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In spite of making an early start – we couldn’t sleep after
about 4.30 am – and all Delfim’s help, we still didn’t manage to take off on
time. Antonio – our other
Portuguese earthrounder friend – came to Cascais to see us off.
Unfortunately neither Delfim nor Antonio will be in Mexico for the
Earthrounders meeting 23-27
November, but at least we had the chance to see them before heading off over
the Atlantic.
We also had a headwind on the way to Tenerife. The flight took almost 6
hours and it was dark again when we landed. We stayed at the beautiful old
Hotel Mencey, where they were kind enough to give us a generous discount for
pilots, and slept well for the first time in weeks.
Next day on the flight from Tenerife North to Boavista (Cape Verde) we had
more headwinds. The trip to Sal (the airport of entry) took over 6 hours,
about half an hour more than the estimated time with no wind. But at least
we had left Europe before the cold front was due to arrive a few days later
and there were no weather problems.
As usual we were running late and we only landed in Sal an hour and a half
before sunset. We wanted to make the 20-minute flight to Boavista island the
same day, so it was going to be tight. Fortunately the immigration
formalities into Cape Verde didn’t take very long. I paid the landing fee
while Flemming filed the VFR flight plan for Boavista and then we were off
again… we landed about 8 minutes before sunset!
It’s great having an iridium phone on board the plane. We bought it with 500
prepaid minutes from Infosat in
British Columbia, Canada just a week before we left Geneva. Thus I was able
to phone hotels in Boavista in mid flight. We also bought a headset adapter
to be able to hook the phone up to our Bose X headsets. Surprisingly enough,
the first place we tried was fully booked and even the second hotel,
Hotel Estoril Boa
Vista was full, but they had a couple of apartments free next door.
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