A mahi-mahi Christmas

Tomorrow we continue our Atlantic crossing, heading to Barbados and then on to Grenada. Our week in Mindelo has been spent working on the boat, doing laundry by hand, and visiting with friends. Although we’ve wandered around town a bit looking for the best grocery stores, we haven’t done anything touristy.

Christmas eve the crews of several boats went out on the town. It was fun to meet new people, some of whom (Alua, Free Spirit, and Connect 4) we had heard on the Rum Runners Net, this year’s informal transatlantic crossing short-wave radio group. Christmas evening John cooked more of the mahi-mahi, and we took it over to Avocette of Portsmouth to share with Chris and Roy. Just before we headed to Avocette, our Israeli friends, Liat and Assaf, arrived on Jinja, so we had them over for dinner last night with their friends Noam and Yosephina, and we’re now out of mahi-mahi until John catches some more.

Today we’ll top off our provisions, give the boat a little wash-down, and do our official check-out. In the morning we’ll top off the water and fuel, and then we’re off. Several other boats are planning to leave about the same time, so we’ll have company out there. We’re looking forward to our first sail in the trade winds, and they look good for at least the first week. Daily updates will continue when we’re underway, assuming we don’t use too much time and get locked out of SailMail. Our Yotreps position reporting quit working just before we reached Mindelo, but that seems to be squared away again now. Just in case, we’ll add our position to the end of our blog posts.

P.S.: John heard Orinoco on the net this morning, and all is well with Jim.