Mimagui Residencial Mindelo

December 11 Crossing the Ocean Greetings from the Atlantic Ocean - not much more to say than that. We are enjoying very warm weather - some sun and a few scattered clouds - calm seas - beautiful sunsets and some very good sleeping! The most exciting thing to tell you is that we finally got Fox News back on the television - You can all imagine how happy Jim is. We truly are in the minority on board - most people speak ...

... 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 ...

(En français) Ah notre deuxième poisson. Pas très gros mais très bon et surtout très long a démêler la ligne qui s'était prise avec une autre. On a passe environ 1 heure, Claudia et moi, pour faire ce boulot. (In English) It's been 8 days since we've sailed and all we've managed to catch so far was a calamari and this unidentified fish, we call "ugly fish". Ugly fish had a head like a barracuda, but it's long, bony and black. It wasn't an eel because it had a fish tail. We've caught it ...

... while Eddy turned on the engine to sail back to Phil, while I stayed a lookout for him since he had let go of the rope. The sails were abruptly brought down to slow down our speed. When we finally got him out of the water, he was all shaken. He told us that he had trouble breathing with the waves coming into him all the time. It was so bad the waves took his shorts away! We had a round of a beer to calm us down and to celebrate the fact that there are still 4 of us on the boat.

(En français) Apres nous être fait dépasser par un voilier qui avait une voile a droite et une voile a gauche, on décide de faire de même pour permettre de mieux prendre le vent qui nous arrive de derrière. Gagne, on accélère enfin et tient une vitesse de 5 noeuds. On décide également de changer notre destination. Au lieu d ...

(En français) C'est très calme en ce moment. Quelques dauphins phosphorescents dans la nuit. Au petit matin, on manque de se prendre un porte containeur en pleine face : C'est assez difficile de voir la direction des navires dans le noir, surtout quand on voit pas bien les couleurs et sans vent, pas facile de manoeuvrer un bateau. Bref on a du démarrer le moteur pour ce sortir de sa route. Bien évidemment, lui ne s'est pas inquiète pour nous. (In English) In the ...

... to our first caught meal...deep fried calamari. For dinner, I prepared stir-fried calamari. During our night watch, we saw dolphins again! This time they stayed a bit longer... I made sure that Greg does not switch on his lights. The night was moonless and the sky was dimly lit by the stars. We could vaguely make out the silhouette of the dolphins leaping out of the water! Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures...they just appear black on the screen.