The slight judder as we docked in St Vincent woke us up and dressing hurriedly, we came up on deck to find the green volcanic island of St Vincent, Cape Verde Islands spread out before us. It felt warm. In fact it was 25/26C but with a fairly stiff warm wind blowing. The Cape Verde Islands are right out in the middle of the Atlantic, more or less half way between Africa and South America. Discovered in the 1600s by Portugese explorers, they were a popular stopping place for navigators between those continents. Cape Vincent is the island with a natural deep water harbour, so still attractive to large ships today.

We were not particularly thrilled at the prospect of our day in Mindelo (capital and port of St Vincent) because we visited it once before about 8 years ago on our way back to the UK from South Africa and found it a dingy, down at heel sort of place, very, very poor, and a depressing slightly hostile atmosphere prevailing from local people. Perhaps not unsurprisingly I do grant you.

Anyway, we'd already decided that we would just go ashore and make use of an internet café to have a protracted session online and then explore the town. It was apparent when we stepped out of the shuttle bus from the dock that things had improved in Mindelo. It is still a very unsophisticated sort of place. The sort of place that makes you think: "Thank god I don't live here" but there is clearly updating and investment going on. Houses were freshly painted. There were some new ones. There were cafes, nice looking ones….. It had become picturesque in its way rather than just dowdy and run down. I would hazard a guess that in twenty years with the right money, it could become a sort of paradise…. The scenery is there…. The weather… the beaches….. Of course its miles from anywhere but that's an attraction on holiday isn't it?

The islanders are mostly African. Many descended from slaves who escaped here or were stranded here. Some Portugese people too. A real mix.

So, we found an internet café (not wifi) and managed pretty well despite a lengthy time when the whole of the Cape Verde Islands lost international telephone connectivity for about an hour…. Imagine that…. no telephone.. no television…. No internet….. we forget what that's like.

Then we had a wander around, stopped for coffee, and looked in the covered market, wandered across the seafront looking at the individuals with catches of sardines and mackerel in their baskets for sale. Much nicer than last time but….. still…….

Spent the afternoon up on deck sunbathing and reading. Managed to connect my Kindle at last and download about 7 books to keep me going! Thanks to all those who gave me Amazon vouchers for Xmas !!!!!

Eventually the wind really came up and despite its warmth, it just wasn't pleasant to lie out on deck so we retreated into the Crow's Nest lounge, high above the bow and read there. A haze had come down by sailaway and the island started to retreat into the mist….

Tonight we are eating in one of the specialisty restaurants on board: Sindhu, which is Indian and the creation of Michelin star chef, Atul Kochhar. The menu looks amazing so looking forward to that. Afterwards we're quizzing and then may go to the late show in the theatre which is a stand-up comedian. We now have three days at sea before arriving in Recife, Brazil on the 19th. So from now until we reach San Francisco at the very end of March we are on uncharted seas - for us - so some excitements ahead.

By the way, thank you all so much for the lovely comments! So glad you are enjoying my ramblings.