Che Guevara Mindelo

... he said to phone him if we needed anything! That was very nice and reassuring. He also happens to be an author who has published many books in Brazil about the indigenous culture and slave trade in Brazil. They speak a little English and Spanish - so we had a lot of fun communicating in three languages. Tomorrow we will be in Recife (Hay C Fay), Brazil - it was a pretty quick 3 days for the crossing of the Atlantic!

... people are not native islanders but people that come over from Africa to try to make money from the tourists. It was a Sunday so there was not a lot of activity but the streets were full of police - I am guessing due to the fact that a ship was in port. The streets were clean and most of the buildings were kept up - we wandered around a bit - not much was open and we searched high and low for postcards and stamps ...

We woke up to a gusty morning and waters are very choppy. Looks like our plan to leave today will be postponed to tomorrow or when the weather's better. We're gonna get some food provisions later after this. I'll have to put the little spanish that I know and the little bargaining skills that I have to use. It was difficult in the beginning, but after you know roughly the price around, it's much easier. I had a go myself ...

After 11 days of voyage, we finally arrived in the city of Mindelo, 2nd largest in Cape Verde. The last 2 days were terribly slow...we were travelling only at 1-2 miles per hour...if this doesn´t build up your patience, what does? It was a relief to finally be on land, to exercise our leg muscles, and to be able to take a nice clean shower! We visited the little town centre...charming with portuguese-styled architectures everywhere, fishing boats ...

J+9 : Vendredi 16 Nov Si on maintient notre vitesse, on devrait arriver samedi dans l'apres midi. Aussitôt dit aussitôt ... pas fait. En fin de journee le vent tombe pour atteindre 0km/h pendant la nuit. J+10 : Samedi 17 Nov On a plus du tout de vent. C'est très frustrant d'être si près du but (70 miles) et de ne pas pouvoir bouger. Pas un soufflé, la mer est parfaitement calme : un miroir ...

... of the lines...we had 3. The 2 lines from the fishing rods were seriously tangled. We couldn't even reel the line back. Phil had to pull in the lines by hand. To our pleasant surprise, finally a fish we can eat! A dorade. Phil put some alcohol in the gills to kill it, while Greg and I spent about an hour trying to untangle the lines. Dinner that day was fried fish and mushroom and lettuce stew (Chinese style). By the end of my night watch, I finished my 2nd book that Phil lent to me ...

... Il s'accroche a la corde et alors que j'attrape l'appareil photo : « Help, help ». Il est parti trop loin en arrière et, créant une grosse gerbe d'eau, il lui était impossible de revenir au bateau, et finalement lâche la corde. A cette vitesse, il était déjà loin lorsqu'on lui jette une bouée de sauvetage, Claudia garde les yeux fixes sur lui pour ne pas le perdre dans les vagues. On démarre le moteur, tombe la voile principale et fait demi tour. Dans le remous des vagues ...

... though their boat is almost the same size as us. We let them pass behind us and soon they disappeared into the horizon. We put up the other pole to support the bottom of the genoa and turned on the engine to catch up. We haven't seen them since. We soon arrived into the Trade winds zone and were soon sailing at around 5-6 knotts.

(En français) J'ai l'impression que les nuits sont bien plus passionnantes que le jour. Alors que je m'endormais paisiblement sur les genoux de Claudia pendant son quart, voila que je me réveille en sursaut, alerte par les cris hystériques de Claudia. « Quoi, qu'est ce qu'il se passe ? «Des dauphins, des dauphins » Ne comprenant pas trop ce qu'il se passe, je vois des grosses masses phosphorescentes à cote du bateau. J'allume alors la torche pour voir ce que ...

(En français) En fait être enferme sur un bateau 24h/24 a regarde défiler l'eau mile après mile, c'est vite très chiant. Particulièrement lorsqu'il n'y a pas de vent. Alors on trouve des activités comme la pêche, regarder un bateau qui passe au large pendant des heures, lire, hisser ou réduire les voiles pour attraper du vent ... surtout petit a petit on se met au rythme, somme toute très ...