16:53.22N 24:59.48W

In the last instalment I discussed my bread rolls, and I’ve got to say, they weren’t bad at all. If food can survive a flight across the cabin and still give the deep sense of satisfaction that freshly baked bread brings, it’s top notch in my books. That said, my humble rolls were about to receive some serious competition. Our bananas had somehow survived the swinging cradle of death long enough to go very brown and soft. They were past eating and we were loathe to see them sailed the best part of 1000 miles just to be buried at sea. Jane and Jules came up with the idea of making banana bread muffins to save them from the briny deep. Much like a lighthouse’s promise of salvation to a shipwrecked sailor, those nuggets of sweet golden deliciousness brought about a turn in our morale.

That is not to say that it was all smooth sailing from that point on. Oh no. We were soon to have disaster befall us. As I brought in the fishing lines for the evening I was dismayed to find that the two lines had become one. A total of over 100m of monofilament had become one giant knot. Four ends, two hooks, and a multitude of interwoven loops and twists. That said, even having to untangle an endless mess of fishing line is ok when you have banana muffins to fuel your efforts.

I began the next morning and spent almost two hours gradually working my way in. I had promised myself the perseverance and serenity to untangle the mess no matter how long it took. Eventually, as the knot only tightened, and every twist I unwound in one place simply transferred to another link in the jumble in front of me, I lost my calm sense of objectivity. Never before has an inanimate object incurred such rage in me. After a short torrent of language that doesn’t bear repeating, a number of heads poked their way out of the companionway offering help.

Over the next few hours, many hands made a cat’s cradle of line back and forth across the cockpit. A problem shared is a problem halved, and between the lot of us, we managed to disentangle the line by the end of the afternoon. I just hope that kinking the monofilament has not damaged its strength enough to lose the whole rig next time we get a bite.

As we approached Cape Verde the wind began to drop and we were able to hoist the spinnaker. This configuration allowed us to increase our boat speed, and despite still having to sail more reachy angles than others, maximised our VMG.

I went to bed and set an alarm for when I thought we would sight land. Despite sleeping through the alarm, I found that two hours later it was still not in sight. The wind had dropped further and we were making slow progress toward our goal. As a side effect, there was also a lot of haze from the moisture evaporating off the sea and not being whisked away on the wind.

At about 10:30 we were close enough to the islands to see the peaks resolve out of the mists. Standing high over the horizon, it was clearly a factor of the haze rather than distance that had obscured them for so long. The closer we came, the more detail we saw. The surge that had caused us such trouble the last 5 days crashed upon the rocky shores with dramatic aplomb. The silhouettes of mountain tops began to reveal villas and retreats worthy of any Bond villain.

Finally we rounded a point with a gun battery and passed an island with a lighthouse on top, to enter the harbour of Mindelo. Cradled in the caldera of a volcano, Mindelo is reputed to be one of the finest ports of the eastern Atlantic. The harbour itself is a beautiful mix of Portuguese and British colonial history, fused with the west African influence of its geography and population. Having turtles free swimming past the end of the pontoons was a good omen for our time to explore the islands.

We were greeted onto the pontoon by friends from Adastrina and Galatea. We went for some drinks and food with them at the floating bar. We soon realised that everything here is done on island time, and to stress about the service wait only bothers you and nobody else. A number of hours later we were well fed and well caught up. We settled in to a few days of rest and relaxation on the Cape Verde islands, with many adventures to come.

Hugo