Salvador to Recife Journal

Tues 29 June
We left Aratu Yacht Club after the expiry of our ten free days (nothing cheap about us)
The food at the club was very good, a huge meal of steak and chips salads and beans etc cost R$5.50 (incidentally the Real's symbol is R$) we also were able to fill our gas bottles without any hassle, contrary to all the headshaking and chin-scratching that happened in Salvador. Here is the gas story, In Brasil, domestic gas is sold in containers less than 13Kg, these containers have a weeny little pipi that nobody in their right mind would trust. Commercial bottles, on the other hand, use EXACTLY the same fitting as South African gas bottles. (Commercial meaning any restaurant etc that uses 25Kg or bigger bottles), so all you have to do is take a taxi to Brasilgas factory and wait while they fill it.
We filled our diesel tanks at the "other" yacht club in Aratu, they have a brand new installation and therefore the diesel is clean by South American standards. We did first fill a jerry can and leave it for a few hours to confirm the lack of water. There were also some very expensive new boats (and lawyers) in the other club so we reckoned it would be OK.

Wednesday 30 June
Back at the New Bahia Marina (http://www.bahiamarina.com.br)(Pictures there) for one day to fill with water, prepare for sea, etc. Liz slipped on the upturned dinghy and suffered an impact cut on her right leg against the cap shroud bottle screw, as well as some other cuts to her toes of the right foot. The poor kid came to the cockpit saying "Its no big deal" and fainted on the spot. I picked her up and turned her upside down to recover. Laura was getting the trauma bag out while she came round. I used lignocaine with adrenaline and a number 5 suture and sewed her up with the finest stitches I could manage (she is going to be a woman soon so we dont want any scars) Cicatrin powder did the rest and it seems that its OK now.

Thursday 01 July
Sheesh! JULY ALREADY, we departed Salvador at 07h20 and made our way south out of the Baia de Todos os Santos and gave the Santo Antonio banks a wide berth. They have claimed many victims in the past. We turned northeast to a course of 080M and set a full genoa and main in 15 knots of Southeasterly wind, fantastic sailing 6 knots with loose sheets for comfort.

Friday 02 July
Now things start changing, seem to have a hell of a lot of leeway. Dodging squalls and ships is not much fun when you can only turn left (as you shouldn't) and that's towards a lee shore.
The current here sometimes sets directly onshore, guess what, we chose one of those times.

Saturday 03 July
This leeway thing is quite something, let me explain it for all you non yachties out there.
When you sail with the wind coming from one side the boat moves forward, yep, but it also moves sideways (a bad design really moves sideways quite a lot) so when you want to go from point "A" to point "B" and the wind comes from say the right side, you have to aim the boat a few degrees to the right to offset the drift to the left.

WELL here we were pinching into what the pilot charts say are Southeasterly winds of 15 to 20 kts but were actually East and Eastnoreast of up to 45 knots, in addition the current was setting directly onshore at 2 knots, we were 12 miles off on average, so our heading was 090 deg and our course was 028 deg, picture that for a moment (moving sideways) now imagine you are the captain of a merchant vessel overtaking (the give way vessel) you pick up your binoculars and see this yacht pointing over there and you aim your ship a bit to the left, the next thing the yacht is where you want to be. All this at night, with fishing boats along the 50 metre contour, their only nav lights consisting of candles in brown paper bags (well ok I exaggerate, the candles are in empty water bottles) and coastal merchantmen bombing up and down. I have never sailed at 1.5 knots in 30+ knots of wind until now.
Damage report: Teak seat on pulpit ripped off when we tested submarine mode for a bit.
One Aerogen blade failed and went into orbit so if you guys in the shuttle find it, throw it away, its bust.

Sunday 04 July
Turned the corner and got the wind past 60 deg off the bow Downhill by comparison. Plain sailing the whole day. Afternoon squalls made the wind die, started engine with 24 miles to go. No sense in staying at sea another night for the hell of it. Making our approach to Recife, we noticed a hell of a squall coming, so we took a picture just to show the incredible contrast in colours between the green sea and the black sky. As we arrived at the outer breakwater the squall hit us the visibility dropped to about 10 metres. We just weren't having any good luck on this leg. We couldn't see the harbour lights at all. Thank goodness we had installed some pretty neat gismos on the navigation side, Laura went downstairs and zoomed in on the chartplotter to maximum, she also switched on rain clutter exclusion to 100% and dropped the range to 1/3 mile on the radar, she then shouted "left a bit" "right a bit" to me standing at the companionway with my fingers on the +1 and -1 buttons of the autopilot. The channel is only about 200m wide with shoals on one bank and ships moored on the other. When the viz improved, I took over the con again from the wheel, and aimed to miss the ships by about 5 metres all along the channel. We arrived at the Pernumbuco yacht club, which our cruising guide had told us to give a miss, and found the waiters of the restaurant jumping into the ferry to show us to a mooring buoy, shouting "Welcoming Welcoming, You Follow Meee!" we tied up and I went to the clubhouse dripping wet in my oily jacket and shorts.

What I found was a mindblast.

The Pernumbuco Yacht Club has a glorious past. It was formed on 18 July 1949, and was for many years a regatta centre and an active competitive club. Alas the cost of yachts and other factors have reduced it to 25 members. The club facilities consist of a public phone and a toilet more or less. BUT there is now a restaurant there and the ritzy and chic of Recife spend their time on the terrace until the wee hours. There I was in my shorts and oilies dripping, while the diners looked on in approval. It turns out that the ambiance and romance of sailing is the recipe for the restaurants incredible popularity ( and I mean Really busy at least 15 waiters dashing about in a frenzy) Our arrival had been watched by the happy diners almost like live entertainment, the comings and goings of international cruisers being the reason for their patronage. We were offered "take aways" as they understand how tired we could be. The next day the restaurant manager came to take me to the authorities to do the necessary evils. During our brief walk around he explained the symbiotic relationship between the restaurant, (his employer), and the yachts all that I can say is VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! Pernumbuco Yacht Club - Well done. Oh and there is one more thing its all absolutely free! Of course the liquor license of the club has no small part to play with the success of the restaurant ;)

I mentioned just now that Armondo's employer is the restaurant, well, that just shows his humble nature, he and Christina actually own the place, I guess what he means is the restaurant employs all his time.

We have just moved to the Cabanga yacht club which is another mile up the river. This is a superb club, the facilities are tremendous. A short list would include; A huge pool (optimist training takes place in it); A mini Aqua park with slides for the kids, a playground, saunas, tennis courts, football field, basketball court, restaurant, bar, lounge with big screen TV, ablution facilities, wonderful barbeque (Braai) area with 5 or so little gazebo's with the grid and chimmeny and a granite slab with running water and a sink. A gymnasium is under construction at the moment and the exercise bicycles and assorted torture equipment have just arrived. 

The water is a bit on the shallow side here, and Gilana can only make it in or out of the little harbour at high tide, the max tidal range here is about 2.2 metres. We sit in the mud here at low water so the seacock is shut most of the time as I dont want to get crabs. The moorings consist of long ropes to the outer harbour wall, nose to, and stern lines to wooden pylons driven deep into the mud. Access is still by dink, although all sorts of Heath Robinson raft cum pasarelles are in evidence. The shore power is 220 volt at 60 Hz so DON'T run any inductive load here that is designed for 50 Hz. There are no circuit breakers in the Caxa Electrica (shore power box) so if you do draw a lot of power you will fry your plug. Water is also on the quay, one tap per two moorings. 

We are happy here in very secure surroundings and a bus stop right outside the main gate. Lots of jobs are being completed in a very relaxed timetable.

This club has for the last ten years hosted a regatta to the island of Fernando do Noronha. It has been a very successful event over time and is to date the biggest and the only offshore regatta in Brazil. As we are still waiting for our closest friend to join us on his yacht, we have decided to enter the regatta in a cruising class, with no real serious intentions of winning. There is also the possibility of taking some passengers/crew along for the trip. It is only 300 miles or two days away so the intrusion into privacy should not be a problem. The link to the website of the club and the regatta is http://www.cabangaiate.com.br this site has marvelous links to the regatta and also the island of Fernando. This is the place where we are going to swim with the dolphins etc, (if they will let us)