We sailed straight to the capitol of Cabo Verde from the Canaries because of James’s passport problem, and that put us in the Sotavento, or leeward, Islands on Ilha Da Santiago the island at the very bottom of the chain. Once his new passport was in his hot little hands, we had a quandary. The world’s weather will make it easier to get to the Amazon River delta if we spend another couple-few weeks here, but Praia isn’t a good place to spend more time than necessary. We’d tried the only other anchorage, the one at Cidade Velha, but it was far too rough and the surf line was really close to the anchoring spot. If we were going to spend more time in Cabo Verde, we wanted to get ashore more easily, have cleaner water for swimming and watermaking, and get away from the stench of rotting trash. The only marina in Cabo Verde is in Mindelo on Sao Vicente. But that is in the Barlavento, or windward, Islands. Going from leeward to windward islands means…sailing to windward! Ugh! And it’s not like we’re talking 10 or 20 miles. It’s 170nm between Praia and Mindelo, so it’s likely to be a three-day close-haul. Beating into the wind is not generally our style, but doing a haulout, working on the mast, being able to swim and make water safely…these blandishments put us in mind to go ahead and take our medicine. And believe it or not I (James) was the biggest proponent of leaving. I was so over the smell and the filth of Praia that I figured a stiff beating was better than another minute in the capitol. There were no taxis near the port on that Sunday, so we did the long walk around the harbor one last[…]
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