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 time. The policia maritima fumbled around for almost an hour finding our documentation and issuing us a “saida”, our leaving papers. We needed a break from the hot-and-humid walking, but the cop shop is not air conditioned and they don’t even use the one dirty old fan attached to the ceiling! The television was on, though, showing the Canadian women’s basketball team gain a lead on the Nigerian team. No, I (Dena) neither know nor care how it turned out. I did enjoy that the Nigerian team members had glorious hair.
One last push up yet another huge bluff and we celebrated at Restaurant Annabel. Putting salmon, cream cheese, and arugula between pancakes and then drizzling the pile with balsamic is an inspired choice. That and another excellent cachupa was way too much food but sometimes plenty is a pleasure.
We hit the grocery store near the restaurant one last time and got a cab to transport us the 4.3km back to the Port in the 34C temps and the 90% humidity.
Being free to leave changed the dynamic completely. Instead of jumping at leaving, we looked again at the weather and decided that the next morning would be soon enough. Coffee was barely down our throats when we stripped off the dusty mainsail cover. I raised the main while James hauled the anchor and just like that we were back in our happy place, under sail and underway!
We sailed along the south side of Santiago and bent our course northwest as we cleared the island. The breeze was light but enough to send us merrily out to sea. It wasn’t all that long, unfortunately, before the island itself was a wind break. Motorsailing with the electric motor is so easy and peaceful that we don’t grumble like we used to, but the swell added an irritating jolt to our motion, slatting the main so badly that we finally dropped it altogether.
Without much to do, it was a good time to simply be glad that we were underway.
As the sun descended on the gray horizon the wind rose to a light close-haul and we were sailing once again. Throughout the night the ship traffic kept us awake and we watched the island of Santiago fade from our reality.
Between the islands of Santiago and Sao Nicolau is a wide open stretch of the Atlantic flow that, much to our amazement, is a violent beating just waiting to happen.
As the golden sandy sun rose on that second day the winds and waves were off the starboard bow, steady and freshening throughout the day. The chop gained a toothiness by dusk and it, along with a serious foul current, was slapping Cetacea almost to an standstill every few seconds. Just as we could gained any speed at all another big wave would slam into us and we’d almost stop right there in the middle of the ocean…this went on and on and on. Luckily the waves had little effect on the sails so even though our average speed was very low the sails remained full and quite beautiful.
The beating and the lack of speed through the water was frustrating, no doubt, but the near constant loud bashing from the waves on the bow was becoming down right nerve wracking by sunset on the second day.
The ship traffic between the Cabo Verde islands is done mostly at night in “smaller” freighters ranging from 30m (98.4ft) to 80m (262.4ft). These ships travel at about 13-15 knots and sometimes come within a few hundred meters of each other. As a tiny sailing vessel with no automatic identification system (AIS) signature it is our job-one to avoid these speeding ships at night. As we’ve said a few times before we have great tech aboard S/V SN-E Cetacea so we can receive AIS signatures, we just don’t broadcast an AIS signature of our own.
At about 0130 I (James) got an AIS signature from a 60m (196.8ft) freighter called Santa Maria. Our AIS told us she was traveling a 13 knots and would cross our bow in about 30 minutes and we’d be about 75m (246ft) from a collision. When you’re used to wide open ocean 75m is way to close of a call so I hailed them on channel 16 on our VHF radio. They answered my hail very cordially in English so I told them that I was a little sailboat without an AIS signature a few nautical miles off their starboard bow doing a little over 2 knots and that I would pass abaft of them and take their starboard side. They replied that they had us on radar and that our plan was an acceptable one.
(Standard protocol at sea is for ships to pass port-to-port if heading in opposite directions, which we were, unless otherwise negotiated over VHF, which we did.)
Right about 0155 the wind puffed out and the current took hold of us and spun us in a complete circle and I do mean 365 degrees.
The Santa Maria was coming in fast so I had to furl the head sails and get the boat under control with the electric motor in a crazy pitching sea in short order. I was cussing and kicking up a big fuss through all this shit so it’s not like Dena was sleeping through the calamity. She called from below decks to see if she could help and I, like a dickhead, not only denied her assistance but was quite rude about it. Now to my own defense I was in a pitching sea going in circles at night trying to do about six things at once with a giant ship bearing down on me at 13 knots. But I didn’t have to be rude and at the very least I could have been a little quieter.
I got the headsails furled and as I went for the motor controller I looked up and there was the Santa Maria 15m (yeah, about 50ft!) off our starboard midships and bearing down fast. I called down to Dena and asked her to inform the Santa Maria via VHF that we were directly off their bow and to please steer hard to their port which she did with clear and urgent exclamation. I could hear the sound of their prop through the water, I could see a bunch guys on their deck yelling and pointing at this tiny sailboat they were about to destroy in the middle of the ocean. I slammed the motor controller to full-forward and we jolted forward and the bow of the Santa Maria passed behind us with about 3m (10ft) to spare. As she slid on behind us I could clearly read her name on her port bow. The freighter Santa Maria didn’t kill us that night.
I (Dena) went back to the forepeak, but sleep wasn’t really an option. When I’m not-sleeping on either of my two overnight three-hour off-watches, I prefer lulling myself into slowing down at least. Sometimes I can get some useful rest even if I don’t sleep. Other times, well…there are always daytime naps.
When I took over from James, he crashed like someone who had experienced an adrenaline crash. He didn’t even make it into the bunk, but Beluga Greyfinger actually prefers him in this position.
The sailing was so flukey and required so many reefs pulled and shaken out, so many furlings and settings of the headsails, so much fiddling with the sheets, that my hands got bruised tired. By the third day, I had new rough spots and chafe spots across my palms, too.
We’d been beating as close-hauled as possible without stopping our forward progress because there was a route line on the chartplotter that went from Santiago to Ilheu Branco. That was the first of the Barlevento Islands we might be able to anchor at but alas it was not to be. Then we thought maybe we’d stop at…no…
This had been the plan the whole time. Sail for the nearest island and accept whatever island we ended up on. Being swept all the way out of the Cabo Verdean chain seemed highly unlikely and we were glad to be right about that part. When we neared Sao Vicente, it took my (Dena’s) breath away.
The last couple hours of a trip can be the longest. We had passed the cliffs on the southeast coast and needed to get to the bay on the southwest side. James got us most of the way there.
Every twenty minutes brought a new dramatic vantage for looking up into the valleys between the craggy volcanic mountains.
The trip had taken quite some time and we were eager to get the hook down and relax. Another factor that slowed us down on this adventure was towing the dinghy. Normally when offshore sailing we dress the little boat on the fordeck but Tursiops came through just fine.
Finally, we were hook down in the Baia Sao Pedro. A strong set in good sand makes for a pleasurable night’s sleep. After all those hours doing watches and being happy to go below, we both found it a pleasure to simply sit in our comfortable cockpit and enjoy the cooling evening air.
We realized the sun was heading for the lighthouse on the point, but it set behind the next island over. James, of course, got the stellar (heh) sunset shot before it did.
