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Cape Verde? "Where's that??"... was the first question, when we told someone where we wanted to go. O.k. here's the answer!
The Cape Verde Islands are in the middle of the Atlantic, 450 km west of Senegal. The vulcanic islands inspire by their contrasts between the six western islands, which have a irregular relief and the three eastern islands, which are known for their beaches.
Because of the Passat-winds, Cape Verde is divided in two parts. The luv- and the lee-side. To the first group belong the islands of Santo Antao, Sao Vicente, Santo Luzia (uninhabited), Sao Nicolau, Sal and Boavista. To the second belong Maio, Santiago, Fogo and Brava.
The sun is shining all year round, but because of the ever blowing wind, temperatue doesn't get too high. The climate is dry and tropical, the average temperatue is around 25° C. Long stretching beaches, the possiblity for all kinds of aqua-sport, mountains, fish and treasures of the sea in high quality are the visiting card of Cape Verde.
For scuba-divers the islands are very interesting because of their solitary position in the Atlantic. It's here, where warm, subtropical currents meet the cooler ones from the southern Atlantic. The nutritous waters provide food for a huge variety of fish. If you're lucky you can meet all the big ones. Whale sharks, manta rays, tunas, tiger- and hammerhead sharks, grey sharks. But there are a lot of other beautiful things to discover, too.
The currents a very unpredictable and so visibility can drop very fast. Especially after rainfall, when a lot of dust from the semi-dry islands is washed into the sea, visibility is only about 2-5 m.
Unfortunately we had 2 days of rain during our one-week-stay. So we knew, that somewhere out there are some big ones "watching" us with their highly developed senses, but we couldn't see them. Only two mantas where curious enough and watched us from a few meters distance.
The MS Witte Bank is the only operating Dive-Safari-Vessel in Cape Verde at the moment. We spent our week diving along the western coast of Isla Santiago between the cities of Praia (where the harbor is) and Tarrafal.
It is said that 98% of Cape Verde are undiscovered by scuba-divers. So there's room for some more safari-boats to discover these beautiful and adventurous dive-sites, because the MS Witte Bank isn't very recommended. If you'll like to get some more information, send us an email to beate.matthias@kuhn.as.
O.k. that's enough for now, let's check out some of the photos we took above and under water and watch our Slide-Show. Enjoy it!!!
