Cap Verde: hostile environment ... and wonderful people!

November 11th 2018. 

So we are at Palmeira on the island of Sal (Cap Verde). What is there to do? First of all we needed to see our friends so we could all complain and moan about the rough passage, the things that broke ... and basically have an excuse to start apéro at 11 am 😋 We meet up with a wonderful Belgian couple with two beautiful girls, the same age of Louise and Anna. As you can see they were quite happy to share their stories also 😎

A bit of very honest publicity: We already stayed in contact with our friends during the passage through our Iridium Go, which is very reassuring. You don't feel so alone and it automatically sends our coordinates to our parents. It's small, it's easy and we are filled with gratitude to MVS to sponsor us for our voyage.

The advantage of early apéro's is that guy's seem to find the solution to all problems quite easily 😏 So after a long inspection, they get out their toolboxes and actually didn't do a bad job at all in fixing the anchor!

We don't only meet new friends, we seem to run in to the same sailing yachts over and over again. This one didn't invite us for apéro though 😏

I am quite proud to present my garden that resisted the passage quite well, although the tomatoes died a bit later because they got a big wave over them... From left to right: basil, coriander (doesn't go well 😞), tomatoes, mint, more basil, ginger and a fig tree.
 

First visit: Palmeira.

J-Jay takes us to shore. The french call him "Didier" 😆 and later I asked him to spell his name: it's Jaïr. Really nice guy!

 

The local fish market in Palmeira. A 6 kg tuna for 5€ 😉 That's the only inexpensive source of food. Since everything is imported and the Cap Verde or not "verde" at all, shopping is very expensive.

 

This is it, the village of Palmeira. Quite a change from our Western cocoon... 

It looks great on the pictures, but the bay of Palmeira is not really that pretty. We are eager to find a place where you can actually see the fish again 😌 On top of that we are packed like sardines in a box and some bigger (abandoned) ships already got loose and bumped into other sailing vessels like our friends unfortunately... 

 

The girls had a great time and while they notice the difference with our home at Grimbergen, it's actually all the same for them 😍

Second visit Espargos.

A local bus turns around in the village for 20 minutes in order to fill it up completely. When you almost have you're neighbour on your lap you're off. For 1€ per adult you can get to the capital city of Sal.

Just across the bus station in Sal, you'll find a delicious local restaurant where the weight of your dish is converted in euros. 

Does the beer remind you of a Belgian brand?

Third visit: the Salinas.

We were a bit sceptic to visit another salt marsh, but it turned out to be so different and very pretty!

Three boats, 6 girls: great fun and very loud!

You could go for a swim. The first three minutes are great and very funny since you just cannot put your feet down, but beware: it really stings in very delicate places. 

Not a good idea with the children 😳

After a shower, we noticed a piggy bath. Some just couldn't resist to get dirty again 😁 ...

... while others chose to take a stroll around the beautiful environment of this salt marsh.

 

We privatised an Aluguer (local bus) for 20€ a lot cheaper than a taxi and all thirteen of us could easily fit in it.  We had great music and "impossible-to-get-tired" children.

Louise and Anna like to do the "dog" when in a bus 😂

Fourth visit: kindergarten of Palmeira.
When emptying our home, we prepared three big bags of stuffed animals to give away and we already had a lot of clothes that were too small. So we went to see the local kindergarten of Palmeira in order to ask them to distribute some to the poorest children.

We had promised them to go the next day at noon, but as we got on shore, 3 Senegalese woman, selling necklaces, etc, curiously looked in our bags and grabbed everything they could get. It was a bit intense and I even took some things back because our bags were almost empty. I tried to explain them that we would have given everything if we didn't already promised the school, but communication was difficult. 

We're not sure if they just took it to sell the clothes afterwards or if they really needed them. They did ask for a dress for girls and looked at the size of the shoes so my guess is they really need it ... 

One of them saw my disappointment as I looked at the half empty bags... and then she came running after us to give the 4 girls a necklace.

In the kindergarten the girls distributed their stuffed animals. It's a great experience because they often tell me, they don't need so much toys and that they can give away some more 😍

When going back to the boat, men and woman came to ask us shoes, more clothes and toys...

We feel ... I don't know how we feel ... happy? Powerless/helpless? 

We also tried to visit a larger school in order to give away the hockey outfits, but it was apparently very difficult to organise, so we'll keep the outfits and try again later.

November 16th 2018. 
It's time to leave Palmeira. We need some "air" and a place to swim. so we're off just half an hour further away to the bay of Murdeira with our friends on another catamaran.
We leave our Belgian friends at Palmeira since they have in-laws visiting them and obviously a dinghy to repair 😏

Three other boats come to tell us that surfers expect the event of the century with enormous waves so that they would move the next morning to the bay of Palmeira again. We looked at the weather forecasts and were sure to have 24h more so we could enjoy a good swim and a bit of the beach, ...

However ... the next morning Louise wakes us up with the following phrase "Daddy come look, we are surfing and there are people standing on the waves". One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three ... before we jump out of the bed and see that LouiseAnna is in fact slowly surfing on the waves and get pulled back by the anchor.

We quickly moved to prepare the boat and have breakfast and decided with the other cat to leave to Saõ Nicolau and shelter for the 6m waves that awaited us.

November 18th 2018. 

It seemed to be a good decision as we heard later that the Palmeira Bay was a catastrophe with all boats swirling around in different directions!
The passage to the next island was actually quite nice as the big waves rocked us genty to sleep.

 

We arrived later that night to wake up in a great environment: the bay of Preguiça. The locals are not used to having boats anchored in front of the village since it's not normally a good shelter. This made it very pleasant for us to get ashore and go for a trip to Ribeira Brava, the capital of Saõ Nicolau.

 Arrival at Ribeira Brava.

!!! If your arachnophobic do not click on the next picture 😌 Otherwise: look closely to the picture below. They're hanging everywhere over your head !

 A city of contrast... A country of contrast...

Before turning back to our mooring, a trip to Fajã de Baixo. Surprisingly green. Everything grows up here! It's also very nice to not hear the wind howling for once 😊

November 19th 2018.
Still not a good idea to leave our shelter. So we decide to fix all lego structures again before making new ones. OMG !!! It finally took us up to three days to only do half of them...

November 20th 2018.

We move to Tarrafal. Just two hours more west. Just before Tarrafal we went for a swim on a beautiful white beach. As the girls were building a castle, they stumbled across a nest of turtle eggs! We have been seeing turtles quite often, but they scare easily and we never saw them whilst swimming, unfortunately. We gently covered the nest again and we are hoping the baby turtles were not too disturbed by the ecstatic noises of the girls and me 😊

Tarrafal looked nice, but a bit intense when going ashore. You immediately have 12 children and young adults asking to keep your dinghy "safe". As Geoffrey said earlier, it's like they want to keep the cult a-life that Cap Verde is not a safe place, so you can pay them money to guard your dinghy. 

 The market looked nice, but again they propose the same vegetables 3 times the price of what you pay in a small shop or supermarket. The face makes the price up here 😏 

Too bad since we would love to support the locals... 

The town is quite beautiful and they're renovating streets and administrative buildings. People are nice, but since we've already visited the island we were quite happy to chill on board, do some teaching, finalise sewing projects, repairs and maintenance ...

November 23rd 2018.
Our friends are still behind and apparently loving Palmeira too much 😅 so we decide it's time to move on. We leave Tarrafal to go to Santa Luzia. At the end of the island the wind picks up to 30 knots (7 beaufort) in 5 minutes time with peaks of 42 knots. So needless to say we had again a rough passage! luckily not far.

We decide to hide behind the small rock of Santa Luzia. In the only bay with a little bit of shelter. We're finally 5 boats to stay 2 days accompanied by dolphins and Geoffrey saw a 3m long shark living under LouiseAnna 😁. Off course he told us after we got out of the water 😏.

November 25th 2018.
We couldn't enjoy Santa Luzia which seems a really nice place to swim and enjoy the beach. If you have good, calm weather it's a great stop!
It was still blowing quite heavily but we just needed to move to calmer waters and we are eager to cross the Atlantic now. Also, we had nothing left to eat, so we left for Mindelo. Only 4 hours away, again it was a very rough passage. Three reefs, 35 knots all the time, waves crossing from two different directions and the roof windows not completely shut while the waves were flowing abundantly over the roof ... Result: salty lego's !!!

Everything moved around, even my fig tree fell over! Luckily Geoffrey was feeling very happy steering through this weather 😜

 

Arrival at Saõ Vicente, beautiful and rocky island.

I wonder why we chose to travel by boat, I don't like salt, nor sand 😳

And this is Mindelo, the place of many nationalities all with the same goal: crossing the Atlantic. The atmosphere is wonderful! Everybody is happy, locals are very nice and the town convivial. 

The dinghy doc with LouiseAnna in the background:

It's funny since we just arrived at the departure of the ARC, an organised crossing of the Atlantic. 

After two days at the pontoon, cleaning the exterior and interior we moved to the mooring just in front of a sunken ship ! It seems to be a ship cemetery ...

 Visit of the city:

Today we're the 1st of December. We have placed our orders for spare parts and toys for Christmas so that my brother can bring them over when we see his family on the 23rd of December in Guadeloupe.
We decided to cross the Atlantic tomorrow. We are cooking lots of pasta for the more difficult days on sea. We're repairing a small rip in the front sail and have to say our goodbyes to our "bateau-copains". Maybe we'll see them again on the other side, maybe not, still we have amazing mental souvenirs and enjoy being part of this small voyaging community!

Bye bye Cap Verde, and bye bye to you, have a great time preparing for Christmas. Do not over-consume (you don't need all that stuff), try to donate at least one thing to people that need it and I wish the students and teachers good luck with their exams!

See you in 15 days (we hope not longer 😝).