. Shallow so good experience with handling wave surge. I take Matt in first and the next day we move across the bay and Alan goes in with Matt - below.

 We also take a one euro bus to the south of the Island and suss out Sana Marie - the tourist place. Many kite surfers, wind surfers and dive schools, we check out Ecodiveschool.com and book two dives for the following day - we have to be at the dive school for 8:30 and will dive a 20m reef and then move onto an 11m wreck dive - youtube videos may go up eventually but the Wifi is not up to it here (Sal Airport)


 View from the dive school - the restaurant is owned by Angulo - a world windsurfing champion. We develop a taste for beer and pizza - I can recommend this after diving (or at any time!)


 Pete and I at the dive centre, great staff, best dive school here I am sure. (see videos later)
Keen Matt filling in his logbook, dives number 7 and 8.

 We also push this truck back onto firm sand - not easy.
Now I see why it is called wind - surfing. Doros caught this photo at the point of wipeout.
After our morning diving and our afternoon with beer and pizza (and snooze and coffee) we return home where Matt thrashes us at gin rummy again. Next day is a rest day! and we arrange check out and go to the airport to wifi whatsapp home. Alan is still updating movement of the boat using his satellite tracker at https://eur-share.inreach.garmin.com/AlanDoyle

Our plans are to rise at 5am, row Matt ashore for his flight and for the four of us to head for the next Island - 60 miles of open sea with a NW swell (2-3m) and NE wind (20 knots plus). This gets us to an anchorage on the South side of San Nicola. After sleep we may dive and then head to one of two small islands about 40 mile away - nature reserves and good diving. A further 30-40 miles will have us in Mindelo where we will stay a day or two to fill tanks and provision for the "crossing over"

More later