Senegal, Gambia & Guinea Bissau

[Tim Good]

I'd like to hear from people who have cruised in these areas. We're heading down there to arrive approx November and so I'm doing research. The topics are two wide for one thread so could you PM me or post your thoughts so I can PM you directly please.

 

[Uricanejack]

I can't say I was cruising.
When I visited the area and it was about 40 years ago so a bit out of date.
Senegal was actually quite a nice friendly place to visit at the time and there were some French cruising yachts. Cant say much about Gambia or Guinea Bissau. But Freetown was nice and friendly. I have heard it changed some. I cant think of anywhere else on the coast I would recommend any thing but as wide a berth as possible.

Once South of the Canaries. I'd recommend staying well to west at least 2 hundred miles Passing Cape Vert. Lots of big factory type Russian Fishing Boats. Back in the day. Even at that distance visibility is restricted severely by sand and fog. I did visit a
small friendly place Nouadibou just south of Cape Vert.

There is a big paining in the Louvre. The Wreck of the Medusa. again a reason to stay offshore.

Visibility will probably improve before you are as far south as Dakar.

 

[Roberto]

We spent 2months in senegal, 1 in gambia in 2010/11; much preferred the second; it's likely we will go there again. Senegal has toughened their custom requirements, better check in advance,useful source is CVD Cercle de Voile de Dakar

End 2016 we spent 1.5months in Guinea Bissau (only Bijagos archipelago), in November they said we were the second sailboat of the year. A very special place, love or hate location, to me one of the best I have been to (up to thinking about opening a "marina" there). It's real Africa, if you go to the cape verdes divide by 100 the facilities you find there to get an idea of what continental africa is at about the same latitude: nothing. Better said: there is a time for doing things, or have things done; it took us several days for basic victualling before the transat towards Brazil.
A few pictures I used to make short presentations of our trip to primary school children, they like animals so...
http://sybrancaleone.blogspot.fr/2018/01/bijagos-foto-per-bambini.html

 

[AndrewB]

Those are lovely pics Roberto, and quite a story

I've always been sorry I didn't join the Iles de Soleil rally when it used to visit Senegal and Gambia before crossing to Brazil and going up the Amazon. Still have my old copy of Steve Jones' (RCC Pilotage Foundation) guide to areas you visited. Now the Iles de Soleil skips the west coast of Africa in favour of the Cape Verde Islands. Adds to the feeling that one must be increasingly wary of that part of the world, though the Foreign Office considers those countries safe enough to visit, with due care.

 

[Roberto]

Those are lovely pics Roberto, and quite a story

I've always been sorry I didn't join the Iles de Soleil rally when it used to visit Senegal and Gambia before crossing to Brazil and going up the Amazon. Still have my old copy of Steve Jones' (RCC Pilotage Foundation) guide to areas you visited. Now the Iles de Soleil skips the west coast of Africa in favour of the Cape Verde Islands. Adds to the feeling that one must be increasingly wary of that part of the world, though the Foreign Office considers those countries safe enough to visit, with due care.

Hello Andrew,
you may know MinnieB, forumite PhilipH (IIRC), they went in one of the last IDS Rallies in 2009/2010, then kept on circumnavigating, we met them again in 2016 in the Caribbean after their rtw trip.
What really killed the rally was the Brazilian decision to cut the visa from 90+90days in a row, to 90 days in followed by 90 days out of the country, and so on, all the Amazon part of the trip became unfeasible. I may be wrong but I think UK subjects still have the 180days, all other Europeans have to jump out after three months.
Last year we were heading to Belem but had a serious breakage (forestay), so I preferred to continue on to Iles du Salut; hopefully we'll have another try in a few years.

Thanks again Andrew for the inspiration from your Sentinel's travels, when we still were in the early planning phase and read your accounts about South America.



Some examples, this was Senegal

Impromptu children dance

I can't add more than two videos.

 

[jdc]

... was the Brazilian decision to cut the visa from 90+90days in a row, to 90 days in followed by 90 days out of the country,

You are being way too hard on Brazil. They simply assert reciprocity. Shengen chose, unilaterally, to limit Brazilian citizens to 90 days with no option to extend. So that's what they get in Brazil. The UK left it at the international norm of 90 days with an option to extend by another 90 days on application, so that's what UK citizens get. If from the USA you get finger-printed on arrival but no-one else does. Again I think entirely fair.

PS:I met loads of German yachtsmen in Brazil who all complained bitterly about these rules. I asked all of them 'which of your elected representatives should you write to to ask that the Schengen rules be changed back?' Not one had any idea who to contact, just no idea at all - a vignette of EU democracy?

 

[Roberto]

You are being way too hard on Brazil. They simply assert reciprocity. Shengen chose, unilaterally, to limit Brazilian citizens to 90 days with no option to extend. So that's what they get in Brazil. The UK left it at the international norm of 90 days with an option to extend by another 90 days on application, so that's what UK citizens get. If from the USA you get finger-printed on arrival but no-one else does. Again I think entirely fair.

PS:I met loads of German yachtsmen in Brazil who all complained bitterly about these rules. I asked all of them 'which of your elected representatives should you write to to ask that the Schengen rules be changed back?' Not one had any idea who to contact, just no idea at all - a vignette of EU democracy?

It's a long story I did not want to bother anyone, I (almost) fully stand with Brazil.
My point of view (we were in Brazil at the exact moment when they changed the rules, happily we could get our +90 days extensions so spend 6 continuous months before having to leave), two things happened:
1. With a pure domestic policy view, then France President Sarkozy sent the Foreign Legion to scare illegal Brazilian goldwellers in French Guyana, which they did. At the same time, he filled a couple of planes with Brazilian prostitutes from the two Paris parks Vincennes and Boulogne, and sent them home under trumpet sounds and plenty of press coverage feasting the city was becoming clean again. Brazil said "they are Brazilian citizens and do not deserve to be treated like that. We apply reciprocity.". My very personal opinion is Brazil did the very right thing; even more, I am very happy that some State outside the old world stands against inference from these elder, especially when talking about "droits de l'homme"
2. Italy (just know about these two countries at the time, we have these passports). During the same period the Battisti case: a former Red Brigade terrorist condemned for a number of murders, suddenly appears in Brazil where he is granted an "artist, writer" visa. Italian embassy protests, President Lula intervenes, the whole thing mushrooms with the usual harsh statements from both sides.
A few *millions* Italian nationals live in Brazil, more or less regularly, maybe they cooled the dispute, but for tourists it was the 90d not renewable visa. Not easy to have an unbiased view.

Can't wait to get back there, really