Pitufa.at

The weather forecast looks good, the trade wind is stable, all lockers are de-rattled, everything on the boat checked twice and we’re mentally prepared for our first really big jump: Atlantic we’re coming!

Brava is a tiny island on a map. When hiking up the mountains, it suddenly seems higher than wide Yesterday we walked up the valley from Faja d’Agua to the mountainous interior. There are no dedicated hiking trails, rather partially cobbled foot/donkey paths connecting villages. So it’s quite usual when walking in the middle of nowhere to meet children on their way to school, housewives carrying shopping baskets on their heads, or banana-loaded donkeys. The track led steeply up the mountains, sometimes right through farm houses, providing spectacular views of the ragged coast. After about 4 hours we reached the capital of Brava, picturesque Vila Nova Sintra with its solely Portuguese-colonial style houses and lush gardens. Even the capital is a big village where all people know each other and the news of foreign visitors is spread within minutes. The locals are very friendly, talkative and not pushy at all. We joined the crowd next to the market waiting for an aluguer to take us back along the winding coastal road.

We had a lazy day at home, enjoyed the clear water (particularly after being in Mindelo’s Porto Grande…) for snorkeling and the hot temperature. Last week we already complained about the chilly evenings (chilly meaning that we had to wear jackets in the evening

Yesterday we took a ferry over the narrow channel to the neighbour island Santo Antao, one of the biggest and most fertile islands of the Cape Verdes. After leaving the ferry tourguides try rather aggressively to get hold of tourists, but we avoided them and simply took an Aluguer up into the mountains. We then hiked through a fertile crater with old stonehouses, fields, trees (the first high pine trees we’ve seen on these islands, quite a funny view next to sugarcane and bananas), pastures and a rather alpine atmosphere. The path then led up to the ridge of the crater, it was sunny and hot and we were quite suprised when we finally reached the top and suddenly looked down onto a steep cobbled path that led in serpentines down the almost vertical drop disappearing into swirling, cold clouds. After walking about half an hour the dense clouds suddenly opened and gave view into the fertile Paul valley–still a few hundred meters below–and the northcoast of the island.
We caught another Aluguer (these minibuses or pick-up trucks go even to remote places in the Cape Verdes, you only have to be prepared to wait a while, because there’s no schedule) down to Paul on the north coast, further on to Ribeira Grande and then back along the coastal road. This way we got quite some impressions of this spectacular island with its steep canyons and cragged mountain ranges without spending too much money (we spent about 7 euros per person on the buses…).

After 3 days of high-speed working in the marina Pitufa is now entirely clean and saltfree, has new lower shrouds, the autopilot works again, the tanks are full, the lockers are fully provisioned, etc. and we’ve decided to stay a few more days in the anchorage of Mindelo.
We like this town, the street vendors and the mercado municipal offer the best veggies we’ve seen since the Canaries, the fish market has good quality for very low prices (we bought a kilo of tuna for about 3 euros) and on the weekend there’s live music in many bars.
There’s a general spirit of preparation before the big crossing among the yachties and every day we say “good bye and see you on the other side” to our friends. We’re not in a hurry though, because we’ve fallen in love with the islands and there remains much more to be discovered.

We’ve finally found a WiFi spot where we are able to upload overdue pics of the Canaries and the Cape Verdes. However, the upload takes ages… Enjoy!

With all the round trips and hiking excursion during the last week we neglected Pitufa a bit. During the last two days we’ve taken advantage of the calm anchorage of Tarrafal for some maintenance and repair work.
The hydraulic autopilot will hopefully work again, the water level in the batteries is adequate and the kitchen sink now lies in a yummy wooden frame instead of the old, mouldy plastic where water used to get trapped.

As soon as we’ve finished checking e-mails and our blog on the antique computers they have here in the local youth centre (no working WiFi in town…) we’ll head to the mini-market for some bread. The range is limited to some canned veggies and basic provisions like flour, sugar and salt–all in unlabelled plastic bags .
We bought a 6 kg pumpkin in Ribeira Brava so after pumpkin-curry the day before yesterday, breaded fried pumpkin yesterday we’ll have pumpkin soup in the evening—creativity is everything here