16:45.255N 22:58.772W

Sal Cape Verdes and our fishermen break their duck                                                                                                                                          19^th November 2014

2941 miles from Ramsgate by Log.

            We have arrived!!! Longest passage yet and it all went really well. The wind was a steady force 4-6 from the North for most of the trip and we averaged a respectable 6.3 Knots over the 5 days. The top news must be the boys have broken their duck and we have caught some fish!!!! Ironically, the success came when they were playing with homemade lures instead of using the array of glitzy specialist ones they have in their bag of tricks. But it would be churlish of me not to give credit where credit is due. Steve struck first with a Dorado which he had filleted and on ice in record time, that one fish fed us all to capacity and very good it was too. That night when Steve was on watch he heard a thump on deck followed by another four bumps. Rather nervously he shone a light on deck, low behold we had five flying fish flapping around which were soon bagged up and in the fridge. Peter made potato cakes with fried flying fish for breakfast and we felt like proper blue water sailors, all we need to do now is grow decent pony tails and we are there. The next day Tony struck, snatching a small tuna out of a school of them that had been swimming alongside of us snapping up any flying fish that we scared up. Not to be beaten I got the next one by dropping a lure right in front of one of the tuna, it just grabbed it and we had him.

            The pilot books recommended against entering Palmeria by night and so with a dropping wind we motored the last 20 or so miles in a bid to beat the sunset. Failed that one miserably, but to be honest the entrance was pretty easy anyway. The only confusing thing was a large structure in the harbour entrance which turned out to be the 94ft yacht that had passed us on the trip down which had anchored in the harbour mouth. Once we had steered around that obstacle we dropped our hook and were soon snugly anchored listening to the gospel music coming out of a small chapel on the dark shore.

            The next morning and it was all up and about early getting ready to go ashore. Norma and myself went first to clear customs at the police station while Peter and Tony stripped the Karcher jet wash unsuccessfully looking for a capacitor to fix our generator. The next step was for all of us to travel to the airport to get our passports stamped, we would then be all legal and the yellow quarantine flag could come down from our mast. The trip to the airport was by local minibus for 50 cents each and an exciting ride it was dodging potholes and sleeping dogs in the road in equal proportion. Everyone has been really friendly and helpful so far which is great, I am really enjoying this place it is definitely more Africa than Europe and the bit we are in has so far only had very limited impact from tourism. We had lunch in the next largest town, Espargos at a restaurant that we found down a side road. The owner spoke good English and recommended a local dish of bean and meat stew which I suspect was all he had, we said yes and it was excellent. I asked him where we could buy a capacitor which stretched his English but he got the idea and phoned a friend. That friend phoned another one who recommended an Italian guy in the Santa Maria and so the owner phoned him. All was sorted and he had a capacitor so it was back on the mini bus and off we went. The mini bus driver took us right to the door of the shop which was of course closed. As we were peering through the window wondering what to do next, a quad bike pulled up with a smiling Italian on board and via Google translator on his IPad we managed to ask for a 25 uf capacitor. Oddly enough in a shop that was pretty bare of anything else he had a drawer full of them and so 13 Euros lighter we were in business.  The Cape Verdean Escudos is 100 to 1 Euro by the way and the two are completely interchangeably. You pay in Euros and get change in Escudo and vis a versa which is pretty easy once you get used to it.  

            The rest of the day was spent looking around Santa Maria and eating cold ice creams on the beach so it was a pretty full on affair and I was exhausted at the end of it. We jumped in a minibus with a couple of businessmen and a soldier for the trip back to the boat picking up several other passengers along the way. Curiously there are no bus stops, instead the driver sees someone he thinks needs a lift, slows down and turns his music down just enough so that he can shout out of the window and negotiate a price for any destination roughly along his route, if all are in agreement everyone shifts over and they squeeze in the music goes up and off we go. It cost us a euro each and we travelled nearly the length of the island, I loved every minute of it.

            To top of a very successful day when we got back to the harbour the local fishermen had caught four huge Tuna and were filleting them on the dockside with the whole village looking on. One weighed in at 77 Kg without head or innards which put our fishing exploits sharply into perspective.

            On returning to Spectra Tony and Peter replaced the capacitor and our generator burst into life along with the fridge, water maker, battery charger, electric kettle and washing machine, all of the modern conveniences restored J. We celebrated with a meal aboard and several cool beers the last one of which I am drinking now. The plan is to head for Mindello in a couple of days which is 113 miles to the west which will be our last stop before the big crossing………….Goodnight and I will blog again soon.

Next day

Sorry no pictures yet I have had to travel to the airport which seems to have the only internet working on the island and that is very slow. I will update with pictures when I can.