Hhecife and Salvador

This is gonna be a quicky because, well, there's not that much to report on. The rest of our days in hhecife were spent spectacularly missing all the tourist attractions. After a walk through town I looked in the guide book and saw we'd walked past some very impressive baroque architecture or some-such. The guide book mentioned all this, but did it even give a passing mention to the huge shopping centre that featured food and drink at crazy prices, internet cafe, and photo development for tuppence ha'penny? I think not. So I think it fair to say we have been travelling enough that we divert from the common tourist hotspots and hunt out our own little gems to really get a feel for how people live. I mean steak for a centavos per kilgram or something. And I got a new USB key. Couldn't smoke in the shopping center though, but you've got to roll with the punches. We left on an impulse for the 4 day sail to Salvador, and it took 4 days and 3 hours. First 24 was a mixed bag with squally weather and rain aplenty, but it soon settled down to a nice steady down-wind sail. Salvador has been so far quite superb. We're in a marina for the first time since the Canaries, which is a treat. Salvador, as the 3rd largest city in Brazil, doesn't have the best reputation for safety. But the place so far has felt very safe; you get a real feeling of being well protected seeing security guards walking round with pump-action shot guns and pistols cocked. Things get a little crowded with tourists when the cruise ships are in, but when they're not the place is quieter and safer. And the place really is quite stunning. In fact we like South America so much after spending a week or two here that we've decided that rather than spend a couple of months here, we'll spend a year instead. The window to cross to south Africa closes February/March, and from what we've seen and heard so far, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina deserve much more exploration. So the plan is to take time going down to north Argentina, then cross at the beginning of the window, which is around September/October time I think. Well I did say “total and unpredictable change” in the last blog post.

Salvador

Arrived in to Salvador yesterday. Had a really good 4 day crossing. Seems like a really nice area here. Anywhos, below if a blog post I wrote ages ago about the Atlantic crossing, but havent been able to update up till now: We arrived in to Recife on Wednesday. Should be here another few days before sailing off to either Salvador, which is 4-5 days away, or Rio, about 10 days away, depending on whether we can get charts for the former. Below is an Atlantic Crossing blog post I wrote when we arrived in Fernando and had opened to upload there., followed by a bit on Fernando and Recife. The Crossing First, to set the scene: it's currently about 11pm, November 3rd. I say it's 11pm, but our body clocks are set somewhere in the middle of the night thanks to John's imaginative setting of the ship's clock during the crossing. Impressively, we've been here on this islands of Fernando for 2 days and only this evening did we realise the time descrepancy. So here comes the Africa-South America Atlantic crossing blog. Unsurprisingly, and I guess thankfully, it was a mostly uneventful crossing. We made excellent progress throughout. The first 5 or 6 days the weather was a little volatile, and we went through 2 squalls and were close to a lightning storm. The last 6 days the wind was consistently from the south east at force five. In total, we crossed in 12.5 days, an average of 120 miles a day, nearly 5 knots/hour. We were expecting down-wind sailing most of the day, punctuated with frequent calms and squalls around the doldrums, which just didn't materialise. Not a great deal of wild-life to report. Not many flying fish, no whales (no wonder the whaling industry struggles these days, must be really tricky to catch the ellusive buggers). A few birds came and took a free ride on-board for a day or two, but that's about it. We did, however, see a lot of other ships – which is surprising considering that all the literature on-board claims that you cross the Atlantic and only see one or two other ships in the whole duration. The idea that the ocean is practically an empty body, and, when you do see the single tanker, you spend all afternoon on the radio swapping sailing stories, discussing weather and the general state of the British Empire, is utterly and shockingly bunk. Tally was 22 vessels spotted (16-6 to me on the Tanker Watch score sheet), and twice evasive action had to be taken with a tanker coming from behind. The former we reluctantly moved out of the way; the latter, John, with the radio in one hand, a flare in the second, and a lust for action in a metaphorical third, managed to get a rather reluctant Spanish captain with a lax attitude to watch-keeping to alter course. The trip, in my mind, was marked by two main events, the first savoury and the second sweet, both literally and figuratively speaking. The first week was unfortunately marred by a stomach upset, to use the light euphemism, which we were both suffering from when we departed. We initially presumed a meal out in Cape Verdes as the culprit, but due to it's lasting duration, fingers now point to a fowled water tank. Mostly inconvenient than debilitating, as the cabin took on the olfactory properties of an abattoir during night watches. On the plus side, based on the axiom that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I feel now our digestive systems could, quite literally, eat amoebic dysentery for breakfast (if counterbalanced with muesli). The second main event was the equator crossing party. In fact it was actually a triple celebration: a fancy dress party, a Halloween party, and the toast to Neptune itself. The fancy dress party, I'd like to mention before the photos are seen by others, was John's idea. He claims that months ago his costume came to him in a dream. As his rules stipulated that only items on the boat could be used (no items could be purchased beforehand), I was quite stuck to come up with decent garb. Living up to the challenge of an outfit John dreamt up so many months previous, John came dressed as an excellent Kenny from South park, creating the duffel-coat-covered head from stuffing the wheel cover with bedding. I came as Edward Scissorhands, the crux of the costume was gaffer-taping the kitchen and sewing scissors to my hands. Actually in retrospect it wasn't much of a fancy-dress party, per se: both our outfits weren't really fit for sailing. Mine was rather dangerous, and John couldn't actually get out of the hatch with his engorged headgear, so we changed soon after. For Halloween, we contemplated decorating the mainsail with toilet roll and eggs, until we realised we were running low on both toilet roll and eggs (for the reason, see above). So we settled with setting off a couple of out-of-date white flares. For the equator, we started with a couple of beers. John even got the fridge on 12 hours earlier, so our normal room-temperature beverages were cooled to slightly-below-room-temperature. We ate our final two Frey-Bentos Pies we'd saved specially. As luck would have it, we crossed the equator at sun-set, so supposedly we saw the fastest sunset anywhere on the planet. And it was a stunning sunset, improved by the afterimage glyphs we both were suffering with after staring at out-of-date white flares for too long. We allowed Randy, the self-steering gear, the honour of taking the helm as we crossed the line, as John was tied up popping the cork on the champers and I was opening up the bottle of Alton's Pride to give to Neptune. I also gave Neptune my cut-up Edward Scissorhands vest which I'm sure he appreciated. Once that was over, we then had the worthwhile but rather prolonged job of going back across the equator twice so we could both get “this is me on the helm when crossing the equator – look the GPS is on 00-00-000!” photos. No major problems with the boat. John's “leaks and creaks” daily check now involves finding things that aren't leaking or creaking, to save time, but other than that it's in good shape. Fernando De Noronha and Recife We stayed for a total of 4 days here. It was beautiful place, although expensive and rather full with tourists. There's little to see and do and not a good place to stock up on any supplies, so we didn't really want to hang about too long. But we frequented I think all the bars in the area, went for a meal out, went to check out the heavily-signposted “air france” tourist attraction which turned out to be a toilet block and piece of conceptual art that consisted of an old computer on top of a plinth, and took a taxi ride on the back of a dune buggy. We set off on Monday the 6th for the final 300 mile leg to the mainland. And progress didn't slow down – we did 150 miles the first day and 130 the second, arriving midday on Wednesday the 8th. The location is excellent – we're on mooring in a small channel with the breakwater before the Atlantic on one side, and Recife centre on the other. The yacht club consists of a nice if slightly unstable restaurant, one shower, Christina the club manager who wears a hair net and works in the kitchens, and a price of about £1 a day. We're the only visiting yacht in what appears to be whole of Recife, but on the first day we met a very helpful English guy who drove John in to town to do the formalities. I'll let John tell that story, which is a chapter in itself, but highlights for me include the crazy midget who through files around the office for 10 minutes, and the official with a boot on one foot and a flip flop on the other. Since our arrival we've done celebratory drinks in proper fashion, celebratory steak at the restaurant, and nursed hangovers inbetween. We've taken a walk down along the peer, and sat drinking beer on Boa Viagem beech. Today we're off in to town proper, to hopefully find a telephone and t'internet. So not a lot of Recife to report on yet, but first signs are that the 3 staples (beers, cigarettes, meat) and very, very cheap. Onwards We even have a rough idea of the next 6 months, obviously subject to total and unpredictable change at any point. If South America is as friendly, welcoming, and, well, cheap as our first impressions, we want to stick with the plan for exploring all the way down the coast, a distance of about 2 Atlantic crossings. Stop-offs include Salvador, Rio (where we want to spend Christmas and New Year), Rio Grande, Montevideo in Uruguay, Buenos Aires in Argentina. This would take us through to at least March. Then crossing over to Cape Town (via Tristan De Cunha) to arrive in April. A month there, then depart to cross back, via St Helena and Ascension islands. This will take us to June time earliest, the start of the hurricane season, so we will have 5-6 months to kill before heading to the Carib. Potential destinations include more Brazil (Recife, Fortaleza, or, if we're feeling really clever, the Amazon - Belem and onwards), Venezula, and Trinidad and Tobago. So that about covers it. Should be another internetting or two before we leave. Bye!

Fernando de Noronha

Got in at midnight last night, 12.5 days crossing. Excellent crossing, everything in good condition. On the only internet connection on the island so this is going to be a real quicky. Will be leaving for the mainland on Monday, should take 2 days or so. Proper update then.