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 Keeping Up with 
I'm writing this at anchor in Dakar, Senegal, where we arrived a few days ago after a passage from Gibraltar that took so long that I became an old man, spending my sixtieth birthday at sea with Carol and a dying gale near the Canary Islands. Actually the passage was not bad, with the gale mostly from behind, followed by strong, consistent northeasterlies. Dakar is startlingly third world and reminds me more of Sudan than any other place I have been. Yachts anchor off a club about three miles from the heart of the city, whose population is over a million. There are more boats here than I expected, perhaps thirty or forty, about half of which are local, although most of the local boats seem abandoned and there is little evidence of any local club members. The grounds are spacious and reasonably well kept. Still I expect the place is a vestige of days when the French ran the country and just continues to run slowly on and down. Nevertheless Dakar is colorful and interesting and we are enjoying ourselves. Few English-speaking yachts call here. Although two British flag yachts are here now, they are the first in seven months and we are the first American boat in longer than that. November is the beginning of Senegal's dry season, although there is never a lot of rain, and the temperatures have been pleasant, in the 80° during the day, and about 70° at night. The strong NE wind we had at sea is presumably the tradewind and has continued after our arrival, decreasing some at night, but still keeping the insects away. We have found several good restaurants in the city, as well as the one Carol mentions near the yacht club, where we have dined extremely well, usually on seafood, for a total bill of about $15 for two. Our main reason for stopping, other than to see a different part of the world, was to obtain Brazilian visas. In Portugal and Spain the consulates were either closed, no one spoke English over the phone, or they needed 12 days to process the application. Here the third world has proven more efficient than the first. We found the embassy easily, applied Monday and got our passports back yesterday. We plan to sail for Salvador, Brazil, next week. We were both a bit tired when we got in, mostly from having to keep alert to avoid all the shipping along this coast, but a few days' rest and we are ready to go again. The distance to Salvador is 2100 miles, but includes crossing the Equator — my 11th time and Carol's first — and the Doldrums, so should not be fast. Two and a half to three weeks I expect. From the Voice of America we know that today is Thanksgiving. This is not a big holiday in Senegal. I thought we would probably have to settle for the traditional Thanksgiving couscous, but as you can see from Carol's letter, she planned ahead. Christmas in Brazil. We arrived in Africa on Sunday. It took us just about two weeks. The first week was slow and stormy; the second week was fast and beautiful sailing. Along the way we saw dolphins, flying fish, and a canary from the Canary Islands landed on my shoulder one afternoon. Our last night out there was a great meteor shower in the sky. Dakar is very exotic, very African; the downtown is hectic. It is third world poverty mixed in with the modern world. Dakar is the largest city in West Africa. High-rise buildings, paved streets and most of the sidewalks paved, street vendors everywhere selling fabrics, woodcarvings, and food. Lots of hustlers so you have to be very aware of potential pickpockets. The people (especially the women), at least the ones that are not desperately poor, wear absolutely gorgeous, colorful, flowing garments. I'm not sure that I'm comfortable carrying a camera although I would love to have photos. We are anchored off of one of the two yacht clubs three miles north of the city center. The club compound is very clean and attractive. They have a launch service to take us back and forth from the beach. The waters around us are filled with pirogues, the local style of fishing canoe. Outside the club it is all sand roads and people selling things out of makeshift shacks. There is an equestrian club and one very good restaurant within walking distance. The sandy road leads to the main road into town which is jam packed with vehicles of all kinds...taxis, dilapidated buses with people hanging onto the outside, horse-drawn carts, motorbikes, tractors, occasionally a few nice cars, and goats eating garbage in the middle of the road. All the boat people congregate at the club bar around 5:30pm. It's a French speaking country so there is usually a French table and an English table. We hear the drums and singing of local people along the beach after nightfall. Some live on the beach in shacks, others have fairly nice houses. Every morning and evening we hear the Muslim call to prayer. Most people pray five times a day no matter where they are. We have been treated very well. I do not see any signs that this population thinks much about Sept.11. A woman at cocktail hour said, "What bombing in Afghanistan?" West Africa is fascinating; I like it more than I expected to. We will celebrate Thanksgiving today with some stovetop stuffing and canned turkey that I brought along. Although I will not be able to send this until Gibraltar, which hopefully we will reach sometime next week, I am writing at anchor between Ayamonte, Spain, and Villa Real, Portugal, at the mouth of the Guadiana River. This is the second successive rainy Friday we have spent here. I really should not complain because these have been the only really rainy days since we reached the Azores more than three months ago, but I'd like to get the last 120 miles to Gibraltar done, and this is a lazy, slow moving low. In between these Fridays, we went twenty miles up the Guadiana to one of the nicest places I have ever been, a stretch of the river perhaps two hundred yards wide with two small villages, Alcoutim, Portugal and Sanlucar, Spain facing one another. Both have a dock to which one can tie for a nominal charge of less than $3 a day at Alcoutim, including electricity and water, and there are seven free moorings, one of which we picked up. Both villages are built on hills, both with white washed, red tile roofed houses, both with Moorish forts, and inexpensive restaurants. While the river is tidal even that far up and the midtidal currents strong, we could easily row to the country of our choice. We ate ashore in Alcoutim, but the grocery shopping was better in Sanlucar. It was one of those places where I got up every morning and went to the companionway to see if it was really as pretty as I remembered, and so serene that we almost felt guilty at being there in this troubled world. We arrived at the big 1000 boat marina in Vilamoura, Portugal, at midday local time on Sept. 11, and an hour or two later happened to see people standing around a television in a café. This was about an hour after the planes hit the World Trade Center. Portuguese television ran CNN broadcasts live. We have a multisystem TV on the boat and so were able to see the news as it was happening. We were the only American yacht on the dock where most of the boats in transit were situated. Several people, including Germans and British and Portuguese, expressed their sympathy to us. This was the first time that as an American I have been an object of pity. Even in Alcoutim, while eating lunch in a restaurant where the television was on but being ignored, we noticed how when the midday news came on everyone, including a table of Portuguese workmen, stopped eating and waited for the headlines. Only when there was no news of a retaliatory strike or another terrorist attack did people return to their food. For us there is a question about stopping in Dakar, Senegal, on the way to Rio. The reasons we have thought of doing so are to break the 4200 mile passage into legs of 1500 and 2700 miles; and to get visas at the Brazilian consulate there. As well, to a lesser degree, to see briefly a different part of the world and human condition. We can get visas in Portugal, but they have to be used within 60 days of being issued, which considering the uncertainties of weather, pretty much means a nonstop passage. I suppose we will decide depending on the world situation when we are ready to leave Gibraltar. Carol is due to fly from Gibraltar to Boston in mid-October to attend the opening of her last big project, a medical research facility for U. Mass, at the expense of her former firm. That is still on. In Vilamoura, we were able to buy a hose to replace the malodorous head exhaust hose, which was by far the highest priority problem to arise so far. A few other odds and ends can probably be found in Gibraltar, or Carol might get back in the U.S., or they can be delayed indefinitely. Naturally we need to do some reprovisioning. My memory from more than ten years ago is that Gibraltar is the cheapest place in the world to buy Laphroaig scotch. The difficulty is in calculating how much I need to get to Australia. Since writing the above we made it to Gibraltar, powering almost all the way on glassy seas. In fact we powered the entire south coast of Portugal, having no wind on any of the legs, except for an hour on the nose as we approached one breakwater. Except for bringing THE HAWKE OF TUONELA down from Vermont when I first bought her, I don't ever recall powering so far. Upon arrival all three of the marinas were full and we had to anchor off the airport in a spot which would be untenable in bad weather. Fortunately a space opened in Marina Bay the next day. Since arriving here, Carol has made her flight plans. Naturally she had no trouble getting a seat. Also we have decided that, barring negative news, we will stop in Dakar, leaving here about November 1. After Portugal, Gibraltar is expensive. Gone are the days of good $3 and $4 a bottle wine. Even Laphroaig costs more here than in a supermarket in Portugal. We have switched to cheap gin. One must be adaptable. After a relatively uneventful 17 day passage to the Azores we arrived in Horta, only to find it packed with boats. We have now moved on to another less crowded harbor on another island 70 miles northeast and will soon continue further, sailing to Porto Delgado next week and then Lisbon a week or so later. With a marina slip here costing only $4 a night and an acceptable bottle of wine $3, life is good. The promise to myself publicly made in the introduction to A Single Wave (Sheridan House, 1999) to resume my long interrupted fourth circumnavigation before my 60th birthday is about to be fulfilled. Except for some final provisioning and restowing, THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is ready for sea, and Carol and I will sail from Boston about June 1 for the Azores. Our planned route will take us onward from the Azores to mainland Portugal, Gibraltar, then south to Brazil, where we plan to spend a somewhat warmer Christmas than we have become accustomed to in New England. Next year we will cross to South Africa and Australia. In 2003 we will continue east to New Zealand and the South Pacific. And that is far enough to plan. While I am looking forward to the places, I am looking forward to just being at sea even more. Interested readers can follow our voyage in magazines and possibly a future book from Sheridan House. —Webb Chiles, aboard THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, Boston Harbor, May 18, 2001.
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