Out of Africa – finding paradise | Ep108

Out of Africa – finding paradise | Ep108

Right so on this next one after this one’s broken just’s keep it up yeah I know after this one’s gone through right go forward put it down get in didn’t work let’s see let see if I can go back don’t know how I manage that Hello and welcome to a windy mindelo in the cape ver Islands yeah we’ve had one or two Rocky moments with the getting on and off beaches yes we have but we’re back on the Beaten Track now that a lot of yachties come to mindelo is one of those sort of iconic ports for

People crossing the Atlantic so it’s nice to be here it is it seems more than two weeks ago that we were in The Gambia yeah a lot has happened I hope you like the film coming up kunin Island a place with a dark history the White Sands of the cape

Verds and swimming in the Rock pools the L dive before our Atlantic Crossing if you get up early in the Gambia before the sun rises you may be lucky and catch the shrimp fisherman for a few Euros you can buy a feast and there are bigger prizes too so

These are tiger PRS they the tiger big ones do you catch them in the same way yes they them we’ve been at lamin lodge for just over a week and most of what we need is here or in the village but now it’s time for a bit of a road

Trip a couple of miles down a track through the village then another couple of Miles through another settlement half an hour later we reach the market fresh fruit and vegetables but we also need gas and a supermarket and that’s considerably further the relative isolation of lamin gives way to the sprawling town and

Right on the other side is an international Supermarket where you can buy most things there is just one main road which gets pretty busy and it’s not only used by cars first stop is for gas where we get our 6 kg bottle filled for about €1 and then the

Supermarket all imported Brands sold at a premium but it’s here and we’re running out spices and self-raising flour two things that that are hard to come by so we stock up so that’s the guys going out doing a bit more prawning last night’s prawns have been tempered I’ve got the hot

Plate instead of the barbecue it’s just easier and we’re going to watch uh Oppenheimer we are just going to get ready we realize with Oscar season we haven’t watched the main film so we’ve got to do it it’s just come up for rent I think now so we’ve rented it it has

Yeah I was I was I was too mean to actually buy it for 15 quid so I’m renting it for four so yeah we watching Now This is a good time to talk about the language learning app Babel the sponsor for this video as I travel around Africa I’m always amazed at how many languages people speak usually three or four is a matter of course I’m embarrassed to say that I only speak English fluently but

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But in the other direction a short trip up River to James Island this small Outpost fought over by Europeans for centuries was once the focal point of this Region’s slave trade there’s history here on a happier note we’re accompanied by the big biggest dolphins we’ve ever seen they are enormous they’re about

Three times the size of Med Dolphins come on lovies wow there lots of them now hey come on then come and play I can’t see here watching dolphin for the whole trip because got a few jobs to do I’m running the water maker which I don’t really want to do in this

Muddy river but got no option because we have run out in in two weeks it usually lasts us a month and the reason we’ve gone through it is look all this dust and it’s just everywhere the the whole boat it gets filthy the panels get filthy everything so we’ve been

Regularly cleaning and we we have run out so I’ll try and recharge before we uh before we get to stop talking about dust and watch the dolins they are lovely oh the DUS is getting to me now we will we will fill up once we’re out

At Sea obviously before on the way to Cap bird so I just want to get enough and I will Knack of this uh this filter but yeah it’ll get done so this is it the tide is taking us there as the sun sets it’s rather lovely

Isn’t it it is lovely but slightly Eerie because this is the Fort where a lot of the slaves were loaded and then taken overseas yeah to the States into the Caribbean built by the Brits uh I think the French had it several times Drake came here and sacked

Banul and this island a couple of times it was in it’s in a strategic position in the middle of the in the middle of the river so yeah going have a look tons of birds just everywhere yeah yeah the wildlife is sort of taken over it’s fantastic with some baobabs

Everything bobab and kok trees and the remains of the Garrison oysters shells attaching themselves to the post and the edge here can we find anything to tie to nothing to tie to no I can see we can pull up on the beach you could yeah let’s do that Canon very much doubt they

Originally pointed that way it’s just into the bank I don’t think so know why they’ve been put there that way is where they AB see isn’t it yeah this is this is what they would want to defend anything coming out the river at the height of the slave trade

Thousands of men and women were held on the island waiting for ships to unload supplies from Europe and load up with human cargo and travel West over the years the land mass has shrunk through erosion there must have been quite a lot of trading going on between the people who

Lived here up to 100 at one point and those on land because there’s nowhere to grow food this is where there used to be quite a few Huts that some of the workers lived in now being completely taken over by bobab trees which are amazingly resilient fantastic trees and now they own the

Place along with the birds 12 years ago the island was made a world heritage site and preserved as a reminder of the Region’s Bleak History so there would have been several stories high it was sacked about six times apparently in the time that it’s been here and rebuilt all sorts of stuff left look at this cannon it’s a beautiful one 1753 pointing out down the River one of the rooms clearly marked on the map is where the male slaves were held separated from the women one of those men was kente whose story is shown in the TV series Roots written by his descendant Alex Haley the island is now commonly known as kunin Island far starting to strain against the uh snubber there the tide hasn’t really got going yet but does it’s a bit Fierce here we got the island behind us but we’re on our way over to jeray yes jeere is the original Village of kunin no no wonder he got uh captured this

Close to the island not not the uh not the the best positioning so yeah I would imagine most of the the young men from this area would have been taken yeah there’s a museum there now so we’ll find out there’s also a women’s center that celebrates local Enterprise

It’s a place where women learn traditional skills and make a living selling their art a safe place for weaving and tie dying all very Colorful a w okay yeah lovely then you can weave it and it the museum stands at the edge of the village and details the long history of the battles here dating back to the 15th century what we found at the island when the its focus is of course the slave

Trade today the village welcomes visitors so this is the local restaurant we’re going to go and uh sit under the mango tree it’s a a little bit nicer Judy’s got her bbab juice it’s lovely it’s lovely it’s beab juice with fruits added to it it’s really nice but they’re going to do some

Chicken so we’ll see what that’s like would be lovely good chicken and chips yeah yummy and still in the center of jeere the kok tree that over 500 years has seen everything when we came here it was high tide and now there we are the tide has gone out

So dudo has kindly helped us lift the boat thaty it’s quite heavy just full of air yet again we are caught out by the tides and very shallow water don’t think it yeah yeah oh thank you so much you just don’t have a time if you have a time tomorrow he’s on

Board my Dr right yeah this is better keep pushing oh it’s so shallow I think you’ll be pushing us to the boat yeah yeah hope we not ground should be enough to get in engine down try just get a key out at least with a flat bottom dinghy

And electric engine we can get going in just a few inches of water the next day Steve can’t resist another spot of cleaning and our friends return’s right over there so back in the rather industrial Anchorage of uh ban the ports over here so got Muhammad

Ready tomorrow to help us to find all these places is to check out it’s part of the deal you pay him uh for for checking in and he helps you check out as well hopefully it should be should be quicker as you can see got the Yankee

Down so I need to repair the uh the sheet for that and I want to wash all the lines cuz the Sheets Were filthy got the roller line in the bucket as well give that a good clean was spray down managed to get half a tank full of water

So yeah get things as clean as possible before we go Well that’s it we are now officially leaving Gambia it’s been a fantastic couple of weeks that we’ve had here seeing everyone and seeing different places as well but we’re now on our way to Cape ver it’ll take us about 3 days we think and then we are off to to

Trinidad the cape ver islands are spread over a region 600 miles west of Africa our plan is to put in a couple of stops on our way through and we will end up in Melo which is the best place for provisioning well it’s lovely to be out

Sailing again we’ve been going for about 4 hours uh we’re still in very shallow water it’s about 5 m underneath us here uh but it’s a little bit cleaner so we got the water maker going it’s going to be going full Pelt all the way to the

Birds I think to fill the tanks up and get the the cleaning done du to cleaning the uh the floors inside uh going a keep a bit of a watch for the for the probes that are still around here one just going behind us now uh but hopefully by

The time it’s dark that should all be over and we’ll be in uh in nice Open Sea uh and yeah it should be a really nice passage across the wind is looking good on the beam all the way so hopefully this is going to be a good

Sale the perogue stay with us all afternoon which is lovely except when they hit our fishing line good thing you’ve got a spare line yes yes my Misfortune with fishing continues progue the proges just like to come really close when they come past I don’t know why they do it but they just

Come shooting past one shot just right behind me I had a line out the back so it took my line the whole line out and The Lure my nice squid lure so yeah got put a new line on now but maybe you’ll catch a fish yeah maybe

It’s meant to be and that lure was never going to catch a fish I’ll try them another one squid laws are supposed to be the ones that people use here I had the big one on before so I’ll try the small one see if he does it

Perfect at night the same light show we saw in Sagal it’s a party we’re on the last day now and we’re making a brilliant time in fact too good we’re going to be there I think about 3: in the morning at this rate we’re doing 8 knots at the moment you

Got 22 knots of of wind there’s um a bit of a sea going it’s about uh 2 or 3 m it’s on the it’s on the beam so it’s not that comfortable sort of a ride really I mean it’s it’s great in this boat you can’t complain sitting in a in a comfy

Chair but that’s that’s sort of the thing you you just want to just sit in the chair really and uh and enjoy it it’s not it’s not sort of pottering about weather and you can see look the this is still filthy I fully expected to have gone around and done all the cleaning

And all that sort of stuff but if I walk around in a bucket with this I’ll end up pouring it all over myself so you know you don’t end up doing those sorts of things so so why this might be ideal conditions for a day sale for for a long

Passage it’s just gets a bit wearing I think you know we’ve been cooking things out of the freezer rather rather than cooking from scratch things like that and yeah it’s nice to uh to have it a little bit more laidback I could probably wreath a little bit more you

Know it’s not going to make a lot of difference s it up a little bit straighter but it’s it’s that motion because you’ve got this beam C and the beam C continues for the rest of the day until as predicted we arrive in the Anchorage in Boa Vista at 3: in the

Morning we can hear the surf we just can’t see itop it now well not a bad vistor to wake up to lovely white sand beach Clear Water I’ve had my warning swim but it’s time for the boat to have another wash because look at the state of this look that was

Cleaned in The Gambia before we left so the dust got us even out at sea but I think we’re finally free of it so time for a good clean I think this is the clearest water we’ve seen for a very long time yeah it’s lovely and it looks like a fantastic Beach as well so going to go and explore and see if we can have lunch at the Little Shack which is just in there there are some quite serious waves

Though coming up onto the shore so I think we should um pick our place to land yeah yeah there’s some big Breakers just in here yeah yeah but more actually over by the shack it really is tipping up there so yeah we See and so we do pick our spot but even so don’t quite make it Unscathed and we nearly lose the key for the engine but isn’t it worth It The white buildings we saw from the boat are currently under construction but for now there’s just white sand and one restaurant best food ever well that was a good stop for a couple of nights and the cap ver islands are well they’re more spread out than I

Thought they were and the next Beach we’re going to is a good well it be a night sail away so we should get there tomorrow lunchtime it’s easy sailing with the trades and we are putting in another couple of stops before getting into mindelo mostly so we can go Swimming Yeah we saw some quite unusual fish on our way here and I think that will be the last dive we make for a few weeks no no we want to go Mid-Atlantic really yeah don’t think we see those sorts of fish but we might see some sharks as

Yeah okay okay you can but the next couple of days we will be here provisioning we just need fresh vegetables and fruit really we did quite well in The Gambia yeah we got quite a lot of stuff there and it was great time in The Gambia really useful to sort of

Go up nice to go up the river and see stuff there we would have if we’d had Tim likes we have gone further there’s hippos further up that River uh but St James’s Island I mean what a place to be that is and you know to sit here just a

Few hundred years after all that happened there in a in a ship flying the red enen it sort of send shivers down your spine of being there what the locals must think about it I don’t know yeah I am very glad we went and they have now named it kin Island I think

That’s pretty pretty official now yeah it’s wearing away I mean it’s not going to be there forever I think it’s about half the size that it was uh during its prime with the big F on there now but yeah really atmospheric place to go it was but onwards now we are looking

Forward to our Atlantic Crossing um there are quite a few ships here actually I’m not haven’t found yet anyone who’s going to leave around our time but it be nice to go with one or two others I think yeah you won’t see them after one or two days at se anyway

All that sort of thing is a bit of a myth you know the people from The Ark they go out and that’s it they don’t see them until they arrive the other side but yes I mean you can feel the wind here the trades are in so we should

Hopefully have a fast trip across but the next episode will be while we’re out at Sea thanks to starlink we can do that uh if you’re not a regular viewer you won’t know that we do things in real time so what you see is the last two

Weeks so yes our next episode we will be at C and we will be putting it out and showing you what’s happened on their Voyage yeah hopefully something will have happened but if nothing happens then then that’s what you’ll see It’ll be in two weeks it might be a short

Episode let’s see it may well be and thank you very much while we’re here to our patrons who have supported us over the past well few years to get us where we are now and are continuing to support us as we go across to Trinidad that’s

Where we’re aiming to get to yes looking forward to that we’re meeting actually one of our friends and patrons that that actually has their boat there as well so yeah it’s going to be great really looking forward to getting there and thank you to our subscribers as well and

Thank you for watching and see you next time we don’t know what’s going to be in new episodes but we’ll see you next time yeah watch out for the next One

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Sailing off the beaten track has its challenges and we’ve certainly come up against some difficult navigation and odd behaviour at sea while in these waters, but the pay back is off the scale.
We’ve had the privilege of anchoring in some of the most beautiful and historic places on earth entirely alone, and that’s continued as we venture West into the rarely visited Eastern Isles of Cape Verde.
Africa in some ways isn’t for the faint hearted, but it has some big hearted people and is not to be missed, we are sad to leave but excited to be now anchored in Mindelo and ready to set off across the Atlantic.

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