Disappointing!
Rhapsode
Fri 12 Nov 2010 19:52
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Tarrafal, Santiago, CVIs.
I was going to write about our day out to Praia,
the capital of the CVIs...
...the paperwork process with the immigration
police and the boat paperwork with the Policia Maritima;
... the great aloguer trip across the top of the
island where we saw a donkey so laden that the only thing showing that indicated
it was a donkey were four feet;
... and a man or woman who was similarly laden that
in silhouette he / she looked like a small haystack;
... the motorway sign that as well as banning
bicycles and pedestrians from using it also banned cows. Alright for donkeys and
goats I suppose;
... the big, colourful market in Praia where I
picked a lovely painting depicting two women carrying bundles of firewood on
their heads and Michael bought a game played with beans;
... and the donkey who was leading his master's
goats home;
... or the bus ride back along the coast and in and
out of small villages and how we were made to transfer alougers but felt like we
had been sold from one driver to the other;
... How one of the aloguers had 21 people crammed
into a space for 12 and that the young woman squashed between me and Andrew was
so hot it was like sitting up against a heated radiator.
But instead I have to tell you that when we got
back to the boat there had been a robbery and attempted break in. A boat
was rowing away as we were still some distance off so we suppose we caught them
in the act. Of course we didn't find out about the robbery until that boat had
disappeared. They took our box of emergency flares and my angle grinder and they
damaged one of the nice wooden vent covers into the main cabin, ripped up one of
the pull rings for the engine compartment but didn't get in and tried to jemmy
open the aft cabin but either couldn't or didn't have time. They broke a
screwdriver on the job and left the handle wedged in the door. Fortunately, I
had taken in the VHF and chart plotter from the cockpit before we left in the
morning.
It could have been much, much worse!
Foolishly I'd left the towing generator lashed onto
the stern railing so it was there for the taking. It would have been a major
blow if we'd lost that - there would have been insufficient power to run our
small watermaker.
Ropes and other sailing stuff were left untouched
as well.
So it was very much a shock and a major
disappointment after having enjoyed our visit to the islands so
much. We'll now probably leave on Sunday morning instead
of Monday as we had originally planned. Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll do the boat
jobs and replenish our stores and diesel and then leave on Sunday morning. Not
so much fun with one person having to stay on board all the time.
And it it'll give us an extra day in Brazil (or to
get to Brazil!).
Happy sailing.
P. M & A
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