Tim and Claus from the SY Kira sit at the saloon table and stare at a box with butter. Yes – the butter is already melting – that was the first part. What now ? Aaah – yes. No we’ve got to sail westward. But the half-hourly check of the GPS always shows the same distance: 2008 miles. Maybe the sails are set wrong ? Well they’re not even set. And the anchor ? Oh ! It’s still on the ground !
So we’re still at anchor in front of Mindelo and wait for the wind to calm down a little. Yesterday the Harmattan was blowing hard and we had a constant 5-6 Bft. at the anchorage with gusts of 7 or 8 Bft. And everything is covered with a fine layer of yellow sand. Unfortunately the Harmattan was also the reason why the SY Chiloe is still in Sal. We’ve been on the lookout for our friends the last days but the wind was not too good to set sails.
On the other side, a medical incident caused the SY Ninita to make a short detour to Mindelo. We managed to persuade Nina and Ola to alter their course to Barbados, whereto we’ll probably start together tomorrow.
And if somebody thinks we’re just wasting time – you’re absolutely right ! Because we really want to get sure to NOT reach the Carribean in time for new year. We also managed to delay the departure of the SY Hitch-Hike-Heidi for another day. But in the morning, we couldn’t hold them back anymore. They lifted their anchor at 11 and left for Barbados. The Kira is supposed to leave today (we’ll see about that…) and we will DEFINATELY start tomorrow !
Beside that we had an amazing indian dinner the other day on bord the Rancho Relaxo and Wolfgang surprised us with excellent home made bread. Thank’s to Katja for the great receipt ! Right now Wolfgang, Gui and the kids are roaming the streets of Mindelo in search for a few last things and Tim and Claus are also running for last errands. In the afternoon we’ll tidy up the ship and have a security drill for the crew. After that it’ll be a last dinner and a long nights sleep.
Maybe we’ll have a little surprise when we try to lift the anchor: Yesterday a fishing vessel was drifting into the anchorage with broken engine. They managed to drop their anchor a few meters in front of the Rancho Relaxo. And while the crew was trying to repair the engine, the ship was going adrift in a wind gust and came to a standstill only a meter in front of our bow. A few minutes later another fishing boat managed to drag the damaged ship out of the anchorage but the anchor was left aground a few meters in front of our ship. We’ll see when we lift up the anchor…
A final word about our reachability while at sea: We’ll have our satphone switched on from 12 to 13 UTC and from 16 to 17h UTC. You can send us SMS for free or give us a call. – Details on the Contact-page.