Leaving today for Cape Verde

We’re Off

After six weeks of hair-pulling frustration and, admittedly, some relaxation time, we are leaving today for Cape Verde with Cornell Sailing. It’s a journey of 830 miles from Santa Cruz – approximately six days under sail. Although looking at the weather forecast, it might be six-days under motor.

Provisioning is done and stashed away onboard Lady Jane. There’s enough food for the whole voyage, including a three-week layover in Cape Verde: six week’s supplies rammed into any spare boat cavity we have left on Lady Jane and some swinging in hammocks in the cabin. The locker now sports a few cans of extra diesel, we have serviced the engine, replaced the water pump, and have bought more spares – just in case we need them.

The work we wanted to be done before setting off is now complete. And Chris arrived on 18th October to help us take Lady Jane to Cape Verde and across the Atlantic to Barbados. As you can see from the photograph, he’s fairly laid back about the whole thing.

Chris – crew member extraordinaire

The long-term challenge since getting here has been mobilising trade people to do work Getting a bimini made has formed the basis of a comedy farce. People have either not turned up, or turned up then later (much later) announced they are not able to do it.

Despite that, Lady Jane is now sporting a new roller fuller and a bimini. So hats off to the professionalism and dedication of Danilo and Ariel at Nordest for the work on the fuller and Samuel from Barrios Tapiceria for making the bimini just in time.

Rigger going up

Rigging being checked

Ready to come down

It’s not been all work on the boat of course. We have spent time sightseeing around the island, basking on the beach, and trying to slow down. Being static here in Santa Cruz has helped to reset our minds. I freely admit that up to now I have treated this voyage as if it were a job with a mission, rather than a new way of life. That is now fixed.

We will try to post photographs by satellite phone as we continue to Cape Verde. The connection speed is slower than the oldest of modems from the 1980’s, so it might be a challenge – but we will give it a shot.