5 days in Mindelo
We are back under way but I will talk about that later. We were pretty beat up after the first leg of the rally because of the crazy wave patterns. The wind driven waves were coming from one direction and ocean swells were coming from about 90O. We never could find a good way to point the boat and we fell a couple times when a wave would hit the boat. During one of Monica�'s falls she bounced off the navigation table and landed against the stove on the opposite side. She bruised her ribs pretty good so we went to the clinic on Monday. We met several other rally folks while there with similar problems. At the clinic you prepay for the services. We paid for the doctor visit then visited the Dr. he prescribed some medications and an x-ray for good measure. Paid $60 for the x-ray then had a chest shot taken. The x-ray was the digital type and we left with a CD containing the picture. I took a taxi to the pharmacy, the first one was closed so he took me to a second one. The driver
waited for me and drove me back to the clinic. The full fare for the taxi was $3.00.
Tuesday we took a ferry to the adjacent island, Ilha de Santo Antao with a large group of rally goers. The tour took us from the south side across the mountains to the north side. South of the mountains was very dry with little vegetation. It was cloudy at the ridge so we couldn�'t see inside the caldera. The north side has luscious vegetation with trees and agriculture. The entire island was covered with the ruggedist mountain I have seen. The islands came up from the sea as volcano erupted. There was never a land connection with the continent of Africa so there are none of their type of animals. The guide said there are no snakes, rodents or any other such pests.
The marina constantly had a swell rolling in past the breakwater. The floating pontoons were difficult to walk on and the boats were constantly in motion. Many of us commented that we would be better at anchor in the harbor.
Neverland was the 80th boat to cross the finish line. All boats were given a handicap before the rally and the results were much different. There were 3 classes of monohulls and one class of multihulls. Neverland was in class 1C with a handicap of 0.809 putting her at the bottom of the list overall, the only way to go was up. After times were corrected for the handicaps Neverland found herself at 4th in class. The rally organizers didn�'t look at overall finishes but our corrected time put Neverland in 5th position overall, including the multihull class. The top finisher was a catamaran. All this really means is that the crews on the larger boats didn�'t sail them to their potential except the catamaran Minimole.
waited for me and drove me back to the clinic. The full fare for the taxi was $3.00.
Tuesday we took a ferry to the adjacent island, Ilha de Santo Antao with a large group of rally goers. The tour took us from the south side across the mountains to the north side. South of the mountains was very dry with little vegetation. It was cloudy at the ridge so we couldn�'t see inside the caldera. The north side has luscious vegetation with trees and agriculture. The entire island was covered with the ruggedist mountain I have seen. The islands came up from the sea as volcano erupted. There was never a land connection with the continent of Africa so there are none of their type of animals. The guide said there are no snakes, rodents or any other such pests.
The marina constantly had a swell rolling in past the breakwater. The floating pontoons were difficult to walk on and the boats were constantly in motion. Many of us commented that we would be better at anchor in the harbor.
Neverland was the 80th boat to cross the finish line. All boats were given a handicap before the rally and the results were much different. There were 3 classes of monohulls and one class of multihulls. Neverland was in class 1C with a handicap of 0.809 putting her at the bottom of the list overall, the only way to go was up. After times were corrected for the handicaps Neverland found herself at 4th in class. The rally organizers didn�'t look at overall finishes but our corrected time put Neverland in 5th position overall, including the multihull class. The top finisher was a catamaran. All this really means is that the crews on the larger boats didn�'t sail them to their potential except the catamaran Minimole.
Comments