We arrive in Mindelo on the 11th of November, Marcella, Laura and Adam help me to move to the anchor and leave the next day. The marina is fully booked by the ARC+ rally.
Two guides recommend not to leave the boat at the anchor unattended, the marina office confirms it and I decide to hire a local guy to come in the afternoon and during the night to watch the boat that free me for half day and evenings.
I am not sure about the real safety situation in Mindelo I had conflicting signs:
- Noonsite is very alarming, and few post recommend to completely avoid Cape Verde
- Locally everybody also suggest to not leave the boat unattended
- There are security people everywhere, including in all supermarkets
- In the evening there is police wearing bulletproof jackets
At the same time I never felt any danger or heard of any issue while I was there, I met a lot of nice people, the check-in process was smooth and the officials were very professional.
I had few things to fix or improve from the last passage and Mindelo was the only place in Cape Verde with some facilities otherwise I believe there are better place to visit, I am planning to visit Cape Verde properly before we will cross the Atlantic. See notes in “cruising info” about the Marina and the facilities.
I spent in Mindelo about two weeks mostly waiting for Marcella to be back from Europe and to be ready to leave to the Canary Islands. I managed to complete all the work I wanted to do, have some good meals ashore, a few runs around the town, a swim and find new friends to join us for the next passage: Andrea from Italy and Richard from the UK.
Overall there was good food, friendly people, live music everywhere and very pleasant weather.
On the 30th of November we finally check out and on the 1st of December we leave Mindelo, the idea is to have one or two nights at the anchor moving east before sailing to the Canary Islands.