We’ve been in Cape Verde for just over a week now and are about to arrive on our 4th island so far. The first half of the week we spent on Sal and Boavista, dry arid and sandy islands on the northeast of the archipelago. In Sal we spent a few days doing nothing and exploring the inland of the island by taking a group taxi to the main town to buy local sim cards. A successful shopping mission.
(Photos: arrival Sal, hoisint the hostflag, overview Sal, first time on land, our anchorage, feels like the Caribbean already!, Alex and the shark)
Our trip to Espargos to go shopping.
(Photos: in the taxi, Franzi and the church, Alex and the milk, Franzi and the pumpkin, streetscenes in town)
We then sailed south to Santa Maria where the main tourist hub seemed to be so we did not stay long. We had a look around the beach and fish market on the pier but left the next day to sail south to the island of Boavista.
There we dropped anchor in front of a windy beach in turquoise water and felt very Caribbean already. We spent a day doing absolutely nothing on the boat and in the evening we lost our dingy. It was there, tied off with a double security knot and half an hour later it was gone. Of course this happened at 11pm and we were already in bed. So we lifted up the anchor and drove out in the direction of the wind, Franzi and I in our pyjamas and big searchlight scanning the ocean but it was a fruitless search. We returned to our anchorage, now we had something to do for the next day...
Tom and Alex went to town to go talk to the police and buy some more fruit &veg. They spent many hours waiting around at the police station so Tom could get some papers for the insurance of the dingy. We don’t know yet if it will work out.
In Cape Verde there is only one marina, all other spots for yachts are anchorages. Which is amazing (when you have a dinghy to get to shore). We wanted to leave for the next island but the forecasted waves on our nose made us stay another day and we decided to go kitesurfing instead.
(Photos: calm passage to Boavista, anchorage at Sal Rei, homemade breat, laundry, Franzi and I on Moira)
Franzi and Alex had both done it before but neither Tom nor I had ever tried. So we called up Romi, a friendly guy who had given the guys a lift to town the day before and owned a kitesurf school. We arranged to be picked up the next day and start the lesson at 10.
The kitesurfing was fun even though Tom and I didn’t actually make it into the water. We had a 2 hour lesson and spent it learning about the kite and flying it on the beach. But we felt in control of it by the end of the session and after lunch we were thinking of heading out to sea but by then the wind had died down quite a bit so we will have to find another spot to try again!
That evening we left for our 13 hour sail to the island of Sao Nicolao, northwest of us. We had a very relaxed sail with lots of stars and almost no clouds and waves. Perfect sailing under the milky way on my 3 hour solo watch with lots of plankton glowing in our wake.
(Photos: Sunrise at Tarrafal, our anchorage, Pancakes!, and where do we sleep now?)
We arrived at our anchorage in Tarrafal with a beautiful sunrise and had breakfast before going back to sleep. Thomas flagged down a local fisherman who drove him to town, checked us in and organised another guy to drive us around the island in the afternoon. What an efficient visit!
(Photos: Harbour in Tarrafal, our ride and the crew)
We then spent the day being driven around the back of a pickup truck and looking at the beautiful scenery. We were surprised how green and fertile it was on the inside of the island, again with the altitude there was more rainfall and we saw lots of different crops, from papayas to sugarcane to bananas growing.
The islands we have visited so far were not very touristy, and especially Sao Nicolao was beautiful, with lots of hiking opportunities that we sadly did not have the time to check out.
(Photos: roadtrip in Sao Nicolao, the maintown Ribeira Brava, Alex getting a haircut)
Back at the boat we had another early night and are on the way to San Vincente tomorrow.