Cabo Santa Maria Shipwreck

Overview

The Cabo Santa Maria is the corroded wreck of a Spanish cargo ship that ran aground on the north coast of Boa Vista on 1 September 1968 and was never pulled off. What is left of it stands in the surf a short way off Praia de Atalanta, a coastal sector of roughly 10 km about 6 km northeast of Sal Rei, reached only by sand tracks. The beach itself carries three names locally: Praia de Atalanta after an earlier loss, Costa da Boa Esperança on the maps, and Cabo de Santa Maria after the ship whose name stayed legible on the hull for years.

Be clear about what survives. The photographs that made this the island’s most reproduced image show a whole ship: in December 2010 the hull, the deckhouse and the accommodation block were still standing above the water, tilted and orange with rust. By January 2023, dated photographs from the same beach show a broken bow section with its frames exposed like ribs, and beyond it a line of bare steel frames running out through the breakers until they disappear. The decks and superstructure are gone. Cape Verdean reporting in 2018, at the fiftieth anniversary, already described the structure as close to total collapse.

Even so, it is worth the detour, because the setting does most of the work: low white dunes with green creeper on them, a line of weed along the tideline, hard Atlantic surf on the shallow shelf, and dark iron standing in turquoise water with nothing else built in sight. Treat it as a 20 to 30 minute stop on a half day tour, usually paired with the Deserto de Viana, rather than a destination that fills an afternoon.

History

The ship

She was launched at the Bazán yard in Cartagena in December 1955 and entered service in 1957 as the Díaz de Solís, one of four Type Y cargo liners built under Spain’s state shipping programme. Ybarra y Compañía of Seville bought her in 1963 or 1964, registers differ, renamed her Cabo Santa María and put her on the company’s Mediterranean to Brazil and Río de la Plata run: 131.40 m overall, 4,972 gross registered tons, twelve passengers alongside the cargo.

The grounding

The Provincial Historical Archive of Seville holds the manifests for her 28th outward voyage: cargo loaded at eight Mediterranean and Andalusian ports between 14 and 27 August 1968, destinations Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. She left Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 29 August, and in the early hours of 1 September went onto a sandbank in Salinas Bay on the north shore of Boa Vista. Everyone aboard survived.

Accounts differ on the detail. Spanish press at the time named the master as Captain Fernando Sabín and put 37 crew aboard; the Cape Verdean retelling of 2018 gives the captain as Fernando de Solis, with 38 crew and five passengers, and says the ship had run into a tropical storm after leaving Tenerife. No cause was ever published. Because the hull sat on sand without a breach, that account rules out mechanical failure and leaves human error, while treating the bridge rumours as unproven.

The port tug sent from Mindelo was a berthing tug with nowhere near the power needed. Ocean going tugs followed over the next months, the last attempt running from 23 November 1968 to 24 January 1969. None moved her, and she was declared a total loss.

Why the island remembers it

By the end of September the owners decided to land the cargo, about 1,720 tonnes of it. There was no road to that coast and almost no machinery, so it came off by hand, in a daily procession of people and pack animals between the beach and Sal Rei that ran for months and drew in most of the island’s population. Fertiliser, chemicals and machinery were secured near the port. Much of the oil, olives, flour and wine ended up on Boa Vista tables in a year of drought and hunger, which is why the episode is remembered as a pão por Deus, a providential gift.

What happened to the originals is disputed: one account has them recovered three years later and recast at the same foundry, another has a replacement set reaching Brasília in 1972.

Low, sandy and lying across a shipping lane, this coast collected wrecks for as long as ships passed it. The Cabo Santa Maria is simply the one that arrived within living memory and stayed visible.

Visiting

Getting there

There is no bus, no ticket office and no gate, and almost everyone arrives on an organised excursion out of Sal Rei or the resorts. The half day desert tour by 4x4 listed on the island’s tourist site takes in Rabil, the Viana dunes and then Cabo Santa Maria, departs daily at 09:00 and 14:00, lasts about four hours and is priced per vehicle at 90 euros for one or two people and 120 euros for three or four. The quad north tour covers the same ground, runs Monday to Saturday for about five hours, and costs 85 euros for a single machine or 100 euros for a double.

Driving yourself means a 4x4 pickup, quoted at 90 euros a day with a 400 euro deposit. Boa Vista has one paved road, running north to south past the airport; everything else is dirt, rock or sand, and both fuel stations are in Sal Rei. The approach to the wreck is no exception: the only routes mapped near the site are a gravel track and a soft sand track. Tell someone where you are going, and do not attempt the sand in a normal car.

What is there

Nothing, and that is the point. A query of OpenStreetMap for everything within 2.5 km of the wreck returns three tracks and no buildings, no bar, no toilet and no mapped shelter of any kind. There is no shade on the dunes and nowhere to buy water. Carry your own, plus sun cover, and expect wind and blown sand: this is the coast that faces the trade winds.

Wading out to the wreck is a bad idea for the same reasons, with rusted steel and unseen structure added.

Turtles and the reserve

The beach lies inside the Boa Esperança protected area, and Boa Esperança is one of the sites where the Turtle Foundation and its Cape Verdean partner keep a seasonal camp. From June to October rangers and volunteers patrol around 35 km of nesting beach on Boa Vista every night to deter poaching. Daytime visits are unproblematic; night visits in the nesting season should be made only with an organised turtle excursion.

Tips

The wreck sits offshore on a north facing beach, so light is easiest early or late in the day, and the morning departure of the standard tour gets you there before the glare and the strongest wind. Ask the operator how long the stop is: on the combined desert and wreck tour it is short.

Practical points, in order of how often they catch people out:

• Bring water and sun cover. There is nothing on site, and the nearest shop is back in Sal Rei.
• Wear shoes you can walk in. The tideline collects weed and stone, and the dunes behind the beach are loose sand.
• Fuel up before you set out if you are driving: both petrol stations on the island are in Sal Rei.
• Tour prices are quoted in euros per vehicle or per quad, not per person, so a group of four splits the same 120 euro car four ways.
• Stay on the sand rather than climbing on the remains. What is left is thin, corroded steel standing in moving water.

One last piece of honesty: this site is disappearing. Between the 2010 and the 2023 photographs the ship lost its superstructure and most of its hull plating, and the 2018 anniversary coverage from Cape Verde described the structure as near collapse. We have not found any published survey of its condition after January 2023, so what is standing when you get there may be less than the newest picture you have seen. That is a reason to go while it is there, and a reason not to build a day on Cape Verde’s easternmost island around it.