Date: 05.12.2022
Author: Marlene
Position: San Antao and Mindelo, Sao Vicente
Nautic position: 16°53.046 N 24°59.895 W
Etmal: 2534 NM
Ship: Regina Maris

The day started for us with a Devil-Ray sighting! A crowd of people gathered on deck and excitedly followed the movement of the large animal. In addition, we were faced with choosing between a hike and a swimming session.

Swimming with Devil Rays!!! (Credits to Jule)

While practicing our dives from the railing, just below the water surface, I saw a Devil- Ray. Slightly too euphoric, I started screaming so nobody would miss this spectacular moment. Without thinking, I grabbed my flippers and goggles and launched myself into the water. My friends stood on the boat and were able to follow the Ray with their eyes.

Eventually everyone started frantically screaming „Jule, he’s headed directly toward you! “ It took roughly two seconds until he suddenly appeared in front of me out of the deep blue ocean. I wasn’t afraid but between everyone’s screams from the boat and the actual sighting, my nerves were truly at a peek.

The ray held direct course toward me and immediately a wave of fascination hit me. In this moment, there is only you and the Ray. When diving down to the creature, if you behave calmly enough and the ray allows it, you can swim beside him just like one of the fish that live with him in a symbiotic relationship at a 0,5m distance. All in all, a highlight for many of us.

Hiking with Flobro 🙂

In a cozy group of six we were driven to shore by Lex in the dinghy. From here we spontaneously decided to take the hiking path uphill through the village, up a mountain and to the lake we never saw sight of. On the way up we encountered various animals like goats, roosters, cats and grasshoppers and greeted some of the locals.

We passed the school we visited yesterday, where we heard the students yelling on the courtyard today. The hike uphill was mastered enthusiastically in about an hour. We decided to take a break on a couple of rocks. From here we had an incredible view on the entire village and our dear Reggie.

After a short break, which consisted of us taking some pictures and making sketches of the landscape, we made our way back down. In the process we got a bio session from Flobro. Among other things, he threw out fun facts, like grasshoppers having their ears on each side of their legs. The way back felt like half the time it took to walk up. We arrived back at shore and waited for Lex to pick us up and bring us back to the Reggie.

There we were greeted by our very excited friends (specifically Jule!!) that briefed us all about their excited Devil- Ray adventure. 

Back to Mindelo… not so smooth- sailing!

Once lunch was finished, we made our way back to Mindelo and used the time to study for our Spanish vocabulary test, work on our pathway presentations, sleep or catch up on diary writing. After some smooth sailing for the first half an hour, we had a steering occurrence which consisted of our lovely helmswoman chilling 40° off course which meant that we were exactly 1,5m away from grounding.

What followed was Martin acoustically informing the whole boat of his disapproval and turning on auto pilot for the time being.

Afternoon lessons and deck- sleep- negotiations

According to the teachers we’ve got some serious catching up to do in the school department. To our disappointment that meant we needed to do afternoon classes at our anchor spot in Mindelo. After a Spanish vocab test in the sunset and individual learning class in the messroom, we had dinner.

To finish the day, we had a very active back- and- forth negotiation with our teachers and crew regarding sleeping on deck. Eventually we came to a positive mutual agreement which meant that we were, in fact, allowed to spend this last evening before the Atlantic crossing sleeping on deck, which many of us took advantage of!

Greetings:

Benni U.: Mal wieder wünscht Benni einer weiteren Schwester, dieses Mal seiner kleinsten, alles alles Gute zum Geburtstag!