Arrival in Mindelo. 6 February 2023.

We arrived in Mindelo, Sao Vicente on Monday morning 6th February at 0600. The last 30 hours of the trip saw us a near gale most of the way and a full gale for the final 8 hours as we closed in on Cabo Verde. The seas were in the region of 5m most of the time with a very short period (about 5 seconds, sometimes 6 seconds). Despite being one of the toughest sails I have ever completed (we’d have turned around/gone somewhere else if we could have) it was quite a sight spotting the lights on Sao Vicente and Santo Antao after 7.5 days and 960 NM at sea. Normally, this passage would expect 15 knots of wind and flat-ish seas. In fact one of the major sailing rallies recommends you take extra fuel as the wind can often be very light! I suppose the consolation to us is that our fuel bill for the entire trip can’t be more than 10 euros…

The mate, was a star, she never missed her watch, was always great at sail handing and a generally great first mate.

Stargazer is moored up in Mindelo marina stern to with a lazy line. We’ll share the shenanigans of how we got on and off in another blog post.

It’s now 13:15 as I write and we are shattered. So after doing the rounds of immigration and police we are going to catch up on some much needed sleep. Well, we have to visit immigration again as they were at lunch!

We haven’t found any wifi/data yet, but as and when we do, we’ll report in properly. This quick report, we’re sending by satellite phone. Just a quick one: please don’t call or text our UK or Spanish numbers – it costs a small fortune to receive – so much so, satellite comms are probably cheaper… the mind boggles.

Andy & Jo