If you have been a faithful follower of our blog you will probably remember that we had a thing about cannons when we were in the Caribbean. Well we finally have found some Portugese cannons. They are guarding the entrance to Mindelo Harbour and they have the whole straight between this island and the next covered. We saw them as we came in and finally got around to go exploring a couple of days ago. If you look carefully at the pictures you can see there are three cannon each pointing in a different direction. There were fortifications as well but we did not venture very far into them as they were full of garbage and ready to fall apart. It is hard not to compare the area to what is available in the Caribbean and realize that this island has not discovered the possible tourist attraction this could be, or there is just not the money available on the island to make it into a tourist spot.
There are stunning views to be had, it was about a 3 k walk out to the point and along the way there were lots of very large homes in the process of being built. This one below had figured out a way to keep anyone from climbing his fence.
We saw a few infinity pools at the front of some of the finished homes. I wonder if some of these folks don't have some money to invest in preserving those Portugese guns!
We had a lovely Christmas dinner aboard with a young German couple and a Swedish couple keeping us company. The Swedish couple had spent a number of years sailing up in Spitsbergen in the summers , it is north of Sweden about 80 degrees north so we really enjoyed their stories. We are heading off to another island by ferry tomorrow to do some serious exploring and then we will keep an eye on the weather.
We woke up on Christmas morning and we thought that the fog had rolled in. It was the same again today with very reduced visibility. The locals have informed us it is dust from the Sahara and sure enough the boat is covered in very fine brown dirt. The bottom is also growing a good crop of shells that stick, so a good bottom cleaning is in order before we leave.
