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Mindelo
We have been anchored in Mindelo harbour for three or four days, getting our bearings and sorting out some of our repairs. There isn’t much in the way of marine supplies and it takes about 4 weeks to have anything shipped here but the marina is able to fabricate items so we’ve asked them to make us a new whiskerpole and a fitting for the windvane. We’ve wandered around the town a bit but there isn’t much on this island aside from Mindelo. The harbour is incredible; it's large with rocky peaks and hills all around and abandoned steel boats and a half submerged wrecks scattered here and there. It is very dry here - almost all of the water is gathered from desalinization and the supply is often low. The marina recently acquired a system separate from the town water supply, which often runs dry, but a few days ago the marina supply ran out so there is no water for drinking or to run the washrooms and showers. We filled our tanks before leaving the Canaries so we won’t have any problems but we spoke with the crew of a catamaran who is trying to fill their tanks with bottles of water from the grocery store. We’ve sampled some of the local cuisine – obviously Adam tried the pizza but we also had cachupa which is a traditional dish with beans, rice, and corn with a fried egg served on top. It’s good but not always available without meat. We went to the marina restaurant and ordered veggie cachupa and when it came to the table it clearly wasn’t. When we asked the waitress about it she said it didn’t have meat in it and seemed confused when we pointed the meat out to her. She took the bowl and said that she would be back but she never returned to the table and my placemat was cleared away (they are very big on placemats here) which I think is the Cape Verdean version of no soup for you.
I’m a bit concerned about provisioning for the crossing in terms of fruits and vegetables. The larger stores in Mindelo have a limited selection and most of the items are very ripe so nothing will last more than a few days. You can get some fresher items from the municipal market or the ladies selling root vegetables on the streets but I think that we are being quoted the “tourist” prices which are out of control. A friend of ours went to a street vendor and paid 8 euros (almost $10 CND) for a few carrots. It’s a good thing I brought all of those mung beans to sprout! Although Adam may jump over board when he finds out that we'll be eating bean sprouts everyday for 2 weeks.
I’m a bit concerned about provisioning for the crossing in terms of fruits and vegetables. The larger stores in Mindelo have a limited selection and most of the items are very ripe so nothing will last more than a few days. You can get some fresher items from the municipal market or the ladies selling root vegetables on the streets but I think that we are being quoted the “tourist” prices which are out of control. A friend of ours went to a street vendor and paid 8 euros (almost $10 CND) for a few carrots. It’s a good thing I brought all of those mung beans to sprout! Although Adam may jump over board when he finds out that we'll be eating bean sprouts everyday for 2 weeks.