Talk Morgan Forums Talk Morgan Members Section Places to Stay Where to Stay? Cape Verde Islands

We are thinking of some winter sun. Can anyone recommend an all inclusive resort there please?
Thanks
John

Visited Mindelo on São Vicente by yacht in December 2003, six days out of La Gomera, due to light winds. Interesting but fairly basic at that time. Left four days later when the trades kicked in. The islands are spread over a wide area up to 200 miles apart. I believe the best holiday locations are to the south.



Mountainous island immediately north of Mindelo.

I went on a kite surfing holiday there about 15 years ago in the south of the island of Sal at a place called Santa Maria. Fab beach and perfect conditions for learning to kite surf (there was a Club Mistral windsurfing & kitesurfing place on the beach). Back then there wasn't much, and we stayed at the Belorizonte, which was OK.Since then there has been a fair bit of development, and I understand the Hilton Cabo Verde Sal resort is pretty nice.

The people were very friendly, but the island itself isn't that interesting; it's the flattest of the Cape Verde islands, and as you can probably tell from the name there are big salt pans. I prefer to go to the caribbean, but being on a similar time zone to Europe does make Cabo Verde attractive from a jet lag point of view.

Cheers Giles. As this will be c Oct Nov the Caribbean will not have good weather. We are looking at Santa Maria. As you say mega hotels are there now but some look ok for a short break.

Definitely a much better shout than the Caribbean for October !! Great for a short break.

Spent seven years cruising most of the Caribbean John. Don't remember late October and November being particularly bad, especially in the south and east although there were always exceptions. One of the worst was hurricane Ivan in 2004 which ironically originated in the Cap Verde area and was tracked over many days as it headed west. After flattening Grenada, it reached Cat 5 in the Cuba area before heading inland to the US as a tropical storm. We were safely in a marina in Puerto de La Cruz, Venezuela so sitting on its less harmful southern flank as it passed. Just got one dull day with a lot of rain but not excessive winds. This was earlier in the season thoug lasting most of September.

Richard if we were to go to the Caribbean then it would be Antigua but we were in Nevis in Feb (on BA air miles) so that also is swaying us to go elsewhere.
We are not loaded but our house is now 2 years old and Taylor Wimpey need to replace all the ground floor ceilings due to micro cracking (aka a cheap build solution that don't work). We figured a cheap package job would be covered by the compensation for having to be out of the house & it does.

We also get the house fully redecorated downstairs for free.

Yes I loved Antigua too. It was my last Caribbean location before I sold my yacht in 2011.



Taken from Shirley Heights and waiting for the green flash, it was the regular Sunday evening BBQ venu with pan band entertainment. English Harbour in the foreground, Falmouth background and Nelsons dockyard, a museum between.

Sorry to go on about Caribbean but St.Martin is another favourite of mine. Two cultures for the price of one. Dutch in the south and French in the north. I regularly anchored on the inland bay near airport. Depending on wind I woke up in French or Dutch territory.

Apologies if you have heard the myth but apparently the French and Dutch were too civilised to go to war over the island. They had a wager, a Frenchman would set off from the north coast, Dutchman from the south and where they met would be the border. The Frenchman was sustained with wine, the Dutchman much stronger gin which is why the border is relatively close to the south, although its the best part. You can imagine the dilemma in the evening, do we take the RIB (9ft+15hp=brisk) for a curry or menu gastronomique

French owned and nearby is St.Barts, possibly the most exclusive island and certainly pricey. Favourite French location though was the town of Deshais on the north west corner of Guadeloupe and location of TV series Murder in Paradise.

No need to apologize - it's nice just thinking about it.

What sort of boat did you have ?

Yes no need to apologise a walk on an Antiguan beach would be good about now.