Adventures In July

The second and final chapter of our winter of discontent. To recap where we were when we left off in the saga; we had left Sao Francisco Do Sul at the end of May to try to sail south to Rio Grande, and then out of Brazil. After a hellish sail which resulted in a knockdown just below 30 degrees south, we ran north and anchored in Pinheira, then Imbituba, to sort ourselves out. After a few weeks of rough anchorage we were ready and after a fortnight of waiting we had a clear weather window to repeat the trip. We set off from Imbituba on Sunday the 15th of June with the promise of high pressure and calmer conditions.

A Repeat

The trip started much as before. Very little wind, and a strong current running northwards made progress hard. On Tuesday evening we went through a rough patch of squalls, which would gust to 20 knots and then leave us becalmed. Then a stronger wind came from the south west, but we continued to make some progress. Around 5 in the morning this dropped, and we were greeted with a torrential downpour and an extremely confused sea and wind.

The first of our troubles then reared. A westly wind shocked us and hit at over 50 knots as John valiantly struggled to drop the main. It settled in to a steady 30 knot blow from the south-west. We had hopes that it would settle by morning. At sunrise we had our first look at the cloud conditions.

These were taken as they were finally clearing on Thursday morning, after 24 hours of wind steadily at 30 to 35 knots. The pictures don't really do them justice: they are freaky, ghost-like forms, very dark and moving amazingly swiftly across an otherwise clear and blue sky. We've seen nothing like them before nor can find any reference to them in our weather books. But they certainly kick up a breeze.

When they finally departed on Thursday morning the wind dropped to a force 7 and we could start looking at what to do. We had now run northwards, back across 30 degrees south again, and were close to where we first left. Trying to continue south wasn't really an option – we were well outside our weather window (which was useless anyway), the conditions were still pretty poor and unstable, and we had hundreds of miles still to cover. But if we didn't get down south, we wouldn't have another opportunity to get out of Brazil with our Visas. So we decided to push north, past our anchorages, back to Sao Francisco Do Sul, where we could hopefully arrange somewhere secure to leave Rebel so we could leave the country – down to Uruguay and Argentina – for a few months until we could get back in to Brazil.

This was easier said than done. By Thursday night the wind had moved round from south west at 10 knots, to west at 15, north-west and 20 and finally a northerly gale by nightfall. The next 24 hours we spent trying not to lose ground, tacking east, then west. We managed to lose only few miles to north. Friday we made some progress and were looking at an arrival on Sunday; Saturday was becalmed and we had to revise our estimate; but Sunday we finally got in some decent wind from the south, got caught in the current, and were making our final approach to Sao Francisco.

I've skimming over the whole sailing, as really it's pretty much a repeat of the trip before, except without the knock-down. The sea-state thankfully never got up to what it was in the storm in June, but generally we had even less luck with the wind. The parallels between the two trips are surprising: both times we left on Sunday, and arrived back a week later. We got down to roughly the same place below 30 degrees south before we had to run back north. And when we went back North, progress was dreadful.

Sao Francisco

Although sailing this far south is known to be tough, we can console ourselves that it seems we had particularly poor conditions. Our passage planning software reckons there is a 1% chance of a gale in a trip from Sao Francisco to Rio Grande: we had 4 in total. In 15 days of sailing, we perhaps had 24-36 hours of “good” sailing wind (10-20 knots from anywhere on the compass but where you're trying to go).

But we really got lucky when we got in to Sao Francisco. Within 2 hours we had tied up in a yacht club, had arranged a new mooring put in for us, had met with various people at the club, and were sitting down to a steak dinner. Monday afternoon we were tied on to 2 new huge concrete blocks, had information about flights and buses out of Brazil, and had caught up on a lot of sleep.

It's Tuesday now and we're looking at going to Florionopolis on Saturday to catch a 24-hour coach journey to Buenos Aires on Sunday. If all goes to plan, by Monday we will be having hot showers and drinking red wine. We've got lots to do between now and then – mainly cleaning up Rebel and getting her laid up for 3 months of winter.

So once again it's all change. The decision means that sailing to South Africa is now not possible with the time. When we return to Brazil we will be probably be sailing northwards through and out of Brazil, and have the options of French Guiana, Venezuela, Cuba, the Caribbean etc. But this is a long way away and we're both looking forward to not having to think about a boat for a good couple of months.

Next update will hopefully be done in a new country.