Hi all,

We pulled out from Mindelo marina at 7am Saturday. After spending a good week in Mindelo and around San Vicente, the island, we were lucky to get what seemed like a good weather window to resume our trip towards Gibraltar.

Our time in the Cape Verdes was most enjoyable - the people were friendly, the marina world class, the food real tasty, and scenery barren but interesting, once again being volcanic in origin and very dry, like Ascension. Our only regret was in not being able to get across to the bigger neighboring island, San Antao. We had planned to take the ferry across from Mindelo on Friday morning, spend the night there and then return Saturday afternoon to be ready for a Sunday departure. But then we decided to bring the departure forward a day and to pass on the trip. It certainly looked pretty spectacular as we sailed up to and around the NE side of the island on Saturday. Sadly, one of the two ferries that ply the rather rough waters between the 2 islands 4 times a day, and possibly one that we might have been on, capsized at its mooring on Friday afternoon after returning to Mindelo fully laden but rather lopsided. Yet another case of a 3rd world country's poorly managed and overly burdened ferries meeting its demise. Sad for the ship and the thousands of people who depended on her on a regular basis.

Anyway, after a particularly rough 12 miles going out the strait between San Vincente and San Antau, we got to windward of the islands and began some of the most pleasant sailing we have had since leaving Cape Town, with consistent winds, moderate seas, lovely clear skies and beautifully starry nights. Let's hope that our luck continues as we make our way across the 2500 to 3000 miles to Gibraltar.

That is it for now. 

Neil, Scott and Kev.

- S/V Galatea