A flying start to the new year.

Happy New Year!
Fireworks, flares, foghorns and music blasted us in to 2014 in the port of Praia. All around us we could hear the celebrations of the city. We brought the new year in on Hestur.
On the 1st of January we left Praia . We sailed out of the calm harbour with Swallow who was setting sail across the Atlantic , they soon disappeared from sight in the thick dusty atmosphere at the time. We had a great 7 NM windy sail west around the island to Cidade Velah, which was the original capital of the island in the 1700s (although its no larger than a village) . It has ruins of an impressive cathedral overlooking the bay and has now received UNESCO heritage statues. We tucked into the tiny black sand and rock bay in front of the ‘city’ between rocks white with the surge of waves and anchored in the relative calm. It was a delightful backdrop, the village was fringed with palm trees and the steep rocky cliffs behind led up to a Fort on the skyline. We swam and went ashore. We walked round the cathedral ruins and drank and ate in the bar on the front.
The next day we took an Aluga (bus) back to Praia to clear out. The offices had been closed for the past two days so we needed to return to do this, to get an Immigration stamp and our ships papers. We returned to Cidade Velah for the afternoon. We swam, did some washing, got the boat ready for the next trip , had dinner and left at 8.30 pm for Brava, the most south westerly island in the archipelago, 80 NM away. Getting out past the unmarked rocks (other than the glow of white surf on them) in the dark was exciting then we had a fairly slow passage to Brava through the night and next day, at times motoring and at times being blasted by F7 winds. We arrived in Furna on the NE of Brava in the afternoon. A beautiful little cove with the village of Furna fringing the shore.
More to come on that later.

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