Today, the 11th of December, we started the day with our schoolwork after Sander woke us up with the pots and pans because we all have to catch up a bit. After we did our schoolwork, we had lunch and we went to town with the dinghy, it was a beach landing and as we arrived there were some very eager local kids helping us with the dinghy. When we arrived, many friendly women with baskets full of little trinkets to sell came to us. We got a few bracelets as a present and some magnets. In town, we went to a store, but it was not big, so we didn’t buy many things. We walked a bit through the town, saw street dogs, people who were building a boat and we had lunch in a little local restaurant. They had nice tuna and after the main dish, we had a really good ice-cream made locally from goat’s milk and corn. Everybody agreed that it was unlike any ice cream we had ever tasted! It’s great to learn about new cultures. There was wifi so some of us called with their friends and parents. Tim played with the kids on the island and had a great time on the bike that he was trying to ride on. When we were done in town, we went back to Guppy. We took a swim and had an early dinner because in the evening we were going to leave for São Nicolau.

We left around 7:30 pm. The 86nm trip was really nice, so we sailed during the night and we arrived around 8:00 am. Anchoring was a challenge because there were rocks on the bottom so we had to find a place where the anchor stayed.

Everyone was starting to wake up slowly, but it was really hot so in the morning we swam a lot in the refreshing sea. Tim went into the water as well and he jumped into the water with Jake. After we all swam, we started the big cleaning because Sunday is big cleaning day. When Guppy was totally clean again, we had dinner.

It’s Monday again so we started the day with some schoolwork and Christina, Sander, Laura, and Tim went to town to manage some things. When we were done with our schoolwork at 12 o’clock we jumped into the water and Sander and Christina bought a fish for dinner so dinner will be good. Around 2:30 pm half of the group went to town with Christina to go to the store for the last time before the crossing, we walked a bit and drank something and munched on donuts at a small restaurant. For dinner, we had the fish and after dinner, we watched a great movie called ‘Into the wild’. 

We had to get up at 7:30 am and we went to town to do a nice tour at the island. Our guide waited at the harbour with a little bus to drive us to different points on the island. First, we stopped for a hike. After 1,5 hours of downhill walking, we arrived in the capital of São Nicolao. (Last hike until 2 weeks without much walking!) In the capital, we had a good traditional lunch at a restaurant. We ate fish, sweet potatoes, and other nice food and then we had the same nice ice cream as before in the other restaurant. Then we drove to another short walk, but this time uphill. We were very lucky with the good weather. After that our guide drove us to a surprise. The surprise were beautiful cliffs with splashing water. A beautiful place with the sun in the background! So, it was no problem that most of us got wet by the splashing water. Back on-board Guppy most of us swam for the last time on this side of the world. Tomorrow we will leave for the Atlantic crossing, so we are very excited for the next adventures awaiting us!

Meike (15) & Annika(13)