Oasis Porto Grande Cape Verde San Vincente Mindelo

... the e-mail - Jim said to tell Julian that we should consider Black Tie for the New Year's Eve Party this year - or even just our next dinner out. Bruce - what do you think about that? We know how you love to get dressed up! We had a nice e-mail from our puppy Choco today - we are happy to hear that he is having fun on the farm and he has been feasting on the remnants of the freshly shoed horses. A good source of ...

... said - "Give it a half an hour and you'll be back." It was a little disappointing - maybe a weekday would have been better - but it was an experience and for that it was good. Ships life is fine - we had dinner tonight with Petar - the Guest Relations Manager and that was very nice. He is from Bulgaria but has lived many places in the world as his father was a diplomat. Interesting was hearing about his life under the ...

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 ...

... up with the cousins of Michael and Jennis, the american couple I met in Barcelona by chance, yesterday at the marina. I thought I recognised the name of their catamaran, SCUD. It was a nice surprise to meet them here. They left this morning for the Carribean. We will be leaving tomorrow for Barbados. Till then, keep a lookout on this blog! The voyage is expected to last at least 20 days, if we're lucky enough to have winds of 5 miles per hour everyday.

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 ...

... pour se rincer. Le temps qu'il attache une corde qui traîne derrière le bateau pour se rattraper et remonter a bord, je saute le premier a l'eau. Je m'accroche assez rapidement à la corde « oh putain ca tire1 » et remonte difficilement au bateau. Philip se prépare a sauter a son tour. J'hésite a lui dire d'attendre Claudia a l'eau pour l'aider a remonter. C'est sûrement trop puissant pour elle. J'ai pas le temps et le voila a l'eau, qui l'embarque rapidement loin derrière ...

... vers Sal (est du cap vert), on part vers Sao Vicente, plus a l'ouest et plus pratique pour partir vers l'amerique. (In English) We spotted a sailboat! From far, it seems to be heading for us. It was a Danish sailboat, Expresso. We think that they're also heading for Cape Verde, but they're travelling much faster than us ...

(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 ...

... long du bateau et qui laisse une traînée derrière nous comme si on était une étoile filante (en moins furtif quand même !) (In English) Glow-in-the-dark dolphins! During our nightwatch, I spotted some flashes of green light that lasted quite long in the water, not like the ones caused by waves. I jumped, of course. My intuition told me that they were dolphins. Greg, who was soundly asleep on my lap while waiting for his shift, was scared to his wits! He was annoyed ...