Cape town to the med?

[Brandywine]

Would the following be a difficult route? What would be the time of year to make this sort of run? How about books that cover this route?

Cape Town to St Helena
Ste Helena to Ascension
Ascension to Cape Verde
Cape Verde to Canary Islands
Canary Islands to Gibraltar

Most of the routes I have seen have you going on to the Caribbean or Brazil after St Helena and not back up to Europe or the Med.

[waterworldly]

Jimmy Cornell just did that route on his last circumnavigation. His logs were in Cruising World. He liked it very much. The current SSCA bulletin shows that route as well.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Brandywine

Most of the routes I have seen have you going on to the Caribbean or Brazil after St Helena and not back up to Europe or the Med.

Via Brazil then up close to the azores then turn right is the old sailing route to keep the wind abaft the beam for the most time. But you don't have to do it that way. If you don't mind light wind on the nose then go anyway you like. No hurricanes / cyclones in south atlantic so go whenever you like. North east atlantic just watch for forming hurricanes between cape verde and caribbean between june and November.
The west coast of africa is vastly un cruised and places like Gahna, Cote D'Ivorie, and Senegal amongst others are meant to be stunning, safe (ish), friendly and wonderfully unexplored.

Cape Verde Islands are pretty good too and the only touch of Africa than many get. So much the pitty.


All the best.

[Slaneynirit]

We need to head back from the Canary Islands to the Med
Anybody done it before?
Any tips.

[Taichungman]

Originally Posted by Brandywine

Would the following be a difficult route? What would be the time of year to make this sort of run? How about books that cover this route?

Cape Town to St Helena
Ste Helena to Ascension
Ascension to Cape Verde
Cape Verde to Canary Islands
Canary Islands to Gibraltar

Most of the routes I have seen have you going on to the Caribbean or Brazil after St Helena and not back up to Europe or the Med.

I left Cape Town last July 2016 via St. Helena, St. Lucia to Annapolis Md......good weather and wind all the way to little past equator and then motored for 4 days against a eastward current (went a little to far North before taking a left) ...But, since you are going to Ascension, I would take your route to Gibraltar and just keep a good eye on weather coming off N. Africa. Ok, now everybody beat me up.

[AiniA]

We went Cape Town to the Caribbean so can't comment on the northern part of the route. We stopped in Namibia after leaving Cape Town and it was very interesting and pleasant to visit. Would like to spend more time in the country at some point. We absolutely loved St Helena, it is one of our most favourite places. Ascension's only advantage is its location, we really did not enjoy our visit there and the people were not very friendly, which is odd since most of the people there are from St Helena and in SH the people were great. If you have time, it might be interesting to visit some of the countries in West Africa like Senegal and Gambia.