Leaving Sao Vicente and heading for Brava and then Brasil

We are soon leaving the island of Sao Vicente and heading south. We´ll take a small stop on the small island Brava in the cape verdes before we head over the litle lake for Brasil. The trip down to Brava is around one day and then we head for Brasil after spending some days on Brava. Our plan is to leave Brava on friday and head straight for Belem in the amazonas.



Here in mindelo we´ve met a lot of nice people and have really enjoyed the place. Yesterday we went to the neighbour island Santo Antão with a ferry and saw some really spectacular roads and nice villages. The whole island is filled with small terrasses in every imaginable and unimaginable hillside to prevent the soil from being washed away during rain. It is really impressive to think about al the work they have put in to it. On top of that all the roads on the island are paved. We drove 40 km over to the other side of the island and the road was spotlessly paved the whole way.



Isla Brava is supposed to be one of the smalles inhabited islands in capo verde and supposed to be one of the nicest. We really look forward to go there and perhaps find some clear water to try our snorkel-uqipment.



We´ll try to update the webpage by sat-phone every day when we are out sailing, but as you might have noticed not all messages came through. Should the webpage not be updated it does not mean that anything bad has happened to us. It only means that the update didn´t come through. (Or in the worst case, that we have become lazy.)

PS. We have also uploaded some more pictures here.

PPS. Everytime we receive a message on the sat-phone there is a real bonanza-feeling on board so keep sending them.

Arrived Mindelo! (Cape Verde)

We have now arrived Mindelo and had a great voyage over from the Canaries. The wind was mostly good and we even set a speed record one day with 156 nm over 24 hrs. As you might have noticed from our previous posts we also tested how it works to update the webpage from our sat-phone. The experience with it was good, but some messages didn´t come through. For all the parents back home: Don´t panic if we don´t update a day. It is most likely to be a technical problem with the web. It doesn´t mean that bonanza has sunk with all it´s crew.



During our trip we caught a really big dorado (picture will come later), and some really ugly thin fishes that always came on during the night and mostly just freaked out the one catching it. We didn´t eat those. We also got our first experience with flying-fish. During the day they flew through the waves next to our boat and during the night day flew onto our boat. Jon even got a flying fish in his bed. It took a while before he figured out what was vibrating between his legs, but when he realized what it was he quickly got out of bed. Waking up with a flying fish vibrating between your legs is not as amuzing as the story it creates...



We also met an other norwegian boat Animare with 5 guys our own age. It is always nice to meet other norwegian boats and especially when the crew is young...

Mindelo is the first place we have come to outside europe and a lot of things are different from the tourist-places we have been to so far. Wich is both good and bad, but mostly good. The atmosphere here is relaxed and the people are kind.

More updates will come before we leave in about a week, but untill then: keep sending messages on our sat-phone. (Our cell-phones doesn´t work here.)

Satelitt messages Gran Canaria - Cap Verdes

tue, october 25, 2005:
ARRIVING MINDELO IN CAPE VERDE.EVERYTHING OK EXCEPT CELLPHONES.FISH ARE JUMPING,AND THE WEATHER IS FINE.
mon, october 24, 2005:
ALL WELL ON BONANZA ARRIVING MINDELO TOMORROW.SOME TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH WEB
sat, oct 22, 2005:
SAILED 146 LAST 24HR.430 TO GO.SUNNY AND PLENTY WIND.ALL OK.
fri, oct 21, 2005:
118 NM LAST 24 HOURS. MAN OVERBOARD EXERCISE TODAY.DORADO ALL EATEN UP. CREW&BOAT OK!
thu, oct 20, 2005:
77 MILES LAST 24 HOURS.694 TO GO.COUGHT A 5 KILO DORADO!LITTLE WIND, GOOD WEATHER.EV.BODY OK
wed, oct 19, 2005:
88NM SAILED SO FAR.771 LEFT. SUNNY,BUT NO FISH YET.HOPING FOR MORE WIND.

Leaving Gran Canaria heading for Cape Verde

We have now bought enough food for a month wich is clearly noticable from the outside of the boat and how it floats in the water. Since our last post we have started to get our feet back on the ground and are now ready for the sailing over to Cape Verde. We plan to spend approximately one week in open sea before we reach land again, wich should be enough to acclimatize Hans Olav.

Thanks to the new sat-phone we got we will also try to send daily updates from our phone to the webpage. They will be short and the headings will look strange but at least you can see where we are and how we are. Feel free to send us messages on the sat-phone from this link. It should be free.

Ohh and some new pictures have been added to the atlantic islands set.

Love is in the air...

It is not that we have fallen in love with Las Palmas, but first things first...

Jon finished a diving course here on Las Palmas. The instructor was Italian and could almost speak English, the powerpoint presentation was in spanish wich Jon don´t understand and so was the diverstables. Luckily the videos and the final test were in english. While Jon were "relaxing" on the diving course, Arild and David washed and worked on the boat. It is now starting to look like a boat that have sailed far. (Even if you don´t look at the rather obvious Norwegian flag.) Much thanks to a, from a distance, profeccional looking sun roof we had made for two botles of whisky.

Then to the reazon of the title... Some stupid fool let Amor loose on Bonanza, and even the new electrical "flyzapper" we got from Emma and Stefan could help us from the effects. Last weekend Fenny came from Holland to visit Jon and Kari came from Norway to visit Arild. David on the other hand was waiting for a certain Norwegian boat we met on Madeira. The days went by while the others went on romantic trips to other parts of the island.



On thursday David´s birthday had come and almost before he could comment on why Agape the norwegian boat hadn´t come yet, two smiling sisters were standing on pier. That certainly put the smile back on Davids face. The rest of the day was spent visiting "El buen jamon" to buy ham and sitting in the boat eating ham on white bread with olive oil. Ohh and just to top it all he first got a cake from the girls and then a cake from the lokal finnish bar where he have become a part of the family.

Now that I am sitting here writing this post, we´ve sent Kari and Fenny back to their respective countries and are waiting for Hansi to arrive tomorrow. The plan about dropping Brazil and rather go to Gambia has been rejected and we are now ready for Brazil... Or as ready as it is possible to be after a week like this. Luckily Hansi has an education that makes him suited to deal with three lovesick guys...

We have added some pictures to the atlantic islands set...

Las Palmas

We arrived Las Palmas this morning, after sailing as slow as we could the last hours to avoid coming in in the darkness. We had a nice passage, but the first day we had a big swell that made us sleep most of the day, and our new crew, David, to get seasick. Maybe we forgot to mention him in the last post, but David is danish and is hitch-hiking across the Atlantic. We gave him a lift from Madeira to Gran Canary, and her he will try to find a job before hitch-hiking to the Caribbean and US in November.

We finally caught a fish with our new fishing equipment. When we were preparing dinner the first day, a dorado found the octopus too tempting, and suddenly he ended up in our pan. The fish could not possible be more fresh!

Trond, that has been sailing with us from Muros in Spain, leaves us tomorrow. Next week, Fenny and Kari comes on visit, and at the end of the week, Hans Olav will finally join us.

Not many nordic sailors to see around, probably it is too early. The plan from now is to head for Kap Verde 15th of October, and from there towards Brazil about 1st of November. But plans can change.