Cape Verde

Greetings,

We left Cape Verde yesterday evening and are sailing due south, more or less parallel to the western coast of Africa. In the last four days we have traversed the coasts of Morocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, and are now off the coast of Senegal, coming up on Guinea and Sierra Leone - man does that sound weird to write. The ships plotted course now sails obliquely away from Africa, and while still tending south, we cross the Atlantic toward Brazil. This will take 4 days with our first landfall being Salvador, Brazil.

Cape Verde was very cool. It's an island archipelago of 10 islands not unlike the Canaries in that they are volcanic and strongly affected by the Sahara desert. Unlike the Canaries the volcanoes here are less evident. I guess dormant is the word. We again hired our own guides with a small group of like minded travellers and found our way to really unique places, and in depth explanations. This included a trip to the highest point on the island, which traversed up 5000+ ft above the harbour along a cobblestone road laid down hundreds of years ago by the Portugese. Retention walls were not in their vocabulary. First gear in our little van got a real good work out  on the way up and on the way down. So did my sphincter muscle - tight. But the panoramas - knock your socks off!

Temps are balmy - tomorrow projected to be 33C - oh damn, another day of t-shirts, shorts  and flip flops. The seas have gone from the flat calm of the Mediterranean to 8 to 12 footers now that we are in the Atlantic - it's white capped to infinity but not in a bad way. There is a gentle roll to the barky that makes for a great sleep - like being in a hammock that sways itself.

Couple of things to note. Internet is 'tres expensive' - like .99 cents a minute. We bought 200 minutes for $120. But very frustrating in that you burn through it quickly watching the computer spin trying to connect to the Internet. As a result we try to do all composing etc off line then jump on line and fire a salvo of emails at the satellite that mails it to you. That is why it's pricy and emails/Facebook entries few and far between - pics nearly impossible. We very much appreciate those of you who have written to us but replying is tough because of the above reasons.

Secondly this ship is totally amazing. It's slightly bigger than the ones we have been on previously but not big enough to lose that feeling of intimacy. It's a floating art gallery and the number of things to do in a given day vastly exceeds our ability to do them. Just learned the ship has a desalinizing unit on board that produces all the water used on the ship from bathing to drinking. The water tastes good.

We have logged just over 3300 nautical miles since leaving Italy and have about 1900 nautical miles left before we reach our final destination of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Currently we are about half way across the Atlantic and should cross the equator sometime tonight. We have crossed the equator by air, but never before by sea or land.

Best to you all,
Margaret & Harry