1st December 2025 to 18th January 2026

(NB Pictures are a bit out of order – to be sorted)

To bring you up to date as briefly as possible I shan’t try to fill in details of the past several weeks. A broad brush sketch will have to do, just an outline.

So, I left La Gomera with three new crew members, young, lively and fun loving women from Spain and Germany who strived to keep their spirits high – my spirits too. They’ve hiked and talked and laughed and swam, and always looked forward to a hot shower. They have taught me much and, in turn, learnt some of the rudiments of sailing in the Atlantic.

After waving and clapping the Transatlantic rowers on their way (they set off from San Sebastián de La Gomera each year for the 2,500 mile journey to Antigua), and some mountain walks in beloved La Gomera we sailed on to El Hierro.

El Hierro is small and the most southerly of the Canary Islands. I’d not visited before. We stayed a few days, enough to gain some feel for the place. Each of the Canary Islands has its own features, distinctive in its landscapes, architecture, peculiarities and, it seems to me, its people. 

El Hierro is especially mountainous and feels, and is, more rugged, empty and remote than elsewhere, perhaps people are poorer too. The mermaids walked further and higher than me. The bits I covered at about 1,000 metres high in winter were reminiscent of patches of Dartmoor or parts of arable Wales in summer, with dry stone walls, grazing cattle, a few horses, a few bars with convivial farmers. Cloud shrouded the higher lands and boulders were strewn hither and thither. It’s a place to visit for longer than a week, perhaps another time.

After fond farewells to the few fellow sailors we’d met in the half empty marina at La Estaca, we sailed on to Senegal.

Why Senegal? I had no pressing reason to visit. It’s not a country I knew anything about (except that having been a French colony it’s French-speaking and I hardly speak any French). I didn’t know anyone who had been there. It’s not on the way to anywhere I wanted to go.

But you need to try new places, at least I do. Without new experiences, new people, new food, new challenges, life can grow stale. Your blessed comfort zone becomes just a bit too comfortable, and perhaps you grow complacent, plump and weary. I think I do. Hence a visit to Senegal seemed a good idea.

It was about 800 miles south from the Canaries to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, and my crew’s first experience of several overnights at sea. Spirits were dampened, smiles faded and a few stomachs heaved, but everyone whatever their discomfort loves tropical starlit nights, sparkling luminescence and the company of dolphins.

Nighttime arrival in Dakar six days later was stressful: numerous small fishing boats, unlit big moored trawlers (apparently they are confiscated Chinese boats), anchored ships and assorted obstacles take anxiety to new heights. It was a relief to finally drop anchor. 

First day in any new country is usually taken up with immigration, customs, a bank, a new SIM card and assorted bureaucratic stuff. In Dakar, a busy, dusty, litter-strewn city of well over 3 million very friendly, helpful folk it does take a while. By sunset, crew have had a shower, and by next day, we feel pretty much at home, have found our way to the train station and tasted the local coffee. 

If you’re a sailor reading this, I can recommend the CVD (Dakar’s so-called yacht club) as the world’s best place to buy courtesy flags, any flag in fact. I have a truly gorgeous new red ensign, made to order. It’s so lovely that I’m reluctant to use it. 

Don’t remember how long we stayed in Dakar, but we visited thriving Gorre Island, an early French slave trading base and now an overcrowded tourist attraction approached on overcrowded ferries (it does have a good interesting slavery museum – also overcrowded!). And we were there for New Year’s Eve, girls to Reggae dance all night, me to watch fireworks, read a book and go to bed.

It’s soon time to move on, South along Senegal’s low lying coastline to the Sine-Saloum Delta, another UNESCO World Heritage site that I’d never heard of. AI succinctly describes it as “a vast wetland of mangroves, mudflats, and islands…….renowned for its rich diversity, especially birds, and unique cultural landscapes featuring ancient shell mounds and fishing villages….abundant wildlife like flamingos, dolphins, and monkeys.”

We saw and heard all of the above; it’s nowhere like anywhere I’ve ever been, and in its special way feels magical. A few pirogues (the colourful local boats used for fishing and passenger transport) whizz past with friendly waves.

AI doesn’t alas mention the poorly charted waterways (‘bolongs’) where you have a high chance of running aground if you happen to be sailing without detailed local knowledge. Henrietta experienced her first fully fledged, on-her-ear grounding – the first I’ve ever achieved. 

I’d managed this uncomfortably near a spring tide high water, so at least we had plenty of time to wander around our very own sandbank. 

Thankfully, very thankfully, with anchor from the stern and earlier soundings, we were floating again by midnight. Phew!

This is meant to be a summary blog – you may imagine how long the full story might take –  so I’ll skip much of the next week, when we meandered through more ‘bolongs’, landed on little deserted islands, and stopped at the memorable riverside town of Toubacouta. 

Next stop, a few days and five hundred miles later, was Mindelo in Cape Verde, where I hurriedly write this. The brief spell here has been busy with shopping, chatting to fellow sailors, wandering the streets, all the usual stuff! My crew of three wonderful young Europeans must move on for more adventures; tomorrow Henrietta and I will probably head for the Caribbean. 

From there a wonderful, fascinating and supremely helpful Bouba (a French educated mechanical engineer, who, when not in Toubacouta, works in Lausanne to keep Swiss railways running their impeccable timetables) took us to the Gambia border to enable passport stamping for our exit from Senegal. Bouba I should add is one of those amazing people whom you occasionally encounter in far flung corners of the planet whose life is well worthy of a fabulous biography.

Another dozen miles down the river Bandiala and a night, and romantic bonfire party for the crew, anchored along the way, before we get back to the Atlantic, with an hour stuck on the river’s uncharted bar before we were finally away past anchored ships awaiting pilotage into Gambia.