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Mustique - Random places you never thought you'd visit



"Come for a cruise south to Cape Verde!" they said. "Discover a little-known island on the west coast of Africa!" they said. No - wait, they didn't say that. We were supposed to be sailing west non-stop across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, not south to the coast of Senegal. So how did we end up enjoying a short break on a sandy island called Saint Vincent? Did we have to make an emergency stop for HP Brown Sauce?! Did Fin's burst toilet pump finally get the better of him?

In fact, as is usual in sailing, the fickle wind pushed our hand. Having had a stonkingly good blast of sailing in the wrong direction on Thursday (fun but pointless), we looked at our weather forecast and had 2 choices.

Option 1 was to continue west in the right direction but going headlong into a few days of nasty looking headwinds (for the landlubbers amongst you, think 'slammy, bangy, sicky, wet') only to come out of it at the other end into a big hole of windless nothingness for a week. To be honest, as hardened offshore sailors, a bit of slammy and bangy is part and parcel of an Atlantic crossing - so in fact the main issue was the huge lack of wind we would encounter afterwards. We are on a deadline to get to St Lucia for a charter, and so we are using the engine whenever we don't have enough wind to sail. Using the engine means using fuel and faced with a week of no wind, we were going to run out, which is almost as bad as running out of HP Sauce.

As it turns out, option 2, turning south to fill up the fuel tanks was a rather good decision. The yachts that stayed in the north, heading west, got a hammering of up to 70 knots. For the landlubbers amongst you, 70 knots is slammy, bangy, breaky scary.

That is how we found ourselves heading south for a 24 hour fuel stop on the  small island of St Vincent in Cape Verde. Population 60,000. Stray dogs 70,000. Internet access 0.

Having spotted whales, pink-bellied dolphins and an eagle (of all things) on  the way in, we enjoyed a caipirinha and lobster supper on land, in the company of many other ARC boats that had made the same call, before heading back out yesterday lunch time. We really enjoyed the randomness of our mini-break in Cape Verde, but I think we were all very pleased to be back on the water, heading in the right direction, with some wind. As we watched the sunset together and a million stars appeared in the early night sky, we turned up Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' on the cockpit speakers and shared a special moment, an amazing view reserved for our eyes only.

Scott captured the essence by saying "We are approaching stratospheric levels of awesomeness."

Fin brought us all swiftly back down to earth by replying "No, we are approaching a squall". 



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