It’s my birthday and it was lovely to wake at 6 am to Holger and Simone singing happy birthday and in the saloon area was cake and candles. They both had very thoughtfully brought me a picture print of an original Cape Verde male at a celebration, this photo certainly captures our stay in Mindelo with its vibrant African heritage, people and culture. Although the stop in Cape Verde was longer than expected, it shows a different side to life, people, poverty and society.
Today was a good day for sailing we had some great wind, until the auto pilot stopped working suddenly and for no apparent reason (tinkering possibly) however this has meant that we are now having to steer the remaining 1600 miles by hand and so a change of shift has Come into play 2x2x2 (this works well for me as I don’t sleep during the night lol)
Our plan is to put the rudder to the wind vane on and use this to steer, and conduct some running repairs on the auto pilot.
We have stored the code 0 under the cockpit seats because it was doused in sea water, again a plan is to wait and see if we have some calmer weather, 4 metre waves at the moment , and then see what we can do to sort out these issues.
The mood is good and we still have funny moments, altogether none of the issues are critical they are much more of and inconvenience but we are still modern adventurers and will resolve them all in time. I think as I write this we are 670 miles directly west of Cape Verde. The sea looks like it wants to open up and swallow our little boat, but this is all about sailing , the tangible and sensory experiences that come from it. Life is there to be experienced, maybe on a small boat heading west.