Cape Verde, Mindelo

Cape Verde, Mindelo

Happy to reach The Cape Verde Islands, Sao Vicente, Mindelo.

An early morning approach into Sao Vicente

It isn't advisable to go into Mindelo at night so we stayed well outside but did suffer from a very lumpy sea.

We are in the Mindelo marina which is at the edge of the town. The crossing from Tenerife was varied, sometimes quite calm and other days the swell was lets say lumpy.

Don and Ern did the night watches between them and Karen and I kept them company when we couldn't get to sleep. We have been eating well along the way and we tried to eat our main meal together before dark, we use bowls as you can't keep food on plates with the rocking about. I did consider buying big dog bowls, hmm I may look for some here later.

Ern and Karen

Karen awake for both sunrise and sunset

We arrived yesterday morning, the weather quite warm and sunny so far so good, its very windy this morning and howling now. All of us walked a little into town and had breakfast, a mix of eggs, ham, sausage a little like chorizo, bread, jam, juice and coffee, not a bad for about 5 euros.

Within the marina is a floating bar with a menu which looks ok but when I asked for a coffee they said they bought out an old jar of de caff so I said can I have an orange juice then? nope they don't have any, I ended up with the remnants of a peach drink which I suspect may have been open for a while.
I doubt they have anything that is on the menu but they have plenty of beer and I did see some spirits.

So far from what we have seen of the town it reminds me of Kenya, pastel coloured colonial type buildings, small tourist shops with "tat". We found out where the markets are and today we have to go to immigration so we can check the boat in / out before we leave. We are told if we want to explore the best way is by taxi as the busses only leave when they are full and you can't always rely on a bus to bring you back so I doubt we will be going far. Its quoted to have 491,575 people here most of them are under the age of 24 and Mindelo is where they live. Mindelo is a busy place with ferries coming and going, twice a day. We walked through the pavement street markets where they sell fish and vegetables which are in very poor condition. 

building in a side street

At least this guy cares for his dog. There are many stray dogs about

A hotel at the top of the town

The sign at the entrance of the marina, no street sellers, they totally ignore this, mind you its normally sunglasses, T shirts and bracelets 

Big bird on a roundabout

Karen and I refused to go into the fish market, Don and Ern said it was swarming with flies. Its sad to see children and adults begging on almost every street. The extreme's are very noticeable, from very well dressed people and new cars to people dressed in rags and no shoes. The vegetable market we went into were trying to sell things that we would throw away like sprouting potatoes and onions that had green shoots, dried fish covered in flies Yuk!

Markets in the gutters

Provisions from the supermarket

This is the university

We still have the normal jobs to do, laundry and buy a few provisions gas and fuel, prepare a few more meals to freeze then our plans are to leave on Wednesday again dependent on the weather.
Tonight there was a meeting in the marina bar and we met quite a few people from around 10 other boats crossing to the Caribbean so we exchanged names, numbers e-mail addresses and boat call signs.

BFN
Agua Therapy