Monday 31 October  Praia, Ihla Santiago – waiting for the arrival of William, our last victim 14 54.7N  23 30.3W

Monday already!  Doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourselves?

The morning after our encounter with the low life of Tarrafal, we were woken by an anchor chain at about 05.00hrs. Those among us who heard it simply grumbled at the Frenchman who was so inconsiderate to leave at such a time! However, we drank our morning tea watching the possessor of the anchor raising it from a position no more than 100 metres away, re-mooring stern to the shore:

Two locals rowed stern lines ashore and then took another line and used it to pull a pipe to  a box on the shore:

And then provided the week’s/month’s fuel to the Shell depot behind the wall.   While it was in itself a spectacle  of ship handling, we frankly were closer to the action than David at least would have liked. So we up anchored and motored up the coast to a secluded spot to anchor for a day’s swimming and relaxation. That evening, after dinner at anchor we set sail from Tarrafal, Sao Nicolao destined for Tarrafal, Santiago.

It was Keith’s first night sail for about 15 years. David and Keith ran the first watch together during which there were a record number of sail changes before they settled on the rig they should have started with.  By dawn, when Keith and David were next on watch Santiago was still not in sight. By lunchtime we were eventually moored in what would pass for a Caribbean Cove:

But once off the beach, the town took on a familiar mantle:

We had been welcomed in Tarrafal II by a couple of itinerant boat boys who pronounced us to be far to wealthy and suggested we shared our wealth with them.  That didn’t fill us with great comfort from a security point of view and we decided that we would not leave the boat nor the dinghy unattended. (This is to be our standard operating procedure for the rest of our stay in CV). So  David drove Bob and Richard ashore to explore (didn’t take long) and they called on the VHF when they were ready to return – Keith and David drove the boat to the shore and, while they went ashore, Bob and Richard went back to the boat etc. etc.  Welcome to paradise…...  It’s sad really, because it is the local economy that loses out if we feel we can’t eat and drink together safely ashore.

So today, Monday, we had to get to Praia to meet William.  We were up early, but spent the first 75 minutes re-erecting our downwind sail plan (which we took down  before we set off from MIndelo because we expected to be across the wind). It was a good job because although David had expected to motor all the way (being in the lee of the island all day) we were able to test out the rig for the first couple of hours before we rounded the corner to head east. 

About now, we saw a commotion in the water to the west.  It was hard to work out what was going on so the fearless quartet wen to investigate.

What we found was 100 or more dolphins, evidently corralling a shoal of fish for dinner, with some local tuna fishermen trying to see what they could make of it.   

Having been distracted, we were approached by said local fishermen ……..

The deal appeared to be: One to drive, one to bail (continuously, centre) and one to fish – or in this instance, to beg for water – which magnanimously we gave them.  It was an automatic gesture, we reflected, but we concluded that we probably would not have done that off Somalia where the only automatic would have been an AK47.

So we arrived in Praia. This is the biggest town we have seen by far, since Gran Canaria. It is a proper sea port and we are anchored off the supposed fishing harbour in and out of which some serious freighters seem to ply their trade.

The white ship was a German cruise liner – good luck with that!

So, Bob and David are now sitting at anchor waiting for Richard and Keith to deliver William from the airport.  The Cape Verdes have been quite challenging in a number of ways – constant 25kt NE winds, acceleration zones around islands etc. and the scenery has been good – Santiago could be one of the Western Isles (of Scotland for you antipodean readers!).

We haven’t seen another British yacht since we arrived in Sal, the north eastern- most of the CVs. The last Brit was an alleged single-hander in Mindelo – we never saw his yacht. There is a reason why single handers are single handed – and when they are ashore they want to talk, and talk and talk!  All of the yachts since Mindelo have been French – or in Tarrafal II, local – it seemed.

These islands are lovely, but the locals make it hard for us to enjoy them (see above). That is a loss to both of us.

So now we have our crew, tomorrow we will make our final purchases of food and top up with all the fuel we need to ease our passage.  All we need is a little wind in the right quarter.