Author: Brian
Date: 09.12.2022
Position: Mindelo, Kap Verde
Geographical position: N 16°53.007 W 24°59.927
Etmal: 2499
Ship: Regina Maris

Captain Michael

As the sun rose on the horizon to begin our new day, we all excitedly ate our breakfast while awaiting our new captain Michael. While we waited, people scurried around doing their regular morning activities, such as gally duty, laundry, packing for the upcoming hike… until finally the bell rang and we all quickly rushed up to the main deck to join the meeting and finally be officially introduced to our new captain. After a quick count off, Sister Larry gave us the regular announcements, which included briefing us with our daily plans, in this case a quick three hour hike up the closest little mountain. Once she was finished, the time we had all been waiting for was finally there: Captain Michael! Our new ‘leader’ quickly let us know about his past journeys, including a short trip with the Pelican four years ago, which happened to be the first journey that our Justus had been part of. “I am strict, but fair!” was then the quote that he left us with to digest.

Boston Miracle  

As soon as the meeting was finished, everyone finished preparing for the hike and the daily program, the first groups started their crossings from our Reggy to the Floating-bar next to the port. Surprisingly the square-sail was already finished, which meant that we were only waiting for our crew now to ‘release’ us onto the Atlantic and we were not dependant on our other sails alone anymore. To my delight, there was a wonderful gentleman there, who decided to speak to us while wearing a New England Patriots Super Bowl 53 shirt and when I spoke to him he also noticed my Boston Celtics hat, which lead us into a wonderful conversation about Boston. He let me know that he had lived there for many years and loved all the Boston teams and that he had been in TD Garden many times. As well as that he told me that he had lived in Dorchester, which of course I knew and he also recognised all the places that I told him about (Watertown, Cape Cod…). Now, I could talk about this for hours, but I know that many people are probably not too interested in this and confused at the same time. So in order to clarify a little bit, Boston is my dads hometown and I love the Boston sports teams more than anything and it filled me with so much joy to be able to talk to another fellow Bostonian (Carlos was a Kap Verden citizen, but he had lived in Boston for a while so he was basically from Boston). Plus this was the first place in the world in which I saw more Boston merchandise than New York stuff, specifically New York Yankees hats. Anyways that paragraph was mostly writing for my dad and my brother, but luckily we will now be rapidly moving on to the next eye opening part of our day.

The hike

Once we had left this legendary mystic Boston man, we walked over to the beach to begin our hike. Although there was some people who were not too enthusiastic, we started our climb. It did not take us too long to reach the top and take in the beautiful 360° panorama view, including the wonderful town of Mindelo and lots more of the spectacular surrounding islands. Peaked on the top of the mountain was a massive and beautiful mansion under construction with incredible views, architecture and a very cool infinite pool. As the construction-workers were very nice, they invited us in and let us walk around a bit, which was very interesting and cool.

Once our mini tour was finished we continued on with our hike in two different groups, with one returning to the beach and one continuing on. The hiking group briefly got lost before joining the first group back at the small pizzeria on the beach. There we met the people from the Swedish boat once again. Later on the beach we watched some military exercises very carefully while others walked around and enjoyed our brief shore-leave.

We love you David!

As the evening sun left us behind the island of Santo Antao, we had returned to the beautiful Regina, our new crew was announced and we were told that they would be arriving soon, leading to our current ETD (estimated time of departure) being Tuesday. In order to end our wonderful day, we finished with a banger shanty night with Davids beautiful voice!
 
P.S.:
-Grüsse an die Blochis von Nikita
-Grüsse an die Kelleys von Brian;)

P.P.S.:
-Maliqa: Lieber Tobi, ich hoffe, du hattest  gestern einen tollen Geburtstag und sonst noch liebste Grüße an meine restliche Familie 🙂