Cape Verde
Happy New Year!
Yesterday was the first time in 6 months we set the alarm clock to wake up. We are currently staying in marina Mindelo on Sao Vicente and from here we caught an early morning ferry for a day trip to Santo Antao, a nearby island. We hired a little taxi bus that took us into the mountains to visit an extinct volcano crater. After a lovely walk we drove round to the other side of the island and the scenery took our breaths away. Truly stunning. Another stop in a little fishing village, some lunch and then back to the ferry! Last night we celebrated New Year’s Eve on board with our friends from Taff Tumas. Mindelo marina was lit up with great fireworks and the town was still partying at 8am this morning! We’ve been pleasantly surprised by Cape Verde, it’s more beautiful than we imagined, the people are very friendly and there’s a great ambience. Think we are going to a need a day’s rest before we can contemplate departing! Happy New Year everyone !!! X
Art class
After a great night’s sleep we’re full of energy again! Kids did some schoolwork including art class with modelling clay and Seathan went to sort out the paperwork. Now that we’re no longer in Europe we have to check in and out every time which means going to customs and immigration. We plan to stay here a few days, perhaps even celebrate new year before we continue!
Cape Verde
We’re in Cape Verde and have another 900 NM under our belts! From here it’s another 2000 NM to the Caribbean. It’s a perfect stopover as we had to pass here anyway in order to get far enough South to catch the trades. We’re happy we stopped, the atmosphere is great and you immediately feel you are no longer in Europe! We arrived just after our friends who left Las Palmas at the same time as us. They ‘caught’ more than 30 flying fish on their deck (we only got three) which we barbecued for lunch! The sail from Las Palmas to here was very enjoyable with nice steady winds. It took the kids and I a day or so to find our sea legs again but after that we were fine. We settled on 3 hour shifts during the night (after trying all sorts of combinations of shorter and longer shifts, we felt that 3 hours on and off was the best). After a few days one gets used to the broken sleep pattern and life on board becomes a daily routine. Still, I’m looking forward to a normal night’s sleep again tonight! Christmas was certainly very different this year, it was a calm day so we had a nice lunch and relaxed. We even were treated by a visit from a pod of dolphins. The boys were happy as Santa managed to locate our boat during the night and dropped off lots of new toys!
