April 6, 2024

After 4 days of crossing the Atlantic and three time changes moving the clock ahead 1 hour, we reached land in Cape Verde. The Atlantic crossing was relatively smooth which is not always the case. We had a nice trip and the weather was in the 70s pretty much the whole time.

We didn’t arrive in port until noon, so the trivia was moved up to 10:30. We did quite well and would have placed second but Leslie awarded first to 2 teams so we got lucky! And he gave 1 big O point to every team today.

Here are some pictures of our sail in. The archipelago consists of 10 islands and is part of Africa, just off the coast. Despite the name (GreenCape), the islands are barren and volcanic.

We have been here twice before and as I like to do – I went back and read my old blog entries to see what we did on the previous visits. I learned that it is an easy 1 mile walk to town and that on our last visit we did full day “island discovery”. So this time we decided to walk to town and visit the markets.

It seemed sort of cool when we were on our balcony but when we got off the ship it was warm so we could have worn our shorts.

If this year’s hurricane predictions are correct, we may be hearing about Cape Verde quite often this year. Western Hemisphere-bound hurricanes often have their early beginnings near the Cape Verde Islands. These hurricanes can become very intense as they cross warm Atlantic waters away from Cape Verde. The average hurricane season has about two Cape Verde-type hurricanes, which are usually the largest and most intense storms of the season because they often have plenty of warm open ocean over which to develop before encountering land. The five largest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record have been Cape Verde-type hurricanes. Most of the longest-lived tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin are Cape Verde hurricanes.

We spotted what we assume is an old fortress on the hill as we started our walk along the seaside.

And this sculpture was worth the shot.

We passed the presidential palace. Cape Verde was settled by the Portuguese so most of the language spoken here is Portuguese. It is a representative democracy and one of the most developed and democratic countries in Africa. Over 90% of the island’s inhabitants live here in the capital of Mindelo.

We passed Torre de Belem which looks like the Belem Tower in Lisbon, but much smaller.

Another view of the fort from street level.

Dried fish for sale along the waterfront. I wonder if the dog is interested?

We saw a colorful array of boats as we walked along.

Some art on a building.

And an unusual sculpture.

You see a lot of tile art in Portugal. We only spotted this one here.

It looks like they are starting to build a new port building. There is a ferry terminal here but no real port building for cruise ships.

We love turtles and have a “save the turtles” Florida license plate on our car. This display says they are serious about turtle conservation. All the junk that can harm them is depicted on the shell.

And this one is just for fun. The sculpture is just outside the port area.

We now have 2 more sea days and 2 more time changes before we reach our first of 2 ports in the Canary Islands.