Cabo Verde

We are in Mindelo in São Vicente, Cabo Verde at the moment, getting ready for the crossing. Zissi had come to join me in Sal almost two weeks ago and we have been cruising around some of the islands. We have met new people and old acquaintances from the Canary Islands in the “Floating Bar” and sometimes it is hard for me to believe that I am here … in Cape Verde …. 4000 nautical miles from where I started and my starting point for crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

Before I left La Gomera on Wednesday November 1, I had gone on another hike which turned out to be very beautiful. I took the GuaGua (public bus) from San Sebastián Terminal and the bus took just over one hour to arrive at my destination. I had to time my hike well because bus out there only go every three hours or so. But everything went well and I was back at the boat with the onset of darkness. 
I had done most of the provisioning the day before but there were some things I had forgotten so back to the supermarket it was. The next day, my departure day, was a national holiday and I wouldn’t be able to get any more things.

For my trip to Sal, Cape Verde (just under 800 nautical miles) I was planning to be underway for anywhere between 7 and 10 days. The forecast was predicting strong winds and others were choosing to wait for a better weather window but I decided now would be a good time to see if Amy and I could handle the weather. If I would want to cross an ocean I would need to be able to deal with this kind of wind and waves.
I radioed San Sebastián Port Control and they told me to wait for the Fred Olsen fast ferry to leave. After that I cast off and we were going south along the coast of La Gomera with a good wind from behind. As darkness fell the wind died and we had to motor for a few hours but the wind soon came back. It wasn’t much but we could sail.
The next morning the wind was blowing a steady force 5 and we were flying along wing on wing with around 6 knots. 
I was getting used to my sleeping schedule and did not do much except cooking, reading and later reefing for the night.
The next morning the wind was up to force 6 and I was happy to have reefed early. The waves were now getting bigger and I had to constantly hold on to things to not get thrown around.

MOB, POB, COB, WTF?
Some readers will be familiar with the term MOB (man over board) and the manoeuvres and possibilities to turn the boat around in order to hopefully find said fallen man and get him back on board which presents new problems. But I won’t go into details here… You can google it and find tons of videos pdfs and discussions. The bottom line is: somebody falls off the boat by accident and everybody remaining on the boat does everything humanly possible to get that somebody back into the boat. Some of you will have noticed that so far I have only been talking about a man. Until recently nobody gave that term much thought but it did get changed into POB…. You guessed it…. Person over board.
With COB the objective is a totally different one. The boat doesn’t need to change course. C being short for cockroach, the difficulty presents itself in making the C fall overboard. Once that is done nobody needs to do anything more and the crew can sit back in the cockpit, relax and treat themselves to delicious glass of water fresh from the tap on the pontoon in San Sebastián.

So now I presumably had a family of cockroaches on board and I had an infected eye. While giving Wayne the order to alter course by 15 degrees I had also fallen onto the rim of the cockpit and hurt another rib. Fortunately my old rib had now healed and I didn’t need to worry about two hurting ribs but only one. So I was still in the best of moods.
I treated my eye with camomile tea which made it better. There were a few very discomforting radio calls about a group of refugee boats going from the African coast towards the Canary Islands. According to the last reported position and course they would cross my path during the next night. So I stayed up all night to keep a lookout. I never saw anybody but later heard that they had apparently made it to El Hierro.
During the next days the wind and waves picked up even more and some dolphins came along. I saw one Brazilian freighter but no other ships. The waves were now pretty impressive and I started to doubt if Wayne could keep us from being pushed sideways. The wind was now blowing a steady 30 plus knots. At some point I stopped filming and taking photographs and even cooking. I was steering all day and got very tired. It was a stupid mistake because Wayne could steer much better than I and I should have rested.
We now had two reefs in the mainsails and a towel size poled out Genoa and were surfing down the waves with up to 14 knots. Things were comfortable enough and I went below for a 20min nap… I woke up almost six hours later, something that had never happened to me before and of course should not have happened. But other than the fact that I had to put the third reef into the main because the wind had picked up even more, everything was ok. 
It was now light and I was hoping to be able to see Sal.but it was misty and there was a constant cloud of Sahara dust which had coloured Amy red and which made for poor visibility.
I had decided to make a wide detour in order to approach the island from the lee. The waves were immediately reduced to almost nothing but there was still fairly fierce wind blowing all the way into the anchorage. It was still light when I dropped the anchor in 30 knots of wind and I hurt my hand because I let the chain pull it into the steel bow roller. Luckily nothing broke and I got away with a few cuts. The anchor held immediately and after reconfirming that we were safe and not moving I slept all night like a baby.
The next morning I awoke from a very loud horn very close by. There was a big freighter that couldn’t get into the harbour because of me and a few other sailboats. The crew on the freighter was not happy and made sign for us to go away. We had not calculated on the fact that the ship wouldn’t go straight into the harbour but needed to turn around inside of the small boats anchorage. So a bit drowsy and in my pyjamas I upped anchor and went looking for a new place. The wind was still pretty strong so this was not an easy manoeuvre but everything turned out good and after a few hours of making sure again that we weren’t moving I inflated the dinghy and went into town in order to check in with the police and customs.
When I got to the fishing pier it immediately became clear that I had now left the European Continent and had arrived in Africa. I felt great and after the police and customs thing I let myself drift and when one of the Aluguers (minivans that serve as public transport) came by and the driver yelled at me if I wanted to come or no, I just got on board without knowing where we were going.
I spent the day walking around Palmeira and Espargos and did some grocery shopping and got a new Sim Card so I could make calls and use the internet. It was very hot and very bright and eventually I went back to the ship, cooked some dinner and went back to sleep.

Two days later I picked up Zissi from the airport and we spent around ten days visiting the islands of Sal, Boa Vista, São Nicolau and finally São Vicente where we are now.
At first we were a bit taken aback by all the new impressions, the sights, the smells, the heat, the language and many other things. We soon noticed that the people are incredibly friendly and welcoming and that communication with a funny mixture of spanish, French and the bit of Portuguese that I had tried to learn from podcasts on my trip was indeed possible. We made some excursions with local guides. The anchorages were often very rolly and uncomfortable and in one case the anchor didn’t hold at all so we had to stand watch all night. 
There were no showers on land. The islands a very dry and water is hard to come by. We had a great adventure and experience and saw incredible landscapes and met great people. I did lose my nerves once in a while. Leaving the boat at anchor for a day trip when the wind is blowing hard and there is basically no protection from wind and swell was something I needed to get used to. Things were often flying around the salon and cooking was a challenge. Often I didn’t sleep very well and so coming into Mindelo and finding a place in the only marina in Cabo Verde was a welcome luxury. We celebrated our adventure in the Floating Bar and were now able to take showers and sleep through the night in total quiet.
Zissi flies home from here on Sunday and I plan to leave on Sunday, too. My next stop will hopefully be French Guyana after 1800 nautical miles.