Hi all,

Writing this from the coffee place at the marina in Mindelo. How nice to be here!!

We left the anchorage at 6:30 on Saturday after another tricky, but less stressful night at anchor. I dived the primary anchor on Friday afternoon and had been relieved to see how well it had dug in - no way we would go anywhere in a hurry in a big blow. Our second night was met with light winds that blew us around all over the cove. The two anchor lines started to wrap around each another so we pulled up the second anchor during the evening to prevent a real spaghetti situation, and we shortened the length of the primary anchor chain to avoid swinging into the cliffs around us. 

We headed off hoping to cover the 70-odd miles to Mindelo marina before dark. It was heavy going at times with 25 knot winds on the nose and heavy seas most of the way, especially in shallow areas between islands that were roughing up the swells that had been traveling from the North west for thousands of miles.

Anyway, we pulled into the marina at 6pm, very relieved to be able to tie up in a modern, well kept marina.

We had a good dinner with our friends from the 90 foot, brand new race boat, AllSmoke, who we had met in Ascension. They are taking the boat from Cape Town, where she was built, to Majorca, her future home port. They have been here for a week, waiting for favorable, maybe one should say less nasty, weather conditions to get to the Canaries.

We will be happy to hang out here for a while. Seems like a nice town with some interesting old Portuguese colonial architecture. 

More later.

Neil, kev and scott

- S/V Galatea