Mindelo - Delays

Weeks passed, still no sign of our new auto pilot! We were getting itchy feet as we had planned to leave around the 15th February.  When it eventually did arrive our technician Gilson had his hands full fixing charter boats (scheduled to go out). Then the bad weather arrived, howling winds, big seas and very dusty.

Work eventually started on our auto pilot installation....don't get too excited....in Cape Verde they say back in 1 minute, they mean 1/2 hour and back in 10 minutes means tomorrow.  To be fair a lot of items had to be custom made for our boat in the workshop in town i.e. The impressive aluminum frame (mounting for auto pilot), reinforcement to quadrant (to strengthen), a new better fitting pin, a rubber waterproof boot for the linear arm and then the installation of the electronics.

Gilson with frame

All in all we were very impressed with Gilsons work.  The work was completed and the bad weather moved away.  We agreed a date for departure with Philippe & Imelda and prepared Artemis for the journey - destination Brazil!