Day 103 - Leg 5 Day 26 at Sea 'Arrival in Mindelo, Cape Verdes'
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Mon 5 Oct 2015 12:00
|
The last 5 days have been pretty much the same. We
have sailed as much as possible to conserve fuel and motored, where necessary,
at reduced revs for the same reason. We are carrying 6 jerry cans, 5
of which are empty and we also had siphoned off most of the fuel from a 200
litre drum that we picked up in Australia. We filtered the last of the fuel
from the drum and put that into the tanks yesterday. We had one full
20 litre jerry can remaining which we put into the tank just before going into
the marina.
We saw the first sign of another boat 2 days ago.
The oceans are so vast that unless you are on a main route, you are very much on
your own. Once we depart Cape Verdes and get north of the Canaries, we
expect to see more traffic, but the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic have been
pretty much deserted.
We managed to sail yesterday for about 12 hours which
meant that as long as we are careful, we should have enough fuel to reach
Mindelo. The winds had been forecast as we reached the islands and,
ironically, they were so strong that we had to reef the sails. We sailed
as far as possible then, 25 miles from Mindelo, we turned towards our
destination. For this last leg we were head to wind with 2 knots of
current against us, so we put the sails away and motored slowly.
I had been hoping to arrive before nightfall but it was
21.00 as we were coming into the bay, pitch black and a lot of light clutter
from the sea shore making it even more difficult. Once we found the
marina, after one false attempt, a night watchman appeared and guided us towards
a berth. This was stern to mooring with lazylines for the bow. What
this means is that you reverse up to the dock (28 knots of wind at this point),
get 2 stern lines ashore and cleated off. You then pick up a lazy line
which is fastened to the dock and also to a concrete weight 50 metres
out. Walk down the boat letting the line slip through your fingers
(it is called the slime line or the shit line for a reason) until you get to the
front of the boat. Cleat this off at the front of the boat, then repeat on
the other side.
Your stern is now attached to the dock and your bow
to the 2 concrete weights at the front, so you can't swing from side to side, or
move forward or backwards. All you need to do now is to ease or tighten
the bow and stern lines so that you are close enough to step off at the stern,
but not so close that the stern hits the dock if there is a swell or strong
winds.
By 22.00 we we were all secure and by 22.01, the beers
were on the deck. I left the crew finishing off and rustled up dinner of
fillet steak, spicy sausage, mashed potato and sweetcorn which went down
very well with a couple or so bottles of red wine.
We were all knackered and were in bed by
midnight.
|