Weeks 27-28: Lanzarote to Cape Verde (1,005nm)

After completion of our long-awaited engine repairs in Lanzarote, and the purchase of enough provisions to feed an army, we finally set off for Cape Verde. Over 1,000nm of open ocean we learned the ins and outs of trade wind sailing, got up close and personal with the local fish populations and honed our brains with a daily pub quiz (thanks Liv & Elliott!) and riddles from friends and family around the world. We set a heck of a pace, and arrived in Mindelo, Cape Verde in less than 7 days, beating almost all of our previous sailing records along the way!

FINAL PREPARATIONS – TOO MUCH FOOD?

With the repair rapidly approaching, it was time to get down to business to finish up the rest of our pre-passage preparations. First and foremost being provisioning – buying all the food we’d need for our trip. And, while we knew Cape Verde would have some provisions available, it would likely be quite expensive and with limited selection (at least for the bulk of what we’d need), so we planned to provision as much as possible for the entirety of our journey to the Caribbean (basically everything but the fresh stuff). This proved a challenge on two fronts: 1. we certainly didn’t want to run out of food, but it was very difficult to estimate how much people would eat on the journey, and 2. regardless of point 1, five weeks’ worth of provisions is a heck of a lot to source!

We gave ourselves a full day for food shopping, which at the outset felt like far more than enough, but as is perhaps unsurprising this quickly proved to be a bigger task than we’d appreciated. It took three separate trips in the rental car to a number of different stores, including an entire trip just for liquids (beer and gin & tonic rations were meticulously calculated). We’ve stuffed Serenity to the gills – even the bilges are full. I suspect we may actually have enough food for several months, and also probably enough gin for the next year (thanks to Lidl’s €3.99 variety, which is not only cheap but also scored incredibly highly in UK taste tests!). With so much aboard, Serenity was definitely riding a bit low in the water, but better too much than not enough?!

Food sorted, we turned our focus to tidying up the last loose ends: reviewing weather, topping up water tanks, ensuring everything was properly stowed, pre-cooking some meals for the first half of the trip, etc.

LARGE HOLES IN THE BOAT MAKE US PAUSE TO REFLECT

Finally, the day dawned for the repairs, and, after a quick stop to fill up the fuel tank, we headed over to the boat yard. The haul out process was SO much more professional than at our last boat yard in Croatia, and they had us smoothly moved and neatly on a stand in less than an hour.

This left a bit of time before the Volvo guys were due to show up, so we took the opportunity to clean up the underside of the hull. Off came the algae and we removed the couple of barnacles that had taken up residence in areas where the antifouling had worn away. We also found a small reef had developed on top of the rudder, which had to go. All clean and tidy, we then repainted the bare patches. It was nice to see that we’d had pretty limited growth overall, but getting the hull extra clean means we’ll maximise speed on our crossing, so a worthwhile thing to do while the boat was out of the water!

The Volvo mechanics arrived later on in the afternoon, and took us on a bit of a roller coaster ride of ups and downs as they reviewed and repaired the engine. The first scare came when they announced the propeller was damaged, which could have proved a huge problem. Thankfully, they determined it wasn’t catastrophic, and we could avoid replacing it – whew! Next, they discovered that the coupling between the engine and sail drive was so badly damaged that the only way to get out the defective bits was to remove the entire sail drive as well (i.e. open up an enormous hole in the bottom of the boat). This was unplanned and they warned could be an issue if the main seal became damaged in the removal (as they didn’t have any spares). So that was stress #2. Luckily it came out fine, so we dodged that bullet! And then, because our blood pressure wasn’t stressed enough already, they did some tests on the drive shaft and determined it had been worn unevenly because of the fishing net wrapped around the prop. They delivered this news gravely, explaining that it was more expensive to replace just the shaft than the whole drive, before clarifying that actually it would be okay as is, just wasn’t ideal. By this time, our nerves were shot and we weren’t sure if we could take much more, so thank goodness that was the last of the bad news and soon they were busy putting everything back together.

Despite the roller coaster, we’d really enjoyed the unlikely duo of the Volvo mechanics. The head guy is Paco, who is reserved and takes his work very seriously. His right hand man is his nephew, Alberto, who could scarcely have been more opposite! Alberto was constantly cracking jokes and singing along to his epic playlists (featuring all the great rock anthems). At one point, he’d managed to impressively squeeze his entire body into the part of the engine room where the drive normally sits – then he proudly declared that in fact he would be taking over as the sail drive and would stick his legs through the bottom of the boat and kick to propel us! This got lots of laughs from Serenity’s crew, but many eye rolls from Paco, who later said, “can you imagine having to put up with this for 8 hours every day?”

Most importantly though, Paco and Alberto were clearly very good at their jobs. They had Serenity back together (no more large hole!) with tests passed on Friday morning, so we could leave as planned! Huge sigh of relief!! One of the yard guys adeptly manoeuvred Serenity back into the water, and we officially confirmed everything was fully water tight and ready to go. So, without further ado, we headed for the port exit, ready to get this show on the road.

We were just about to head into open water when Ballin suddenly remembered that he and Katherine hadn’t got their passports stamped out of Spain. Crap!! A slight panic ensued, and we pulled over at the fuel dock to regroup. After determining that they definitely did need to stamp out, B + K were soon in a cab on the way to the border police station. Initially we were very nervous this might end up being a long delay, and were feeling a bit dejected, but the guys were back within an hour – crisis averted! Now, no longer able to think up anything else we could have possibly forgotten, we finally cast lines for real and headed out to sea. We even had a pod of dolphins escort us as we headed down the coast!

It felt good to finally be on our way! Not just because we’d been delayed and were relieved to finally be getting a move on, but also because Lanzarote had started to feel a bit stale. We’d been there a whole month! On the whole, we did really like the island; it wasn’t as “Lanzagrotty” as some people say. The people were incredibly friendly and kind, and the landscape was truly one of a kind! But we were definitely itching to get going on the Atlantic crossing. It had been looming for so long, we wanted to just get to it! Plus, we’ve got so much to look forward to in the Caribbean. It’s a shame that events conspired such that we were delayed a whole week; it meant we were only a day or so ahead of the ARC (and the two other rallies heading on our route about the same time) and therefore would struggle for a spot at the marina in Mindelo (the only marina in the Cape Verde islands). It put pressure on our overall timescales, and its unpleasant to feel like you need to rush through a passage. Alec put it best – “it’s not fun being chased.” Though on the flip side it was satisfying when we had good days and the ARC guys had bad days making ground!

OUT TO SEA

Right from the start, we had great wind behind us: 15-20 knots for the majority of the trip. The downside was it meant the seas were substantial, and so we had a good roll on most of the time. This was unfortunate because Ballin and Katherine were still working on developing their sea legs. There were a few hairy moments in the start of the passage, and it wasn’t really till the last couple of days that they started to feel comfortable in the boat motion. Something about a baptism of fire?

The plus side of the sea sickness was that it forced us all to spend more time on deck (being out in the fresh air helps mitigate motion sickness), which meant that we truly appreciated the beautiful, uninterrupted views of the stars we were treated to most nights. For the first few days, we also did our night watches double-handed, which was a nice change for Alec and I as we are normally on our own at night. It was the perfect conditions to encourage philosophical conversations, and we explored topics as varied as the costs/benefits of going to college, gender identity, investing, etc. etc!

Ballin took things a step further and started filming nightly (very serious) vlog updates about his experiences. I’ve debated whether to share one here… what do you think? Maybe I’ll add it if enough people are interested (then I can blame you guys for it, hehe).

Days were generally chilled, and particularly at the start we all did a lot of napping while we got used to the night watch routine. We finished two book club books, listened to a whole ton of music, and even played a few games when we didn’t need to be actively sailing. We had great fun each evening working through the day’s pub quiz question from Liv & Elliott, plus reading out other messages / challenges we might have received that day from friends around the world. Thank you all for sending us so many wonderful jokes, riddles and puzzles – they were a blast and a highlight of each day!! Please keep them coming on our last leg!!

IT’S A STEEP LEARNING CURVE

As you might expect, we faced a few challenges during the passage, too. Alec and I are still relatively new to downwind sailing (our experience in the Med had led us to believe that perhaps there was no such thing), and we hadn’t quite appreciated how roll-y going dead downwind could be. We experimented extensively with different sail set ups throughout the passage, in particular trying to work out whether we were better off goose-winging (main sail and genoa out on difference sides) going straight downwind vs. broad reaching at a slight angle (even if it meant we weren’t quite on the course we wanted). I think the jury is still out, though it felt like we could get the boat a bit quieter on a broad reach. But that is at the sacrifice of angle. Much experimenting still to be done on the next leg!

We had two days with perfect wind for the spinnaker, which everyone agreed were our favourite days. The boat motion was more comfortable and we were typically absolutely flying along. Plus its always fun to have the big colourful sail out! I especially enjoyed practicing steering with the spinnaker, which was very satisfying.

One thing that we’ve heard is very common on ocean passages, but again is still new to us, is the frequency of squalls – microstorms that can crop up quickly and last just a few minutes. The trick is to keep a sharp eye out for the signs of one coming and adjust in advance to prevent the boat becoming overpowered in the increased winds. We learned the hard way… One evening, we were just sitting down to dinner when the wind started to pick up. Alec and I clocked that, but both figured we could probably quickly scarf down our chilli before we needed to do anything. By the time we realised our mistake, the boat had broached (basically, leaned over really far and then turned itself up in to the wind). Despite valiant efforts from Ballin and Katherine, the broach sent our bowls flying and decorated the saloon with hot chilli and cheese. We lost both our dinner and a bit of pride!

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU FISH FOR

Ballin is as keen a fisherman as Alec, so I’d always expected this passage to be fish-heavy. Even Katherine and I got in on the action; we bought a couple of lures each to try our own luck! The first couple of days didn’t yield results (perhaps our new lures weren’t as good?), and so eventually we went back to the old standbys to see if we could turn things around. Boy did that pay off!

Finally, on day three, the morning fishing session bore fruit – a small dorado! It was only big enough to serve as lunch for the four of us, but we relished it none the less. Buoyed by this success, the lures went straight back in! The next day, the line went off again, but this time with a larger quarry. As Alec and Ballin got the fish close to the boat, we discovered it was a swordfish! We had just started to debate how we might land a fish with such a large spiky thing on its front when it scuppered us and broke free. Dang it!! This subdued the mood on the boat for a short while, but really only served to cement the boys’ resolve.

The next day, only our best lures went in, and sure enough before long something took the bait. This something turned out to be a massive dorado! Not quite as big as the one we’d caught off Lanzarote, but not far off. Despite its slightly smaller size, it was about 5 times as angry. It did NOT like it when Ballin gaffed it and made that known by going absolutely mental as Alec and Ballin pulled it out of the water. Honestly it was all they could do to just hold on to the thing (and avoid being gaffed themselves!). I emptied half a bottle of vodka into this thing’s gills, but that seemed to make little difference. So we had to resort to the “whack it over the head” method… turns out I am not good at this. I did try, but my little “dink” really only made it madder. Alec took over and eventually we managed to gain the upper hand, by which point the back of the boat was a somewhat apocalyptic scene. We recovered ourselves quickly though and soon had things back to normal. Further, Alec and Ballin have been making leaps and bounds of progress in their fish processing skills, so it only took an hour to produce huge volumes of perfect fish fillets. As I write this, following several breakfasts, lunches and dinners provided by said fish, we still have at least half of it in the fridge! We might be pretty far from civilisation, but hey we are still eating like kings 😊.

Following such success, Katherine and I decreed that the lures needed to stay on board until we could make more room in the fridge. But, well, when it rains it pours. It was about this time that we started to inexplicably attract flying fish. We’d been seeing them for a few days, but usually they flew AWAY from the boat. No more. Our second to last night on passage, they instead started hurling themselves AT the boat. I discovered this only when, as I was minding my own business down below at the navigation desk, a loud slap announced the arrival of a flying fish right at my feet! It had literally jumped down the stairs!! I really did not know what to make of this but am very impressed that I didn’t wake the whole boat up with my squealing. It kept flapping around wildly, which made it really hard to catch the darn thing and get it back overboard! I eventually prevailed, but this was only the start. Shortly thereafter, when we went up on deck to adjust the sails during a watch change, Alec had to literally keep ducking out of the way of numerous fish flying across the deck! Any that we could see we did our best to get back overboard, but there was only so much we could do. Come morning, when we could see the front of the boat better, we realised there were 6-8 additional fish scattered around that had beached themselves at some point in the night. It was truly strange! We had the same again the following night and kept finding fish in odd places throughout the day (they’d even found their way into the anchor locker). Given they seem so keen to come aboard, Alec has decided that we should try cooking them for breakfast on the Atlantic… I’m a bit sceptical, but we shall report back how it goes!

LAND HO IN MINDELO

By the end of the passage, I felt we’d all grown hugely. Ballin and Katherine were confident enough with sailing to take on their own night watch (we’ll call this “Sabrina watch” as Netflix seemed to make quite a lot of appearances). Alec and I had become attuned enough to the noises of the boat to hear squalls coming in before the wind picked up and react accordingly (no more chilli-tastrophes!). We’d got a good balance between calm boat motion and speed in the right direction, and Ballin and Katherine had got the upper hand against sea sickness.

We celebrated our final night with Alec’s famous fish tacos and allowed ourselves to feel pretty proud for sailing over 1,000nm in less than 7 days. We smashed many of our previous sailing records on this trip, and averaged a blistering 6.2kts over the week. Not too shabby 😊. Though the marina was indeed full when we arrived on Friday morning, that didn’t dampen our spirits. We found a great spot to anchor in the bay amongst the other cruisers and headed to shore to celebrate. On top of everything else, it was Ballin’s birthday, so much merriment was in order!