Maio

20 January 2017

We (sailors) are not easy to please but sometimes everything is right, wind force, direction and temperature, and this is such a night. We sail doing 8 knots, sometimes even 10 knots, to the northwest for our next stop Mindelo. We left Maio yesterday after an excursion to explore the island. The last few years that we have been sailing in Cape Verde we did not visit Maio. Captain Maarten remembered the island to be a bit boring and the travel books give the same impression. Maybe therefore our expectations were not too high, but we had a great day! The island has a very relaxed atmosphere, and apart from the guests of the ‘Oosterschelde’ almost no other tourists are around. The white sandy beaches stretch out as far as the eye can see and we have them all to ourselves, just like the views from the sand dunes, that are breathtaking. We visited a few small picturesque villages, where life is slow and we are the biggest attraction of the day, or maybe even of the week. 
So together with the guests I concluded that it would be a waste if this would change, so I promised to tell everyone: “Do not go to Maio, there is nothing to do there”.