Oyster News 52 - Oyster Yachts

On tour in Sao Nicolau
Local house, Sao Nicolua
Local hazard
of sometimes fierce acceleration zones around
the ends of them and equally the extensive
wind shadows in the lee of the high
mountains. Having said that, gales are rare in
the normal cruising season and we
experienced more calms than stronger
breezes when in close proximity to the islands.
We soon fell in love with Sao Nicolau. Tarrafal
is a poor fishing port sheltering beneath
fierce-looking bluffs of sun-scorched red rock
stretching up towards the central mountains.
However, a spectacular cobbled road wound
up into the hills from here into the verdant
central crater and down into the main town of
Ribeira Brava. Like most roads in these
islands, it had been paved with tiny cobbles,
each one lovingly cut by hand from nearby
rock and painstakingly slotted into place.
Even the ‘white lines’ had been set using
lighter-coloured stones. In Tarrafal, we were
soon taken in hand by ‘Henny’, a Dutch excruising
sailor who had decided to settle in
this remote place in a brightly-painted house
with a retinue of local boys. Henny acted as
our guide for a gruelling but very enjoyable
day-long tour of the island in a charted
aluguier, bumping along endless serpentine
mountain roads up and down mountain
valleys under the hot sun. The interior of the
island was split by spectacular jagged
mountain ridges between which nestled
fertile craters and tiny verdant valleys. These
fertile patches were intensely farmed for
maize and sugar cane, but the small thatched
stone houses revealed a tough struggle to
live here and most domestic water had to be
fetched from wells by women and children
carrying huge buckets on their heads. Many
houses and some whole villages had been
abandoned altogether in the constant
struggle for survival. Most of the houses and
a number of the villages were accessible only
by cobbled donkey trails and these provided
opportunities for tremendous, if strenuous,
walks around the island, using the passing
aluguiers to travel to and from points
along the way. We had amazing
walks from Tarrafal to Hortelao
and from Faja de Cima to
Estancia de Bras via
Covada and Ribeira
Funda. A further
unexpected treat here
was the opportunity
to watch the
England versus
Australia World
Rugby finals on TV.
A completely
bemused, but cable-
TV owning local bar
owner, was persuaded
to open early one morning to allow the crew
of the two British boats present to cluster
around the bar for the occasion, the final
touch being (after a considerable amount of
imaginative sign-language) the serving of
eggs and bacon at half-time!
We had been warned about Mindelo as being
a den of thieves and pickpockets, to be
avoided if possible. In fact, it was our
favourite large town of the islands with a
certain faded, but raffish, colonial charm. We
certainly found it no more threatening than
many a town in the Caribbean. Local boat
boys jostled to mind our dinghy for a small
consideration and another youth rowed out to
offer his services as our ‘agent’ – and did in
fact considerably expedit our port clearance
process as well as help us to re-fill our gas
bottle, all for a few escudos. The town is an
exotic mix of former colonial elegance with
more recent West African influences.
Crumbling but brightly-painted 17th Century
buildings line the streets filled with noisy
vegetable markets, fish markets and street
traders. Hard-core gamblers gather under the
shady trees near the market to play serious
games of cards and dice. At night many of
the bars and restaurants feature live Cape
Verdian music. Sao Vicente island itself has
little of interest, but is close to the island of
Santo Antao which is famous for its scenery
and walking opportunities, although lack of
any available anchorage ruled out a visit for
us. Mindelo was undoubtedly the most
popular with other cruisers and more than 50
yachts lay in the huge and very well-sheltered
harbour, nearly all making a pit stop en route
for the Caribbean. The ‘Club Nautico’ bar
near the dinghy dock was a popular and
multi-cultural meeting point for the many
cruising folk in town.
Mindelo certainly scored more highly for us
than Praia, the official capital of the islands on
Santiago. Although similar in many ways to
Mindelo, with its colonial centre perched high
on a bluff over the harbour, the city had a
more aggressive edge to it which made us
feel less comfortable there. The harbour too
was much less protected and a large swell
rolled in continuously. Ominously, several
large wrecks decorated the margins of the
harbour. We were much more taken by the
ruins of the old city, Cicade Velha, a few miles
away on the coast. This had been the original
site of the city before it was abandoned in the
face of constant assaults by Sir Francis Drake
and other official pirates of his age. These
days the restored ruins of the cathedral and a
mighty hilltop fort dominate only a small
fishing village outside which we anchored
precariously for the afternoon.
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