Fogo and Brava, Post from thursd. 26.6.12

Unfortunately the E-Mail blog entry never reached the blog yesteday, so here it is. In the meantime we arrived safely at Maio, lying at anchor at the main city in the southwest. More tomorrow.

Fogo and Brava

Fogo is said to be beautiful for it is greener and has the highest peak of the islands, close to 3000m. That peak causes the clouds to stay there and deliver some free water. The volcano last erupted in 1995. Since Fogo consists of only hills, they do have a wine industry there. Fogo wine is said to be good. Well, we have a bottle now and will try it some time. Fogo has a little harbor on the east coast with nothing there. Unfortunately it is ugly and they were constructing in it so we deciede not to stop there. The town, which is 3km away , looked nice with new houses and has a little black beach, but anchoring would not have been nice, no protection from the swell. So we decided to move on to Brava, the westernmost inhabited island of the Cape Verdes.

It was a good decision to come here. There is a little harbor in a small bay but big enough to have a Ferry come here once in a while to deliver food and other goods and of course people. Brava is a little paradise of its own. Not that I would like to live here, but it’s beautiful and most of all peaceful. I am sure that right now we were the only tourists.

Looking for an anchorage a black guy in a green-black striped T-Shirt showed us where we should “park” and that we should go backwards and put landlines out. That procedure took a little while with only two of us working on the boat, but we did well. I was steering the boat, Marcus took the Dinghi to put the landlines. After being sure all is ok the first thing we did was jump into the water. That felt good. In a usual manner Marcus took the diving glasses and looked for the anchor to see if it holds well.

When we wanted to go to the shore with the Dinghi we found the motor of the Dinghi not working. In the meantime it is repaired. So we paddled ashore. The guy who had helped us with the landlines was still there and waited for his money  that of course we gave him. He then brought us to the “Delegacao Maritim”, where we again had to check in, show the papers, make a Crew List, leave a copy of the passports etc. and, most important, pay EUR7. The guy was very young and did not speak English and it took him a while to find all he needed to fill out – seems like there had not come a visitor in a long time. The office, which had just been opened for us, contained a desk, a shelf with a handful of Leitz-files (Ordner) in there and 4 chairs which all seemed to fall apart the second you sat on them. On the desk there was an old, rosted Leitz-puncher (Locher) on a German Klett book (unfortunately it was turned over so I couldn’t see what it was for). On the wall hang a painting with 3 sailboats, the paper cover was still on the frame. Some knots in a frame decorated the other wall over the door which leads to the balcony. The floor, probably an old wooden floor, was covered with a PVC with wooden structure. All was simple but clean. Looking up there was no ceiling in the room but you looked directly up to the roof (Dachziegel). The guy who helped us in the first place was still with us, he is our guide and the translator and then brought us to a bar where Marcus had a beer. Actually Marcus wanted to eat but of course in the afternoon at 3 p.m. there is no chance to get any food. So beer and some cookies had to do it. While we were there we were witness to some interesting scenes. The lady behind the bar first of all was probably very good at heart but very tired and not amused she had to work during the day. A little girl came in and traded cigarettes, I didn’t quite get the deal. I just noticed that you can buy cigarettes by one there, because some people did. Sometimes, if the lady did not have the right change I guess she gave a cigarette instead. A guy ordered beer, another came in and had 5 shots of some strong alcohol in one glass which he finished in one zip.

 After that short break we headed for the capitol of the island, which is on the mountain in over 500m height. One hour later, having managed 2/3rds of the way, an Aluguer came by and convinced us to hop on board. It would have been quite another distance. The whole road is under construction with cows watching the progress…We arrived in the town and were in a different world, tropical. New houses, a small supermarket in the side street which had a cashier where you even got a receipt, people BBQ everywhere, all clean and very quiet, that’s the Capitol Vila Nova Sintra. We spent some time up there, looking around and looking for a clean  restaurant who would serve us dinner. We finally found one with view to an old ruin on top of the hill. Local older guys (most of them white!) sat there, and had one beer after the other. One particularly loved Heineken. Very friendly. We had tuna with CousCous and carrots/cabbage. We took a taxi back down, the ride was 15 min. downhill. Back on the boat we took a shower on the back and enjoyed the warm night. Marcus immediately went to bed and fell asleep because he hadn’t slept long the night before while sailing. When I was waiting to take my shower the town turned dark – like we had seen it twice before (in Boa Vista and on the crossing passing the Island of Santiago). Out of electricity. Happens very often, probably daily. I used the dark phase to enjoy a wonderful naked shower ;-) After the third retry the electricity went back on.

This morning the roosters on the land waked us up. We had a long breakfast and as I am typing the story here, Marcus is waiting for me to go swimming before we leave heading towards Maio and trying to keep the local kids, who swam to the boat, off the boat. So, one last swim and off we go, another day of travelling, to an island with sandy beaches for Micha ;-)

Brava at arrival

Street construction cows

View down to the bay with the only sailing boat (Alita) from 1/5 the way up

 Vila Nova Sintra

The harbour town: Porta da Furna