(December 3 – 8, 2017) On the first day at the Palmeira fishing port, many children wanted to watch our dinghy during our outing on the island. Not knowing what language to speak to me, the children tried to speak in simple French. I responded to them in English and assigned one child to watch the dinghy.

Cabo Verde used to be under Portugal; however, in 1975, it became independent. The official language is Portuguese but some people speak Portuguese-based Creole (Kabuverdianu). If heard, I wouldn’t know the difference.

On the street, vendors sell secondhand clothes.

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(December 4, 2017) We left the Canary Islands on Monday and arrived the Cabo Verde on Sunday. This trip is the third longest trip for us. It took 6 days and 10 hours (154 hours total) at sea, seeing and talking to only one human (John) and two cats. The distance was 764 nautical miles.

The arrival time was good. We had enough time to anchor and organize everything before sunset. After all was settled, we grilled fish for dinner and enjoyed it. We thanked that we had no boat issues during this trip. Maybe regular check/monitor, routine preventive maintenance,

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There is no friend as loyal as a book. — Ernest Hemingway

La Gomera Island is a small and very steep island. On the first day that we arrived here, I wanted to stay here as long as I can. Nature is all around and children play at the park in the evenings. Grandfathers are seating on the bench with friends talking, playing cards, or just watching waves on the beach. People do their own things peacefully. Many tourists from the cruise ships visit for a day. Some long-term tourists seem engaged in their own spiritual activities.

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(October 5 – 7, 2017) It took us two days (one day sailing and one day motoring) from Madeira Island to La Graciosa Island in the Canary Islands. Motoring is noisy and the diesel fumes are smelly. A Bright moon appeared sometimes which helped the nightly watches. A small bird traveled with us on the boat. John found two dragon flies and also got bitten by a black/yellow striped fly. Where were they from at sea? He also found a flying fish on the deck. (After arriving at a new place, I grilled the flying fish and gave it to Swat,

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(September 23 – October 5, 2017) Portugal has a massive ocean fishing territory because it also owns the Azores and Madeira Islands. Madeira is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, closer to Morocco in Africa than to mainland Portugal.

Until I visited Madeira Island which relies heavily on tourism; I didn’t know much about this island. It was a surprise to see yellow or red double decker tour buses, cable cars (from harbor to top), jeep tours, bike tours, walking tours, boat tours, and all the other organized tour operations. When we visited Funchal, the capital city of Madeira;

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