Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde

What a great stopover. Whilst we only saw a very small section of the Cape Verde archipelago it proved to be very interesting and extremely welcoming. The Cape Verde Islands consist of around 10 volcanic islands covering an area of around 150square miles. The last eruption was 2014 on Fogo. We visited Sao Vicente in the Northern cluster. Of the islands, 7 are arid and 3 get all the rain. This is due to the 3 tallest islands trapping the clouds and stealing all the rain. Our guide explained that Sao Vicente had recently gone 6 years without rain, and when it did rain, often it was very heavy so just swept away the top soil and did not soak into the ground. The close by island of Santo Antao is lush, green and capable of growing lots of crops.

Mindelo became one of the largest towns in Cape Verde because it has the largest natural harbour protected from most angles. The problem is water. Years ago water came from bore holes and shipping across from Santo Antao. Now they have desalination plants, but these only serve Mindelo and the largest towns. The majority of the rural residences rely on bore holes which unfortunately have a habit of drying up. The Cape Verde islands are part of Africa and only gained their independence around 1980. Before that they were loosely part of Guinea-Bissau and before that had hundreds of years of Portuguese rule. Having been through a communist phase, the Cape Verde islands became fully democratic around 1991.

A 10 min walk from the marina was a lovely beach, with gentle breaking waves, albeit with a steep descent into the sea. 3 steps in and you were out of your depth. The water was warm, around 28 degrees but felt cool after the heat of the sun.

As nearly all the boats arrived earlier than expected the family boats got together and arranged a morning trip to swim with turtles. This proved to be a wonderful experience, Lucy rates the day as incredible. After a short bus ride we boarded boats and were then ‘launched’ through the surf and taken a short distance to the turtle area. Here we were at liberty to swim for around 30 mins with a strict no touching rule. However the turtles were allowed to touch you, and Lucy got touched 3 times. Afterwards the kids had great fun playing in the large surf.

Many thanks to Tijs Crezee from Vivace for the wonderful turtle photo.

Other activities whilst in Mindelo included a drinks reception, prize giving party and of course making sure that Lucy’s education continued. Oh, and Lucy went to Freya’s birthday party and had a great time doing beach games and having a birthday picnic.

We departed Mindelo yesterday, Friday 17 November at 12:00. It was a bit hectic for the first few miles as all the boats jostled for clean air and tried to head out to sea. The lovely people on Epiphany, (Matt & Abi and the children Freya & Lydia) sent me these 2 photos of Valent having fun on the departure.

We are now around 100 miles from Cape Verde, making around 5 kts in the right direction. We will post further updates from our Atlantic crossing with news of life on board.