Archive for December 2011

Cape Verde Islands – Wind and Weather

People have a lot of preconceptions about what the weather is like in the Cape Verdes. Now that the developers and holiday salesmen have put the islands on the map most land-lubbers imagine the islands to be hot and sunny. This is not actually the case. The weather here is almost always sunny – that much is true – but in the winter the sky is often hazy, and the almost-constant wind keeps the temperature down. Although they lie in…

How Much Meat Can an Ecologist Eat? (Part III)

See the previous articles in this series: Part I – Wishing You a Green Christmas and Part II – Confessions of a Vegetarian. People are funny about meat eating. Six year olds are not the only ones to find the sight of a pig’s head upsetting, and yet those same people who cry, “Yuk! how could they do that?” will happily tuck into pork pie. Just recently I was shopping with a French friend in a Brazilian market when we came upon a…

How Much Meat Can an Ecologist Eat? (Part II)

See the previous article in this series: Part I – Wishing You a Green Christmas, and the next article: Part III – Killers with a Conscience. I’ve never much liked meat. As a child I used to find it tough and chewy. Pork sausages smelled nice but they were full of nasty gristly bits, and bacon was only edible if the fat had been fried to a crisp. Chicken was fine provided I got the breast; I wasn’t keen on gnawing a bone.…

How Much Meat Can an Ecologist Eat? (Part I)

As I write, Mollymawk is anchored off the little scenic town of Paraty, (just down from Rio de Janeiro) but on the festive day we will probably be at sea, making our way down the coast towards Uruguay. As you sit there, tucking into your turkey, we might be lazing along in the sunshine and having a lovely time… but on the other hand we might be slamming into a south-easterly gale with waves smashing into the topsides and sweeping…

Cabedelo / Jacaré / João Pessoa (Brazil)

Jacaré is a fishing village situated on the eastern bank of a small muddy river. Rather than carve its way directly out into the sea, the river, on reaching the coast, seems to hesitate. It veers to the north and waits a while before finally taking the plunge. If you care to take a look at a chart of the eastern coast of Brazil you will see that most of its rivers behave in this irrational way. Each one has…

Cape Verde Islands – General Information for Yotties

For yachtsmen sailing to Brazil or to the West Indies, the Cape Verde islands lie only a biscuit’s toss from the proper route across the North Atlantic. Like the Canaries, the Cape Verde archipelago makes an ideal stepping stone for the seafarer – and yet remarkably few yachts put in here. Those that do stop tend to go only to Mindelo (Sao Vicente) or to Palmeira (Sal). It is true that the number of visitors has increased radically over the…

Learning to Kitesurf

The sea shone tantalizingly, down below us, looking as flat and polished as a mirror, but high up above it we were being buffeted by a strong wind. We were sitting on the summit of Monte Leon, which is a little hill on the coast of Sal. Down in the bay below ten or fifteen kitesurfers zoomed to and thro, making the best of the wind. Unlike the windsurfers they didn’t need a wind low down, their kites went up…