Wednesday, 30 December 2009

Marine Princess Ferry Docked Indefinitely, Cape Verde, Maio

The hydrofoil Ferry Marine Princess remains docked at Praia sea port with no date in sight for the resumption of business. After news indicating that the vessel was paralysed due to the departure of its captain, several A Semana Online sources have revealed additional problems that have combined to keep the embarkation from going out to sea. This is the second time the Marine Princess has been forced to lay idle in the short time it has been operating in Cape Verde, thus dashing expectations that it would help resolve the problematic issue of connections among the country’s southern islands.

Sources close to the vessel's administration claim that, "Operations have been suspended" not only because the captain left for Angola, but also because, after "investing millions of escudos, administrators have been combating archaic procedures that, in addition to being costly, hinder or even render useless the company’s work," said the source.

As such, the administration of Cape Verde Navalis is waiting for a reaction to a memorandum submitted some time ago aimed at doing away with "parasitical" costs and "archaic and anti-economic procedures."

In addition to the lack of a captain, the company is hoping authorities will put an end to these "parasitical" costs that they claim make operations unreasonably expensive. Without mentioning to which authorities the memorandum was actually sent, A Semana Online's source says that the ship will remain docked until these issues are resolved.

The hydrofoil Marine Princess, which had been plying the waters along the Praia-Fogo, Brava route three times a week, is currently sitting at Praia sea port. Connections to the other Leeward Islands were expected to resume during the Christmas and New Year's holiday, but this will no longer happen.

The ships Praia d'Aguada, Sotavento and Sal Rei travel to the islands of Fogo and Brava twice a week, but even so are unable to meet the demand on the part of would-be travellers, who often take advantage of the holiday season to visit their native islands.

Source: ASemana Online - click here.

Sunday, 6 December 2009

Hit and Run History on Maio - Day 2

Cape Verde - Day 6: Porto Ingles
by Hit and Run History: The Columbia Expedition, 31 photos

Our last day on Maio, we interview Joseph Brito, who's sailed all over the world. Then we catch the ferry back to Praia for our last evening in Cabo Verde.

Location: Porto Ingles, Isle of Maio, Cape Verde

Created yesterday

View Album - day 6

The Columbia Expedition Hits Maio Cape Verde

Day 5 - Maio
by Hit and Run History: The Columbia Expedition, 45 photos

Our first full day on Maio, we explore the capital of Porto Ingles. Their first stop in the Cape Verde archipelago, Columbia and Lady Washington took on livestock and the major product of this flat, dry island -- salt, for preserving.

We explore the harbour, and the old wharf, where countless slaves from West Africa were transferred to ships heading to Brazil, the Caribbean and North America.

Location: Porto Ingles, Isle of Maio, Cape Verde

Created on 04 December
View Album - day 5

Saturday, 5 December 2009

Lonesome Cow in Cape Verde

iReport —
I recently visited Cape Verde and stayed on the small island of Maio. I visited the island for appx. 2 weeks. One day, while spending some time at one of the beaches there, I took this photo of a lonesome cow standing at the shoreline attempting to cool down. Cape Verde is a beautiful, sometimes barren and in many parts poverty stricken country. Though i was only able to visit 2 of the islands when i was there, it was a very humbling experience. The Cape Verdeans are beautiful, kind people and I will also remember this trip and this photo.

CNN - Lonesome Cow in Cape Verde

Friday, 4 December 2009

Unique Christmas Gift - Turtle SOS Cabo Verde

Turtle SOS Cabo Verde It's not too late to send your friends and family a unique gift from Sal.

Hatchlings will continue to be born during December so you can still adopt a turtle baby as a Christmas gift.

For a minimum donation of €10 the recipient receives a Christmas Certificate of Adoption as well as photos of their hatchling being released into the sea.

We also have t-shirts (adults/kids €15/€10), hoodies (€30), caps (€15) and environmentally friendly cotton bags (€10). All profits go directly towards protecting turtles in Cape Verde. For more information email info@turtlesos.org

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Marine Princess Ferry Returns | Maio, Cape Verde

Yesterday I got the information that the Catamaran, Marine Princess, will continue the ferry service to Maio; every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Maio Ferry Timetable / Schedule - click here

The ship cargo vessel, Sotavento, will delivery cargo every Thursday at 8 o'clock in the morning and passengers can also use this service.

This is the best news we all could hope for!

TACV also flying to Maio on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Maio TACV Flight Timetable / Schedule - click here

Saturday, 21 November 2009

New Photograph Gallery - Tropical Garden

A new photograph of the beautiful tropical garden at Pension Casita Verde. Many hours of toil and planting to create a beautiful oasis.

View Gallery - click here

Friday, 20 November 2009

Foreign Investment focus on Maio | Maio, Cape Verde

HNW individuals focus on Cape Verde island Maio as foreign investment in archipelago floods in


More countries opening up direct flights to Sal & Santiago.
Links to major oil producing nations to underpin upward spiral in islands’ prosperity.

Wealthy Cape Verdeans make Maio island of choice for property investment
Land and property bargains to be had now.

The island of Maio in the Cape Verde archipelago is becoming THE place to buy for property investors looking for exclusivity at a bargain price, says leading agent Noscasa.

And the fact that an increasing number of nations from around the globe are choosing to invest in Cape Verde is a clear indication that this island nation is rapidly growing in stature in the international business arena.

‘The island of Maio is now offering fantastic opportunities, with both land and property available at very attractive prices,’ said Noscasa MD Paul Akwei.

‘This is the island where wealthy Cape Verdeans are now looking to buy property because of its secluded beauty and close connections to capital city Praia which will allow easy connection to their business interests.

‘Cape Verde is already established as a paradise destination for tourists and holiday home investors but the level of international investment it is now attracting demonstrates that it is fast becoming much more than that. Now is the optimum time for serious investors to take advantage of this growth.’

An increasing number of countries are opening up routes to the international airports on Sal, Sao Vicente and the capital island Santiago, the latest being Delta Airlines which will start flying to Cape Verde from Atlanta in early 2010. This means that when the cross-island fast ferry service begins next year, Maio will be just a 35 minute journey away.

‘The new Delta service is a huge boost to the growing prosperity and international standing of Cape Verde,’ said Akwei.

Investment International - click here to view article

Friday, 13 November 2009

Cape film crew retraces global journey (Ilha do Maio)

By Patrick Cassidy
pcassidy@capecodonline.com
November 13, 2009

SOUTH YARMOUTH — When Cape Cod native John Kendrick left Boston Sept. 30, 1787, on the first American-based voyage around the world, his crew must have felt some trepidation. They were headed into still largely uncharted waters on a mission filled with unknown dangers.

But at least it was not Friday the 13th and the Columbia was not traveling into a known dengue fever outbreak, as is the case with the small Cape Cod film crew following in Kendrick's footsteps today.

The brainchild of 43-year-old Chatham author Andrew Buckley, "Hit and Run History" is a 13-part documentary that purposefully blurs the lines between the past and present.

Think the "flinty nephew" of Anthony Bourdain from the travel show "No Reservations" and the fishing crew from the "Deadliest Catch" with film cameras in hand, searching for history, Buckley said Tuesday during a pre-trip meeting at the Cape Cod Community Media Center on White's Path.

The crew comprises a film student, freelance videographers, an Emmy winner and Buckley, a shellfisherman and self-proclaimed "gumshoe historian."

"The whole concept of this is that our crew is our cast," Buckley said. Buckley and four other crew members board a plane tonight headed for the island nation of Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa.

Cape Verde, the ancestral home of thousands of Cape Cod residents, was Kendrick's first stop on his three-year journey. The former privateer captained the Columbia, which gave its name to the Columbia River in Washington state.

The first 45-minute production of "Hit and Run History" chronicles Kendrick's life and other events that led up to the 1787 departure. It was completed earlier this year and has been screened across Southeastern Massachusetts as well as on local cable Channel 17.

Today, five members of the crew are scheduled to leave on a plane from Boston to Cape Verde to complete the bulk of filming on the next part of the journey, Buckley said.

The crew plans to document Kendrick's time in the country's capital city of Praia and action that took place on the nearby island of Maio, he said.

Perhaps appropriate for their Friday the 13th takeoff, the small country of nine inhabited islands off the coast of Senegal is in the throes of an outbreak of dengue fever, an infection common in the tropics but never before seen on Cape Verde.

Almost 14,000 people on the islands are now infected by the mosquito-borne disease and a half-dozen have died, according to A Semana newspaper. The cases of infection appear to be dropping, however, and none of the reported deaths occurred this week, according to the newspaper.

Still, for the Cape film crew, the dengue outbreak has changed their plans. A ticket meant for the group's Portuguese-speaking translator was donated to Luisa Schaeffer, an outreach worker at the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, who is returning to her native country to help with the crisis.

The group is also packing plenty of bug spray and medicine to use and will fly to the island of Fogo on Monday to document the ongoing epidemic, Buckley said.

"For the show it certainly is going to make things much more interesting and rich," he said.

At the crew meeting the prospect of dengue or other possible maladies elicited mostly laughter.

When it was suggested that taking vitamin B complex could help drive mosquitoes away because of the scent excreted through a person's pores, Jul3ia Astatkie, 23, of Marstons Mills suggested some high-flavor, pore-exuding food might also be good to have along.

"We're fearless individuals," Astatkie said. "If we are going to die, what cooler place?"

After a moment of thought Astatkie, who works at the media center and won an Emmy in May for a video she produced and starred in, decided it would be better to live at least long enough to get some good footage.

The inclusion of the experiences of the crew has been pivotal to the project's appeal with audiences, Buckley said.

The technique "doesn't just lift the curtain a little bit," he said. "It tears it away."

Cape film crew retraces global journey (Ilha do Maio)

More Rain

In the last article, "The Rains Have Come", we had almost given up on more rain this year.then the unexpected happened and the rains began anew with several downpours which has saved Maio's subsistent farmers for this year. Corn and beans are plentiful.

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

UPDATE: Marine Princess: Hydrofoil Fast-Ferry | Maio, Cape Verde

More news on the new Fast Ferry to Maio from Praia, the boat is called the Marine Princess, there is also a picture.

Marine Princess Fast Ferry - click here

Saturday, 24 October 2009

Friday, 23 October 2009

Hydrofoil Ferry from Praia to Maio

Since the beginning of October 2009 a hydrofoil ferry has been departing Praia for Maio three times a week! A quick journey and fast ferry which only takes 50 minutes from Praia to Maio. A single ticket price is 1,500CVe.

Sunday, 18 October 2009

The Rains Have Come and Gone

The rainy season which started out so brilliantly last month with two soaking rains came to an abrupt halt soon after. At first rain the local people here hurry to their small farm plots, plant their seed and pray for more rain. This is not an exact science sometime it works and sometimes it doesn't. If the rain does not come soon the one-meter-high corn and other vegetables will be used for food for the goats and cows. And the farmers will thank God for that and wait for next year.

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Friday, 9 October 2009

Builders of Cape Verde Fast Ferry vessels visit Cape Verde

A delegation from Damen Shipyard, the Dutch company building the high-speed vessels company Cabo Verde Fast Ferry will soon bring to the country, began a four-day visit to Cape Verde this week for a series of meetings with port authorities and other entities involved in the Cabo Verde Fast Ferry project.

On Thursday, the Damen Shipyard engineers visited Vale dos Cavaleiros port on the island of Fogo and Furna port on the island of Brava to get a first-hand look at the conditions offered by the two infrastructures and to meet with Brava municipal chamber officials. In Praia, the delegation will meet with port authorities and with the Maritime and Port Institute to discuss what they saw.

The delegation is also scheduled to meet with officials from fuel companies Enacol and Shell. On Saturday, October 10, the engineers will visit the port on the island of Maio and meet with local municipal authorities, according to the web site caboverdeonline.

On Sunday, the delegation will head to the island of São Vicente, where it will visit the Cabnave shipyard and ship repair facilities and Mindelo sea port, and meet with local Maritime and Port Institute officials.

The Dutch company has regularly been sending specialists to Cape Verde to study various factors related to navigational conditions in the archipelago such as wind, sea currents and port facilities.

ASemana - click here

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Maio welcomes 50 potential investors |Maio, Cape Verde

The Boa Vista and Maio Integrated Tourist Development Corporation (SDTIBM) will promote a meeting with some 50 Cape Verdean and foreign investors on October 15 in order to present tourist investment opportunities on the two islands. The meeting will take place on Boa Vista.

SDTIBM executive administrator José Carvalho explains that “environmental protection and preservation areas represent 46% of the total area” of tourist development zones on the two islands, and that “the remaining 54% is aimed at tourist enterprises.” Carvalho specifies that only 9% of this 54% is set aside for construction.

Of the lands projected for construction, 12.5% is located in Chave, 8% in Morro de Areia, Santa Mónica and to the south of Porto Inglês, 8.22% in Ribeira Dom João and 15% in Ponta de Pau Seco.

Source: ASemana

Friday, 25 September 2009

Halcyonair resumes regular flights

Private Cape Verdean airline Halcyonair has announced the resumption of regular inter-island flights beginning today, September 25. As a way of enticing passengers and making up for the complications caused during the period in which its aircraft was not flying, the company is offering special fares on its Sal-São Vicente and Praia-São Vicente route.

ASemana

Thursday, 17 September 2009

Gallery Page Updated | Maio, Cape Verde

I have eventually got round to updating the Gallery Web page...

I think I've included all the galleries and journals that have so kindly been submitted. Please shout if any have been omitted.
It's starting to build into an informative collection, and I hope, proving useful to visitors and investors alike.

Thanks again for looking in,

Mark.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Rain and Maio | Maio, Cape Verde

Usually not two words used together on Maio, but it happened yesterday. Only a shower, but some much needed rain for the farmers.

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Free Classified Adverts | Maio Cape Verde

I will be trying to constantly update this section with new services and sales for Maio. I hope to include more tour services:

Free Classified Adverts - click here

Thursday, 13 August 2009

Order Your Bread at the Casa Blanca Supermarket |Maio Cape Verde

There are two sources of bread in Morro... both of which are inconvenient for Villa Maris people, in as much as you must be in Morro at 6am to buy it... and it's gone shortly after. Due to the present lack of demand, Casa Blanca does not sell bread, however, as a convenience and a gesture of good will towards Villa Maris residents, Casa Blanca will, free of charge, take orders for bread which may be picked up the at the customer's leisure.

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

New Journal's List | Maio Cape Verde

I have added all the journals to the "Getting to Maio" web page for easier accessibility.

New Maio Travel Journal | Maio Cape Verde

Thanks to Chris and Christine for their excellent travelogue. Some good advice and tips for property owners on Maio, especially Villa Maris.
View journal in a new window

Thank you again Chris and Christine.

Friday, 26 June 2009

Furniture Package Supply to Maio Cape Verde

After the success of the initial container shipment of furniture by Boa Vista Property Services, another container is planned. This is of course dependant upon customer take-up and amount of furniture required.

Register your interest-click here       View Furniture-click here

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

New Villa For Sale

Ponta Preta - 1st Line (Maio) Villa for Sale near to the beach.

click here

Thursday, 28 May 2009

Latest Photographs of Maio Cape Verde

Thank you to Rita for allowing us to display her holidays photographs of Ilha do Maio.



Thank you.

Monday, 23 March 2009

Fishing and Diving on Maio Cape Verde

The Maio Fishing Club and Maio Pluf host fishing and diving trips. Maio Fishing Club organises holiday and fishing packages. Maio Pluf dive center offers diving courses with Cape Verdian professional divers.

Fishing and Diving on Maio

Thursday, 19 March 2009

New Maio Accommodation

More Maio accommodation property has been added to the Accommodation Section.

This is a free service and propspective clients contact the owners direct.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Halcyon Air Flights

I thought that our prayers had been answered... but no....

Halcyon Air flights from Sal are still flying direct to Praia, i.e. no change from the TACV operational flights.

Friday, 20 February 2009

Halcyonair launches flights to Fogo and Maio islands

Air carrier Halcionair Cabo Verde Airways is due to launch two weekly flights to the islands of Fogo and Maio as of 28 February, the company said in a statement.
Read more...

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Maio Supermarket Now Open in Morro!

CASA BLANCA the first supermarket in Maio has at last opened in Morro!


We will have the best selection at the lowest prices on the island.
If we don't have what you want, we will order it for you.
For customer convenience we will be open 7 days a week:
Monday to Saturday: 8am to 8pm
Sundays/holidays: 10am to 6pm.

Sunday, 15 February 2009

Thursday, 12 February 2009

Businesses Realising Maio's Potential

This year will be an important period in Maio's development. A healthy business climate must have competition and businesses from Praia are beginning to realise Maio's potential. Already this year in Vila do Maio, two travel agencies have opened and two banks are under construction. Also, a supermarket in Morro will open this month.

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Furniture Supplies to Maio

Received an email from Trevor Wilson, at Boavista Property Services, stating that he intended to supply a container of furniture to Maio, on a first come first served basis.

Please read...

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Scheduled Furniture Supply

MaioCV.com has beed told that there is a proposal to provide a shipment service, through a company based on Sal, to supply good quality European standard furniture to Maio. The supposed furniture packages will be customised especially for the requirements of Vila Maris, and any other development/property on Maio.

Register your interest