Dakar to Port-of-Spain via Praia, Cabo Verde

This is written from home. Yes, we are back and it is taking some adjustment. Not really a wonder given that I have been at sea for four months. The challenge is how to maintain the peace of mind that came with the simple life aboard S.S. Sørlandet when I am back on terra firma and all the complex and conflicting neural inputs it presents?

We left Dakar on November 28. It was good to leave and get away from the constant sales tactics of local vendors when we went on shore.

I don't blame the vendors for they were trying to make a living but it was surely tiring having to say no and have your hands in your pockets so that they did not hand you something and assume that because it was now in your hands that you had effectively bough it.


The sail to Praia, Cabo Verde was short - we arrived December 1. On the way across we passed a leatherback turtle. It was swimming along leasurely going in the same direction as us. It was probably heading for South America but had more time to get there that we did.
In Praia we were back to hearing Portugese and therefore not understanding a word. Praia was much cleaner than Dakar. We had a crew change here. Ivar (the captain), Jo Leif and Val left. Halvor, the new captain had joined us in Dakar and Kari who had sailed with us from Kristiansand to Cagliari joined us as did Kim.
Pia and I went a shore and stayed off the ship for 24 hours. It was nice to be away from the ship even for one day and night. We found a hotel/resort where we had some great meals.

Our stay in Praia was short and on December 4 we cast off. The wind was such that we could leave just under wind power. The motor was on but that was just in case of an emergency. 

Crossing the atlantic took 17 days. We only sailed and the motor was only started when we were just off Trinidad. Stephanie, the cook fell with a pot of soup which had just boiled and received 2nd and 3rd degree burns on 20% of her body and then the motor was started and we got into Port-of-Spain as fast as we could so she could get to a hospital.

The crossing was amazing. Steady winds from the NE pushed us under nearly full sails at a steady 6 to 7 knots right across the Atlantic. We were rolling as usual but it was a steady gentle passage.

We fished and caught and ate tune, wahoo and dorado.

My students wrote their exams in the middle of the Atlantic and four days before seeing land I had finished my courses.

The students are writing their exam in the Captains lounge.


It was so peaceful crossing to be hypnotic in a way. I some sense I could have cared less if we ever saw land. Our small universe existed in a kind of tranquil equilibrium. There were simple routines, getting up, eating, helping in the galley (I can only peal 50 pounds of potatoes at a time, anything less would seem so pointless), helping to furl the royals at sundown (this was a safety measure), school work and sleeping, nothing complex or overly demanding.

We were saving fresh water so set up a saltwater shower. The water was warm, over 20 degrees.

A few days from South America we sat on deck at 3:30 in the morning and saw the eclipse of the moon.

This was my fourth crossing of the Atlantic. I crossed in 1957 and 58 on Stavangerfjord and in 1964 on Batory, both passenger liners, and now on a tall ship. In the corridor there was a picture of Sørlandet in the mid Atlantic taken from Stavangerfjord. I have crossed on both of these now.

Close to South America a swallow circled the ship. The next day it was dead onboard and we had a funeral at sea for it.

Once in Port-of-Spain our departure and flight back to home was in the blink of an eye. It was great and strange at the same time to be back home and it is taking some adjusting.

Last Post?

This may be my last post. Tomorrow morning we sail for Capo Verde and we will only be there for three days. Who knows what the internet will be like there. Then we sail for Triniday, an 18 day sail across the Atlantic and there the journey ends for me and Pia.

Senegalese Ecovillage.

I was with a group who visited an Ecovillage. An ecovillage is a concept where a group "applies" for their town or village be designated an ecovillage. As such they have to work towards ecological sustainability. This means using renewable resources, cleaning up garbage, producing their own food and a number of other things. Here in Senegal these ecovillages can apply for microloans to help them achieve their goals.

We went to visit such a village. What a bus ride to get there. The last few kilometres was along a path where, had it not been for this being the dry season, we could not have made it.
What struck me first was how apparently "primitive" it was.

There were a few cement houses but here were far more straw huts. But it was very clean - unlike the rest of the country we have seen where there has been garbage absolutely everywhere. There were solar panels for electricity, each family had a solar cooker.

They also had high efficiency wood ovens for cooking. They were growing lots of vegetables using irrigation systems developed in France which were highly efficient. These consisted of either drip irrigation or containers placed flush in the ground which delivered water to the roots. Two litres of water would last for two days as opposed to two hours with traditional systems.

The people were so friendly and we had some great discussions with them in terms of what they needed. They were investigation obtaining a microloan so the discussion centered around what to apply for and how.

It was fscinating.

This is a papaya plant.

Story telling.

We have had an amazing time in Senegal. We went to hear a talk about "Story Telling" from a well know Senegalese, Daour Wade. This was especially interesting to me and one of my classes where I have talked about oral cultures. Story telling goes way back to antiquity before we had any form of writing. Story telling was how culture was passed on relating to traditions, hunting, morals, geography etc.
First, Daour told us about Senegalese values and he did this by explaining he meaning of key words. "Kollare" referred to doing good deeds. If someone did you a good deed you should never forget and you should reciprocate. When someone has helped you out you and that person become bonded and this is called "Wollare".  He covered many more words and then told us a story.

There was a village and the harvest failed due to drought. On old women went in to the forest and there she met a lion. She told the lion about their predicament and the lion led the woman to a small lake. The woman drank from the lake and then returned to her village and it started to rain. One day the woman was sitting with her friends and she talked about her meeting with the lion and she complained about the horrible smell of the lion. The woman did not know that the lion had snug into the village and overheard her.
The next year there was a drought again and the woman went into he forest to see if she could find the lion and ask for help again. She met the lion but this time the lion asked the woman to hit it on the head with an axe. After much insistence by the lion the woman finally hit the lion on the head with her axe. The woman went back to her village but it did not rain.
The next year again there was a drought and the woman went into the forest and met the lion. The lion asked if the woman could see the scar from the axe but she could not. Then the lion explained. The scar from the axe has healed but the scar in my brain from the words you spoke about my bad smell has not healed. And then the lion ate the woman.

The moral of the story of course is that you should think before you speak because words have power, they stick.

This was one of the stories he told us. I could have listened for hours.

Dakar, Senegal

What can I say? I had no expectations, was it a modern city or would I be stepping into the past? Senegal is both but what's most important to state is that the people are so friendly.

We sailed in past Goree Island which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is being maintained as it was and it is beautiful with its original Portugese architecture and then French and after the early 60's independent. There is a restored Slave House on the island and over a million slaves were shipped out from here - horrifying.

How do you like this cell tower disguised as a palm tree?

Senegal is both modern with high rises but also very poor. It is chaotic, dirty but full of vibrant life. There are lots of vehicles, new vehicles and beat up vehicles. We took one taxi and every time the driver had to slow down he pulled the emergency break - I am assuming the foot break did not work. The busses are very colourful and it seems here are always someone standing on the bumper hanging on.

There are horse drawn carts, people on scooters, someone cooking on the sidewalk which is not asphalt or cement but dirt. Sheep  are tied to trees, horses stand waiting, people are praying to allah, there are vendors everywhere and they come running and have "very best price, just for you", "very cheap", "what you like? I show you in my shop". I must admit it gets a bit tiring saying "no" so frequently.

It is dry and it is hot - 41 degrees C the other day and the Senegalese insist it is cold. Winter is coming on of course. I can just imagine what June will be like.

A hopeful cat at a restaurant.

Agadir, Morocco

We waited off Agadir for a few hours before the pilot came on board. The problem was which peer to dock at. "They" wanted us in the "marina" but at low tide there was only one and a half metre of water and Sørlander draws just over 5. Even at high tide it would be impossible. We ended up in the container port with a 20 minute walk to the gate where police were reluctant and sometimes prevented taxies from entering.
The day after we arrived all the students and teachers went off on their four day excursion to the Sahara. Pia, I and Stephanie stayed behind with the professional crew. We ended up having an absolutely fantastic time.

We, Pia and I, Stephanie and Kathryn called for a taxi. We waited and waited and then started walking. Half way out the taxi came and the driver was absolutely apologetic - he had been held up by the police at the gate. Monty (Montheseh), the taxi driver, turned out to be amazing. During the next three days he took groups of us on 9 to 10 hour tours of this area (100 km radius of Agadir). But, on the first day he showed us Agadir. He dropped us off at a large Souk (market). We asked if we should pay him for his driving to that point but he said no no, we could pay him at the end of the day. The Souk was amazing - so much food and everything else you can imagine. We had tea with a spice merchant and we bought some clothes. It was lots of fun to barter not hat I am any good at it.
The next day Pia and I went on our anniversary (24 years) trip with Monty. We had an absolutely amazingly filling day. We saw he local ship yard where there were 25 to 30 fishing boats being built -they were in various stages from just being started to nearly complete.

Then we went to the fishing port where the boats are rowboat size where three people go out for up to 3 days at a time. They are longliners and come back with all kinds fish.

Can you see Pia in this picture? She is there!

We saw a recycling place where everything under the sun was bartered and sold - plastic bottles, plastic sheets, scrap metal, electronics, washing machines, car parts, etc. It looked like a garbage dump where everything had been sorted.

We left Agadir and entered an arid landscape - rocks, dirt, cacti and Argan trees scattered.

There were nomads living in tents, small villages with clusters of cement houses which all had satellite dishes on the roofes (apparently if a man wants to get married he will be out of luck if he does not have a satellite dish and a colour tv).

You can't see the satellite dishes but they were there.


We drove into the Atlas mountains where we saw a reservoir and had tea on top of a mountain top.

And tried on scarves.

We saw a pottery factory, a silver smith shop. We saw walled towns, and markets. We drove to a National Park where later there will be all kinds of migrant birds from Europe. We had meals in local restaurants.

At 1 pm Monty went to a Mosque and we sat at a cafe in a small village. As the sun was going down we visited a beach where the was a cluster of houses just above high water on the beach where only men live and they fish. It was well after dark when we made it back to Sørlandet. It had been an absolutely magical day.