[password] rachel25,
[position] 14 54.690n 023 30.24w
[status] At anchor, Porto Praia, Ilha de Santiago, Cabo Verde.

Still her in Porto Praia. Still enjoying the hustle and bustle of the city. Kriol Jazz Festival, Easter Mass, markets overflowing with fantastic vegetables and fruit. Women, tall, slender, perfectly upright, impossibly large loads on their heads. Smiles, dust, colour, love.

Still working on the boat, repairing, maintaining, improving, catching up on the mail and what's going on with family and friends.

Exercising again. 0600 - first light. Cup-of-tea. While the kettle's boiling I launch the dinghy. 30 minutes later we are rowing into the beach, teashirts, shorts, no shoes. We ride the swell into the beach, getting better at avoiding a dousing, pull the dinghy up. 20 minutes running between sand and surf - we are chariots of fire! Another 20 extending and flexing, all those parts that have not seen much motion in the ocean.

Now it's 8 PM. The tropical sun has long left us for the Pacific. We have returned the boat to order after the jobs of the day. I am sitting on the port side of the saloon, feet up on the settee, Chris Rea rocking away in the background. Two candles illuminate our home, their fire guttering in the flurries of the NE trades which penetrate the saloon.

In the galley some 6 feet away on the other side of the boat Ana, dressed in blue sarong, is cooking supper. The candlelight highlights her tanned shoulders and back. To her left a cork pinboard is home to the photos of kids, parents, grandkids, reminders of times past and future hopes.

Further left, on my side of the saloon, a blow-up globe swings gently in time with the perpetual swell, a poor representation of this beautiful planet, but still a reminder of places and people.

A tiki stands on the shelf, sentinel to Vanuatu and bringing memories of Tom and Kim from Canada in "Exit Strategy". A miniature bronze kiwi guarding its single egg sits close by, crafted and given to us by Doug, who with Nikki live on their 1950s New Zealand ketch, Karie-L. A small olivewood box sits next to them, a Christmas gift from Aleko of Beduin, to Ana. Further left a pennant hangs from the vegetable nets; "Club Escuela Deportes Nauticos, Puerto Williams" the most southern kids sailing school in the world. There is rafia fan woven by Sarah, the nurse of Falanga, Fiji, arguably the most beautiful lagoon in the world. As my gaze scans our miniature home the memories of the last 4 years and the people, always the people, all those hundreds, maybe thousands of people, return, and return, and return.

I am steeling myself for the return to Europe and our move from this home to the next....but luckily, memories and friendships are such, that they will move with me.
[END]