Fish price here is excellent. Price is set by supply and demand. If the weather is bad for fishing, the price goes up. If fishermen bring lots of fish, the price goes down. We bought Sushi Grade Yellowfin Tuna yesterday for 3500 Escudos (USD4) for one kilogram. It is about two USD for a pound. It is cheaper than eggs or canned tuna.

Our next stop will be Suriname. Sailing from Cabo Verde to Suriname is downwind sailing with the trade winds.

After monitoring the weather forecast, we postponed sailing to Friday. The wind forecast looks good throughout the days.

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Sailing from Nicolau Island to Vicente Island was rough and tough because of big waves. Autopilot, our favorite crew worked hard! We let it drive the boat and stayed inside of the boat keeping us dry. Periodically, John went to outside to check the sea and the surroundings.

A couple of hours into the trip, John asked me to come out to see a small local boat with a homemade sail (smaller than the size of the waves) sailing alone in the heavy weather, far away. At first, I thought it was a sailfish. OMG! I was uneasy seeing such a small boat sailing alone in the big waves,

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On Boa Vista Island, we experienced big swells at the beautiful sandy bottom anchorage (Sal-Rei Anchorage). Wanting to see the island, we went to shore carrying up our HEAVY HOMEMADE HARD dinghy to the beach.

Departing from the beach back to the boat, lots of children voluntarily came to push the dinghy into the water. Once the dinghy was close to the water, a couple of kids were already on the dinghy for fun.

With waves and the motor running, John was worried that someone would get hurt. A local swimmer/fisherman helped the situation telling the kids get off from the dinghy and towed the dinghy to waist depth water.

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(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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(December 3, 2017) We are aiming to arrive at Sal Island this evening. This island is located in the North East side among the Cabo Verdes. Our estimated arrival time is around sunset. I am not keen on entering a new harbor when it is dark but we will be cautious approaching our new anchorage.

Some say that Cabo Verde is “Africa’s Jewel in the Atlantic!” It comprises nine populated islands (out of a total of 15), about 500 kilometers (300 miles) off the coast of West Africa. The closest countries are Senegal and The Gambia.

We caught another Mahi Mahi fish (about 3 feet = 1 meter long) yesterday.

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(December 2, 2017) My night watch started one hour early today at 1am when John was trying to communicate to another boat via a VHF radio. This sailboat was right behind of us getting closer. He wanted them to know it. He spoke to the other boat and they changed their course to pass astern of us. This sailboat is 1.5 times longer than our boat (22 meters = 70 feet), making 9-11 knots of speed.

We have strong winds (15-20 knots) and bigger waves (2-3 meters = 6-9 feet) today. For safer and more comfortable night sailing,

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(December 1, 2017) John woke me up for my night watch which starts at 2am. I went to bed at 8pm after a dinner of fresh grilled Mahi Mahi with a glass of wine and slept deeply for the last six hours. We are still sailing with only one sail on the pole due to weak wind. The ocean is calm and the boat runs steady, still making 3-4 knots. This comfort let me slept through the whole six hours, all in one shot.

Waking up and checking outside around 2am, I saw about a 90% full moon,

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