Cape Verde

The marina is very expensive, we paid about double than in Cape Town for very basic services. Some of the security guys were arrogant interfering more than giving any sense of safety.

You need to buy water separately and it is metered for both showers and at the mooring. Electricity is also charged separately.

If you stay at the anchor it costs four Euros per day only to leave the dinghy at the marina dock, no access to toilettes and you are not even allowed to leave the garbage.

The WiFi at the marina bar is very poor, the bar more expensive than in town.

There is very little flexibility, for example, when we left the marina the first time because the Arc+ was arriving the water at the pontoon was not working and we could not refill the water tanks, as it was their fault and I already paid for the water I asked to have access to the showers while at the anchor, they did not allow it. The manager was very nice and friendly but others bureaucratic and unpleasant (even rude).

I had the sails repaired by Tuga (the only sail repair facility available). Tuga is very good and fast, the work was ok. I had the Genoa furler fixed by Gilson, good work but expensive to be in Cape Verde (60 Euro/hour). Then he also replaced a batten of my main sail but in this case he cut the new batten too short and it came out the first time we went sailing again.

There is a yacht service company called BoatCV that also owns the only boat chandlery in Mindelo (and I guess in Cape Verde). BoatCV apparently has the same ownership of the marina but there are probably conflicts between the two businesses, see what was on the marina board.

Having other people from town to work on the boat is apparently complicated, the marina bureaucracy makes it difficult. But it is possible.