Category Archives: Canary & Cape Verde

Old Man in the Mirror

Went to the mirror

And what did I see?

A funny old man

Lookin’ back at me.

*

I said: “Hey, old man,

What ya doin’ there,

Smilin’ back at me

With your fine grey hair?

*

I know you’ve seen things,

Numerous and rare,

Some you can tell

And some you don’t dare.

*

You may not be young,

You may not be fair,

But you’re old enough that

You just don’t care!”

*

That this won’t be them,

The youth might defend;

Yet deep down inside,

They cannot pretend.

*

If you’re so lucky

To live as long,

You just might write

Your own silly song.

*

The EndMiddle

Our Snail Mail Arrived in Sao Vicente, Cape Verde!

Yeah – our mail arrived from our mail service in Florida! We had ordered it weeks ago hoping it would beat us to Cape Verde. Oh well, we can leave Mindelo Marina of Sao Vicente, Cape Verde now after an extended visit of just over two weeks. This has been a lovely place to relax and enjoy the cruising life as Kandu had only a few maintenance projects to complete since most were completed earlier in the Canary Islands and Agadir, Morocco. We’ve met several lovely cruisers here making the Atlantic crossing and hope to see them again in the Caribbean.

We will be casting off the lines tomorrow to sail the Atlantic west to French Guiana. We are excited to get moving again. Everything is ready. Water tanks and diesel tanks are full, the boat bottom is clean as well as the deck, cockpit and the interior. All the laundry has been washed and we’re topped up in provisions. 

The music scene is excellent here on the weekends. Typically there is a singer and guitar accompanied sometimes with a cajon drum box. Both weekends we went out to hear the mixed sounds of the tropics combined with Portuguese rhythms topped with a language mix of Portuguese, Creole and English. We actually bought a couple wonderful albums one from their most internationally famous singer – Cesaria Evora: Miss Perfumado. Today’s most popular singer Elida Almeida is featured on her latest album: Kebrada distributed by Sony Music.

Cesaria Evora “Miss Perfumado”
Elida Almeida “Kebrada”

These last two days, Bryce has been able to get out and surf the northeast side of the island in the south section of the Baia des Gatas: Praia Grande de Calhau. We met a recently arrived fellow American cruiser, Jeff Morcroft on sv Talaba who was game to join Bryce on some water adventures.

Bryce Rigney and Jeff Talaba, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde.

 

Mindelo: a Piece of African Cake

This article can also be viewed at the world cruiser’s Noonsite.com. Just follow this link: Cape Verde: Mindelo Marina and Town.

Sailing in from Lanzarote late November 2018, prior e-mail contact with Marina Mindelo indicated no berths would be available during this, their high rally season.  Three rallies, 2 ARC and 1 French, meant 95 extra boats would fill their pontoons to capacity during the same week our unintended circumstances had us arriving. Rounding the northern point between Sao Vicente and the large rock northwest of the Grand Port, the marina informed us over VHF ch72 that they were able to make space for us and to look out for their red dinghy, manned to assist us.  With a forecast of high winds the coming weekend and Noonsite reports of several thefts aboard anchored boats in this popular bay, we tied up bow-in to the leeward side of Pontoon A, grabbing the mooring line from the dock hands and tying it off to our stern.

Mindelo Marina, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde ARC rally participants 2018

The one-hour time difference between Canary and Cape Verde Islands meant that after checking into the marina, we had 30 minutes left before the state offices closed.  Using the map the marina office provided, I quickly walked solo the short distance to both Immigration and Border Police, offices adjacent each other just beyond the ferry terminal.  Border Police had a simple form to fill out and would hold our ship’s original documentation paper, to be returned on check out.  Contrary to another Mindelo cruiser’s Noonsite report, no paper relinquishing them of any responsibility of theft was offered or required.  Immigration took a copy of our crew list and stamped our 3 passports, requiring €5 total for the service.  Both offices gave notice that if we wished to depart on a weekend, we’d have to clear out through their offices the Friday before.  The whole process, both offices together,  took 15-20 minutes.

Marina Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, Nov 2018

Checking into the marina was simple. Proof of Insurance, the captain’s passport to scan, and a standard form describing the vessel, crew, and prior/next ports were all that were required before taking my Visa credit card.  They charge by the square meter.  Our boat, 12.7m x 3.8m cost just about $30 day, which includes security, power, toilets, and access to WiFi through their Floating Bar restaurant. Water is a premium here, so the marina access card doubles as the water card.  One pre-pays for water, $5 buys 250 liters for both their showers (hot) and dockside water.  Although potable, it was highly recommended it be filtered. Their fuel dock offers VAT-free diesel, costing about $1/liter, 15% less than at the street-side service pump. The high volume of cruisers arriving for the rallies motivated the marina to set up a telecommunication SIM provider on premises. One euro bought the SIM, €10 bought 8 GB of data, valid for 30 days. The marina is well run, clean, and convenient to all services.

BoatCV operates a smart yacht services shop on premises and can connect boats with other service providers.  There seems to be some bad blood between the marina and BoatCV owners, but we had no issues. The facilities, marina staff, the restaurant staff, security, and the chandlery are attentive and professional, operating at the highest standards relative to most locations we visited across our circumnavigation. A swell surge can push boats around and strong gusts can jet through the bay’s valley, so many fenders, chafing gear, and attention to dock lines is required.  When it comes to an overall wet-berth marina experience, this place is hard to beat.

The location is convenient as well, central to Mindelo.  Many cultural opportunities are within walking distance of the marina and inexpensive land tours can be had.  Open markets and small supermarkets have most anything one may wish to provision. The local butane gas company seems capable of filling most any gas bottle fitting, including Amerian/Australian.  Cooking gas filling service itself is straight forward and nearly immediate.  Laundry from an outside vendor is collected and returned at 09h and 17h daily. They charged $12 for 7kg of laundry, washed, dried, and folded. From the USA, we had two items mailed to us at the marina Priority International USPS, a box of parts and an envelope of documents.  The parts took a week and no customs charges were applied; the documents, 2 weeks.  As for security, the marina feels safe and guarded from theft.  I can’t speak to boats anchored.  The ever-present young men and boy beggars and the proximity of the beach to the anchored boats might prove problematic.

Mindelo is mellow, quaint, clean, and convenient. The views of the surrounding mountains and nearby island are stunning.  Yes, industry surrounds the port, but feels much less imposing than at other countries we’ve visited.  Portuguese and Creole are the common languages spoken here.  Service providers offer varying degrees of English, French, Spanish, German, etc. We enjoyed the local dishes and drinks. Cachupa is never the same dish from restaurant to restaurant, so once is not enough.  Grogue is a local spirit as strong as vodka and “punch” is a syrup, low in alcohol. Both are inexpensive, less than the cost of a soft drink. Together, they make a tasty cocktail. I think they should give my new cocktail creation the French name for a mooring buoy, “corps mort,” which, when translated directly means, “dead body.” (Turns out I didn’t invent anything. The drink’s actual name sounds like: “Strompf-Parot.”)

Through the marina office, we arranged a standard island tour, covering three coasts.  It was well worth the €60 for the three of us (the car accepts up to 4 at no extra cost), which included driving to the windy summit of Mt Verde, the tallest mountain on the island.  The driver didn’t speak English and very little French, so we didn’t learn much about the history, but he took us to great photo spots, walking paths, and Restaurant Hamburg for an inexpensive local lunch.

Mindelo view from Monte Verde, Sao Vicente

Sailing to Cape Verde took us 8 days and will cut about 3-4 days from our upcoming Atlantic crossing to French Guiana.  I feel the extra time spent to experience this African island was well worth the diversion.  It also proved to be enjoyable and pleasant way to shake down the boat before our third and last ocean crossing.  I wouldn’t insist that a cruiser come this way, but were they to make the effort, they would likely be pleased that they did, especially if they could dock at the marina.

From here, we leave for French Guiana, Suriname, and possibly Guyana, in route toward the Panama Canal. Cheers from sv Kandu!

Pondering Blessings by Leslie Dennis Rigney

November, 2018 – Looking Back and being thankful

After college, age 22, while traveling on sv Getel across the Pacific with Eric in 1989, I had time to pause from the ‘busy’ness of life laiden full of skills learned across multiple disciplines in order to earn a living, and reflect on how incredibly blessed my path had been up to that point. During that crossing from Hawaii to San Francisco, there was a difficult and rather scary 24-hour period when I pushed myself into a tight corner crevice, crossed myself (unusual for a Lutheran), and prayed. At that moment during the raging sea storm, in the most uncomfortable and frightening circumstance of my life, I thanked God for all the extraordinary experiences that my parents had provided me and the incredible opportunities to learn and to grow unhindered by war, by pestilence, tragedy, sickness, hunger, disability, poverty and even unattractiveness. I acknowledged that I had already lived a terrific life. Overwhelmingly thankful, I was prepared to die. Fortunately, the storm passed and we lived to sail under the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.

Pondering Blessings

Today, thinking back at that moment and my life up until then, my life had been truly blessed: born in California in the late 1960’s, healthy, strong of body with a decent brain, and an only child of devoted upper-middle class parents. Truly, I was the princess that most of my high school friends perceived me to be, living atop the hill in a big modern house that my father built. Although I never thought, nor think of myself as a princess. I rarely got new clothes; mine were mostly hand-me-downs. My parents owned a record player with basic speakers, a simple medium-sized television and VHS machine to record shows – purchasing movies was out of the question expensive, and renting movies wasn’t a possibility back in the late 1970’s. Spending time on the telephone long distance was forbidden. My parents didn’t often take me out to eat. We drank milk or water with dinner and ate simply. I learned a great distaste for shopping because while my mother loved to go ‘shopping,’ we rarely bought anything. Our big spending was food on special. Before I was ten, I collected aluminum cans, sorting through trash bins to recycle. When I was 10, I sold mistletoe wrapped and tied with a bow to neighbors for a $0.50. Later in high school, I babysat the neighbors’ children. I never received an allowance.

However, what my parents did offer me, above and beyond any material prizes, were experiences. With my mother, we joined a roller-skating club. I was four. Until I was twelve, I spent most of my after-school hours and weekends at the roller-skating rink, taking lessons and practicing. At age six, I started taking piano lessons. A little later I took-up violin in the elementary school orchestra…I was now taking piano and violin lessons.

My mother was a snow ski addict. During the winter months, we would drive up to the Tahoe mountains on Friday afternoons having packed all our food and sandwich materials for a weekend of skiing. At that time, Squaw Valley attracted families to their ski resort by offering children to ski free until age 14. I skied so much as a youth, that by the time I was 16, I was skiing the most difficult runs on the mountain. My mother’s brilliant idea, I attached a horn to my ski pole. While on the chairlift looking down, I would honk the horn to congratulate fellow skiers on their great form skiing and/or crashing. Haha. I used to ski so hard, that my own crashes were enviable…but fortune would have it that I never experienced a debilitating accident. At that time, we skied without helmets.

Then one day, my father showed up with a modest water ski boat. From then on out during the summer months, we would pack-up the El Camino with a camper top (my cousin and I lounged in the back on a cushion reading books – I became an avid reader – no DVD movie players back then) and headed out on late Friday afternoons to the bay area delta for the weekend.

Around age 12, my mother’s interest in roller-skating dwindled. She asked me if I wanted to continue. I was good enough that if I continued, I would have started skating freestyle pairs – a dangerous sport for girls as they are twirled, lifted, and thrown in the air at their peril. At the same time, my interest and skill at playing the violin had markedly grown. We decided that our roller-skating days were over. Instead, we water and snow skied many weekends, I poured myself into local after school sports (softball and soccer), practiced and played the violin, sang in choirs, and improved my mind through academics and reading. Junior high was marked for me by singing in the choir, the purchase of a good violin and playing in the orchestra at the junior college, but most significantly, having to wear headgear to school; before I smiled I was considered a small, cute girl. Haha.

My mouth was such a tangled mess, that the orthodontist required I wear braces and the worst possible: headgear 24 hours a day – even to school. He was going to wire the apparatus in so that I couldn’t remove it. Fortunately, my mother and number one advocate, protested the wiring and assured the doctor I would wear it. In the bathroom, my mother discovered me in tears trying to hide the headgear under my hair. She held me in her arms and said: “You won’t be able to hide it, instead, flaunt it!” From her crafts, she pulled out ribbons and dried flowers and together we decorated it in style wrapping it with bright colors and festooning it with “charm.” Interestingly, I was rarely pointed out or ridiculed. During those months, we  arranged at school for me to eat lunch privately in a classroom away from prying eyes. The orthodontist predicted I would need to wear the headgear full time for five months. I determined that would not do. The moment my teeth stopped aching, I would tighten the gear myself. Three months later, my teeth had reached their new permanent place and the headgear was no longer required. I wore braces for just a year and retainers every night thereafter.

While I was in junior high, my mother went back to school to San Jose State University. My grandmother would pick me up from school to take me to violin lessons. Other days, I would attend soccer practice and/or walk home, practice my violin and piano, do my homework. A couple nights a week, I was expected to cook simple dinners – rice and vegetable stir fry and/or spaghetti with salad. In eighth grade, I auditioned for Oakland Youth Symphony Orchestra and was accepted into the second violins. For three consecutive summers, I earned music scholarships to attend La Honda Music Camp in the Santa Cruz mountains to improve my skills and make contacts.

La Honda music Camp

Moving forward in time, as a freshman at San Leandro High School, I auditioned and was accepted to sing in the Notables Choir, and continued to study piano and violin privately.

The day I turned 16, I passed my driver’s license test. My parents were so relieved from having to taxi me around to rehearsals, they allowed me to drive their robust El Camino truck to school and to my numerous music commitments. By that time, I was playing string bass in Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, I was 6th chair of the first violins in Oakland Youth Symphony (OYSO), taking lessons in San Francisco, and heading to school for 7:00 am rehearsals for Pirates of Pizazz, our high school “glee” club of singing and dancing. School mornings, I would pick-up two friends who also sang in the group. As might be expected, with all that driving, before I turned 18, I caused two smallish car accidents where fortunately nothing but the cars were damaged. There is a reason why drivers under 25 pay more for insurance. My parents were kind to me about those accidents as I was driving myself from orchestra rehearsals both times. They had the cars repaired, paid the higher insurance fees, and I continued to drive. Through OYSO I got a chance to travel to Europe…travel without my parents. It was my 16th summer. The travel bug hit me hard.

Kent Nagano conducted OYSO at that time.

Time passed musically. I had started taking French as a Sophomore in high school, and became so advanced that in my Senior year, I finished my high school classes at noon and continued French courses at Hayward Junior College. Between my orchestra classes as a junior high student and the French classes, before I graduated high school, I had already accumulated 58 college credits. I then graduated HS with good grades, but earned unimpressive SAT scores. After appealing my application, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accepted me as a Freshman.

I could go on about the blessings of my life through University and beyond. I continued to have and to create opportunities. And then I met Eric. Through him, I found the courage to pursue a career in opera which led to more wonderful teachers and eventually to a Master’s and Ph’d in Music supported by teaching voice and a ‘priceless’ 12-year career singing in the chorus of Los Angeles Opera. These incredible opportunities were afforded to me by hard work and great people who helped and nurtured me along the way. I have never been exceptional at anything…even opera singing…but through much perseverance, I have become very good at a lot of things, even typing.

Eric also did well in his chosen career and we experienced an extraordinary boon; Eric and I were blessed with two very sturdy, healthy, and intelligent sons with whom to share our lives.

RigneysKandu floating in Dead Sea of Israel

And you wonder why I wrote this account that sounds a bit like boasting, why I recorded it ‘out loud?’ I wrote all this as an edification for a thought that has been mulling around in my brain for some time, since I was 22 and sailing aboard sv Getel. Now at almost 52 having traveled the world for 4 years, I have seen so many extraordinary sights, experienced incredible cultural events and have witnessed in person war torn countries, very poor people, and interacted with all types from different regions of the world. I ask myself and God why have I been so blessed? Surely, I have had to struggle in my life, but my struggles, in general, have been self-inflicted as I have toiled to grow, improve my understanding in music, language, writing, math, spirituality, singing, sailing, etc. Was it the environment in which I grew-up and the choices that I made along the way that protected me from horrible hardships? Was it luck to have good health and simply good fortune, and that I have not had to battle against oppression of all kinds?

This morning aboard our sturdy sv Kandu, before writing all this, a song was wafting around in my mind from Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Sound of Music: Something Good.” The lyrics repeated over and over: ‘Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.’ I’m not sure if a good life or having many blessings is a reward for good works in this life or another. It’s entirely possible that because of my “good life” or ‘Princess on the hill’ benefits, I still have much to accomplish of good in the future – to ‘pay it forward’ so to speak. I don’t know what that payment is or may be, or even if it’s necessary in the scheme of things. However, it doesn’t stop me from wondering deeply. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Nevertheless, I feel the utmost gratitude for all that has made this outstanding life possible and to those that have been instrumental in this life I have been living.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Leslie Rigney & Moroccan spices