Amoret and I are still in Mindelo awaiting the arrival of Eric and Brian tomorrow evening.  Since Olivia left five days ago the weather has been increasingly windy, but the forecast charts look as if it should quieten down during the early part of next week. It’s hard to get a feel for the real wind here, as the harbour suffers violent gusts between the surrounding hills with quiet spells in between. The angling boats going out for blue marlin (released, not kept – they are a protected species) say that it feels windier in the harbour than in the notorious wind-funnel between Sao Vicente and Santo Antao where they fish. I hope that they are right – sitting here listening to the wind shrieking is bad for my morale. The Azores are a long way (about 1350M as the crow flies, only it won’t fly as we’ll need to bear off in a roughly NW direction to get a bearable slant on the wind, then win some easting back as the wind direction shifts as we reach the southern edge of the Azores high pressure. That’s the theory, anyway.

All the shopping is done now apart from fresh stuff from the market and a can of fuel. There are a couple of German guys, both single-handing, who are likely to be leaving for the Azores about the same time as us, so we aren’t the only idiots in this ocean. One of them, with a fairly heavy double-ender, came in here for repairs after his bobstay went resulting in a completely shattered stainless-steel bowsprit. Predictably he couldn’t get anyone with the skills or kit to weld stainless here, so he is probably going to have to go most of the way under main and storm jib with some engine assistance. That makes our job sound relatively straightforward.