Lyn's Web Log, Jan - June 2006
Index
Atlantic Passage Part 1 Atlantic Passage Part 2 Fernando de Noronha Recife, Brazil Salvador, Brazil Carnaval	Fortaleza Passage to Belém Up the Amazon Iles du Salut Tobago Trinidad
Atlantic Passage Part 1 Welcome to 2006 (well nearly – 27^th December) and I’ll start with the subject which seems to dominate passage making, the weather. We left Praia on the Wednesday afternoon after a strong offshore wind blasted us the previous afternoon and night sticking a fine brown sand over the entire yacht. It was a good start, covering 120 miles in the first 24 hours not too uncomfortably with the wind always from the northeast and us heading slightly west of south, but it was consistently cloudy. After 3 days, the night before Christmas, we had our first night of sheet lightening and thunder and some rain. The balloons I had just put outside all burst. But as dawn broke the sky cleared giving us a beautiful Christmas day. As night came on again (we have 12 hour days and nights here) a particularly black cloud appeared and was sending out lightening. How ever Andrew tried to avoid being under it, it wasn’t long before there was thunder and bolt lightening shooting straight down from the clouds to the sea all around us. As the previous night, the wind almost died away. We unplugged all the aerial cables and drifted, hoping that we would not get hit with the lightening. Andrew wanted us to stay inside away from anything metal, apart from taking a look out every 20 minutes. The next day was good sailing under normal cloudy skies. There was a lull long enough in the morning for us to have a swim and inspect the rudder. There is play in the rudder which causes it to make a knocking, but everything appeared alright. But in the early hours the wind increased to such a force that we had to put three reefs in the main sail and the rain lashed down. Even with only that amount of sail we were still making 6 knots. Eventually it slowly decreased and by dawn I had the full main up again. Such strong winds are not meant to happen in this area. What will we get in future nights, fog? Much of our off-watch periods are spent trying to catch up on the sleep missed at night. Christmas day was very pleasant. We opened the few presents we gave each other in the morning and I dressed for the occasion in a two-piece swimsuit and my new crystal jewellery. We listened to the Christmas pop songs on tape and took photos of us under the tinsel and fairy lights. I slung the hammock from the baby-stay to shroud so that I could lie just above the side deck and not fall overboard, listening to the water rushing by. In the afternoon I played lots of carols and other Christmas songs on my clarinet, with Andrew trying to sing ‘Rudolph’ to ‘White Christmas’! Boxing Day we put the inflatable dinghy in the water and had a swim and a shampoo. The water was warmer than most swimming pools and was an incredibly clear blue. Other days, under the clouds, we have made a few minor repairs, including putting a patch on Andrew’s rotting trousers which were new when we left England. We have made mug/glass holders from the bottoms of plastic bottles velcroed onto the ends of the table and beside the cockpit. I made a Christmas cake and bread. And sometimes we have fished. Two days out I caught a small tuna fish which, with the addition of a small tin of seafood, an onion, a tin of mixed vegetables and vermicelli, made an excellent meal. I have never tasted fresh tuna like it. We had one ship come sailing by on Christmas day in the afternoon, but several in the nights, often coming closer than a mile and keeping us anxious, sometimes requiring the use of the radar to check on their course. We have opened the second of the ten bags of 5-days’ supply of tinned food, but for Christmas day we had fresh-baked rolls with white crabmeat in seafood sauce for lunch, some small figs from the Canary Islands, and in the evening we opened a chilled bottle of champagne and had dinner. This was 3 duck legs from a tin with some of the fat and juices, heated in a casserole with slices of orange, served with potatoes and tinned artichoke hearts. Dessert was a lovely Christmas pudding given to us by our friends Denbigh and Bon, with rum sauce. (The second half was eaten on Boxing Day). Today the wind has gone round to the South and we enter the Doldrums. It is 376 miles to our waypoint on the equator. Atlantic Passage Part 2 Happy New Year! We celebrated with the BBC world service who, after cricket results, broadcast the chimes of Big Ben and wished everyone a Happy New Year before reading the news. Not terribly exciting but we had a drink and then I went back to bed. This morning we crossed the equator at midday local time, sharing a rum and coke with Neptune. The Doldrums were a time of changing winds and weather. The wind was mostly around the northeast and the skies various amounts of cloud. One day was the day of rain. During the first torrential downpour I shampooed my hair and body and got it all rinsed out before collecting 17 litres of drinkable rainwater, filling our empty water bottles. It wasn’t filtered through rocks etc, as spring water, but poured through the bulge in the reefed mainsail. It looks clear and tastes fine. It continued to rain that day which meant having all the windows closed and often the hatch as well. It was very hot and damp and I don’t think my hair really dried all day. To add to the misery, we had a gas leak around the gas tap in the cupboard directly underneath where the gas bottle is on deck. When this is turned off, there is no leak, but when we want to use the cooker, the gas leaks into the cupboard. We could not keep the saloon shut up for too long. Now Andrew has smeared a lot more Calortite around the joints and it seems to be holding. We knew when we came out of the Doldrums because the wind suddenly changed to a constant south-easterly direction and a westerly current set in. This meant we had to sail close to the wind which, although we heal over in one direction instead of rocking from side to side, becomes rather bumpy when trying to go as close to the wind as possible. If we go too slow or bear off the wind, we cannot sail towards Salvadore. Eventually we have decided to make for the 4-mile long island of Fernando de Noronha, 200 miles off the eastern bulge of Brazil. This gives us another 5-10 degrees off the wind, but we are advised that the westerly current and the winds get stronger as we go West. Going to Salvadore would have taken perhaps another 12 days, whereas Fernando is 4 days. It is not a comfortable sail. Keeping the seacock off under the main sink makes the water in the drainage pipes get smelly every day and we have to ease the boat upright for a time long enough to open the seacock and change the water down the sink. We hove-to for a short while one day to make some small repairs/adjustments to the Aries steering. On New Year’s Eve another food bag produced a lovely tin of ham of which only half was needed for lunch, so I decided to use the rest in the evening meal. Nothing keeps very long as we do not have enough power for the fridge. Our generator barely gives us enough power for all the lights at night. I had a very pleasant evening with the fairy lights on and a Beatles cassette playing. I pampered my poorly neglected feet, soaking them in hot soapy water and then massaging them with T-tree moisturiser. Andrew gave them a lovely massage. Then I chopped an onion and garlic, fried them and added the chopped ham, a tin of ‘tomato frito’ and a tin of sliced mushrooms and some ground black pepper, and served it on cooked pasta, with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. For the last few days the wind increased so that the seas kept beating into and over us making it a very bumpy and hot ride for us inside, and not very easy to sleep at night. The increased speed meant we had enough power to have the fridge on by day and cool our drinks. It was a pity I didn’t put the bread in the fridge as it was mouldy by the third day after baking. We had dolphins with us a few times, and a lot of seabirds, mainly shearwaters, but I think we were going too fast to be successful with our fishing. When one of the birds went for the lure, I had to pull in the line very quickly and we lost the weight. We had a second wash day. We leave the dirty clothes in a bucket of hot soapy seawater for a couple of hours, rub it through, rinse three or four times in fresh seawater and then have a final rinse in half a gallon of fresh water. It is then pegged out on lines round the boat and dries in a couple of hours. In the heat the best clothing is swimwear, with T-shirt and underpants worn at night for that little extra warmth when on lookout or adjusting the sails. When it rains it is too hot for oilies, but I have made a sort of skirt out of a plastic bag to keep my bottom dry. Not exactly the height of yachting fashion! Fernando de Noronha Fernando de Noronha appeared as expected and we picked up a mooring around 9a.m. on Thursday 5th January. Time for a celebratory drink and a proper sleep. We arrived in the port area with a dolphin escort, several of which spun right out of the water. In the afternoon we went into the port office where two very friendly and helpful men took us through the paperwork, taking the equivalent of £140 in mooring and park fees for three days, and then volunteered to drive us to the airport where we could get some cash from apparently the only ATM on the island. We took a bus back. The island reminded us of the Caribbean. It struck us as being a rather pleasant, laid-back sort of place, a military base until recently but now given over to Brazilian tourists. There are lots of boat trips for fishing or diving, beautiful beaches with areas for snorkelling and possibly seeing turtles, palm trees, trees full of bright red flowers, and lots of buggies. There is one proper main road across the island which the bus takes, and the rest are dirt tracks. We had a lovely time snorkelling off some of the beaches, amongst a huge variety of colourful fish. With it being so warm, I felt I was swimming in a tropical fish tank. The reef fish were fabulous, parrotfish, angelfish, basslets, grunts etc, sometimes in huge glistening shoals. Most were varieties we had not seen elsewhere. They weren’t at all timid. Several changed colour to match the background, so Andrew had fun chasing them back and forth from sand to rocks. One type would flush bright pink in the fins after it had been made to change from yellow to mottled green/brown and back several times. Recife After four lovely days we decided it was time we set out for Salvador, but the wind was still not free enough to sail straight there, so we were heading for Recife. Three days later we arrived in Recife and picked up a buoy a little way inside the harbour wall just as dawn was breaking. After lunch there was enough depth with a rising tide to go to the recommended yacht club at Cabanga. This proved to be a wonderful place at a very cheap rate. The yachts are secured to a buoy at the stern and two long ropes from the bows to the marina wall, and although it is not possible to step ashore, there is a water by each mooring, though unfortunately not electricity. A good breeze blew through much of the day so the wind generator provided most of our power needs. On shore there are two swimming pools, one with flumes, a sauna and gym, bar-b-que areas, tennis court, an area for washing and drying sails, a restaurant and bar, and lots of helpful staff. All this cost around £4 per night. The old town of Recife and the port area are too far from Cabanga to walk, but the taxis are cheap and make travelling around very easy and at a bearable temperature. To check into Brazil we had a mass of paperwork to sort. We started with the Federal Police branch inside the port gates, then the Customs in a building opposite the police. The police did not take too long and gave us papers allowing us a three month stay in Brazil. Customs had us filling out similar forms again which the officer then had to transfer to fill in his new computer forms, a task with which he was clearly unfamiliar, having to refer to the manual page by page for every answer until complete and printed off. An hour later he was ready to give us our paperwork. He said that we must return when we left, and as that would be in three days we asked to have our leaving papers as well to save us a return trip. As the weekend was approaching he agreed, and without taking too much longer. We then rushed around to the centre of the old town for Port Control. This was a magnificent naval building into which we were ushered and asked to wait. A junior official came to see us, speaking only Portuguese. He looked through our sheaves of collected paperwork and eventually we understood we should have visited port health as well whilst in the port area. So the next day we visited the port health to fill in forms asking us if we had any rats aboard, had any of our rats died, had we had any burials at sea, etc. The lady in charge was married to a Scotsman and had only been back in Brazil a year. We had a long talk with her as it was possible that her husband could have taught Andrew’s stepson medicine at university in Scotland. It was then back to the port control and eventually we thought we had all the papers we needed. We spent a few days sightseeing and swimming in the marina pool, and then left for Salvador on Thursday 19th January. Salvador We arrived in Salvador on Monday 23rd January, the last ten miles with very little wind and a very hot sun. The umbrella had to come out again as a sun shade. The marina offices had no signs on the doors, nor was there a sign on the stairs to indicate the bar was above! We eventually spoke to Nicolaus who was the assistant who organised one’s arrival and departure and any other problems, especially as he could speak a little English, but he was so busy with the South African rally from Cape Town to Salvador that he did not really want anything from us. He told us that a man from the Federal Police would be coming to the marina to sort the South African boats and it would be best if we could catch him then. We didn’t see him and walked a long way trying to find the Federal Police Office, but it was impossible, and we eventually caught the man at the marina three days later. We presented him with all our papers from Recife, but we did not have the one important one he wanted. This was a leaving paper from Recife police, that they had not told us we needed. It appeared we had three options:- get the paper from Recife; get our passports stamped but get a fine for not having the correct paper; or pretend we hadn’t left Recife so that when we return there it is as if we hadn’t left. We would just have to be a bit careful whilst in Salvador as we were not officially there. We chose the third option so at least we didn’t then have to visit Customs and Port Control, and do it all again when we left! The marina is at the foot of an escarpment in what is said to be the most run down part of Salvador. People only come down here to work. The old town is on top of the escarpment where there is a breeze. There are four large lifts nearby, and a funicular railway (almost a lift), to take pedestrians to and from the top at a cost of two and a half pence each way. There is an interesting building by the marina which is an old market place, Mercado Modelo, now full of artisan shops. There are two restaurants upstairs, and Capoeira and gymnastics on display just outside. On Friday nights a small stage is set up and a live group play from around seven to eleven thirty for free. It gets very well attended but most of the drinks are beer or soft and there seems to be no trouble. The age group is much lower than ours, though. The marina bar does some very good caiparinhas, a local rum with chopped limes and much ice, and here we often socialised with some of the crews from the South African rally. One crew was from Germany and very kindly gave us several tins of food which they had cooked and tinned themselves before sailing. The meatballs and duck will help augment our rather poor selection of tinned frankfurters and feijoada from Brazil. Frankfurters and corned beef seem to be the only tinned meat available in the supermarkets. There are some really nice freshly prepared fruit juices, ‘sucos’, to be had from bars and restaurants, but when buying the boxed juices from the supermarket, it is good to get to know the brand you prefer as they vary considerably. After visiting the marina next door to have a ‘lift and hold’ for an hour to tighten the rudder bolts, we set out across the estuary to visit a couple of the islands for a few days. We were in the process of derusting and painting the anchor well cover which holds the windlass and so could not easily use the anchor. There was one marina at Itaparica in a pretty bay with sand banks appearing at low water like a small version of the Goodwins. The marina was no dearer than at Salvador, around £5 a night, but with cleaner water we could swim and enjoy a breeze. We sailed around the Ilha Do Frade island to check out its anchorage, deserted, and the next morning found ourselves enjoying a race to windward with two of the local wooden sailing craft. We beat them back to Salvador, but it was close in the early stages until we realised how they were sailing well inshore to keep out of the tidal current. A few days later when the paint was hardened and the windlass back in operation, we took a week out around the rivers and islands in the bay. It was beautiful and peaceful and we enjoyed some secluded anchorages. Sometimes we drifted under headsail alone, sheltering from the sun under the awning over the boom; some mornings there was no wind and we motored; and other times we had exhilarating windy passages tacking up wind against a current making progress frustratingly slow. One afternoon we anchored off a small village up river. It seemed that school had just finished for the day and a few adults and many children arrived at the small beach, the children jumping into the water and splashing about merrily. A water bus brought a mother of some of the children, and departed with the other adults from the beach. In the morning a full water bus arrived but could not reach the shore due to the low tide. It continued upstream close to the edge. Then a few people arrived at the beach looking rather like they had just missed the bus, and after a while departed again. On the 14th February we went back to the marina in Salvador to be sure of a place there for Carnaval. During the following week there were many workmen making preparations for the big event: putting up staging, boarding around certain buildings and statues, extra lighting, etc. The marina also filled up. Something large was constructed at the marina next door which began playing music until the early hours which was loud enough for the whole of Salvador to hear. Not too good for us when we want all the windows open for ventilation at night. The excitement and anticipation grew. Our newly arrived Spanish neighbour said, “Salvador is the best place in the world for Carnaval”. It was why he came. Whilst waiting, we continue to derust and paint, and get to grips with the local buses, doing a bit of sight-seeing. Carnaval Carnaval started modestly on Thursday evening 23rd February and grew each day to the last on Tuesday 28th February. The buses from outside the marina, the old centre of Salvador, which went to Barra during the earlier part of the evening, were full to bursting, despite there being a lot of them. The queue for the lift up to the Pelourinho area grew from just a few metres to right down the street. On board in the marina we were blasted with a cacophony of sounds. It was impossible to miss Carnaval! You just had to get out there as there would be no sleep before two in the morning, and then rise late in the day. In the Pelourinho area there was an area where some smaller bands paraded on foot. They often included children and many families with children visited this area. Sometimes the bands had a short time on a stage in front of a large band of dummy figures. In the main circuit the drum bands played just in front of the trucks containing all the sound equipment and speakers, and its own, or hired, singer and band on the top. In front of the drum band were dancers in matching outfits, and sometimes a caipoira group as well, performing their dance-fights at intervals. It was good to see all ages and shapes of people both dancing and in the bands. The whole thing slowly moved forward with frequent stops. In the Campo Grande and Barra areas the trucks were impressive long-vehicles packed with sound equipment and enormous ear-splitting speakers, with the band and ‘king and queen’ of the Bloco dancing on the top. There were no drum bands in front of these. Sometimes there are so many followers that there are two trucks, the second having a bar in its middle. Many of the Blocos have men in drag, dressed in matching mini skirts and tops, one lot as geisha girls, in front of the truck. The whole Bloco with its followers, are encircled in a rope guided and pulled by men stationed all around it. To be inside the rope you have to be a follower wearing the right coloured gear. One day there were hundreds of men wearing blue and white robes, matching sandals and socks and blue towelling imitation turbans, with ’75 years sons of Ghandi’ written on the robes. We wondered it were possible to be a Rastafarian son of Ghandi as one man had dread-locks hanging from beneath his turban! There were enormous numbers of military police on guard in groups of four or five, some on raised platforms and some walking the circuits. The crowds were also interspersed with lads carrying large polystyrene boxes containing beer, water bottles and cans of fizz, kept cold in ice. At various road junctions and squares were stalls selling drinks, only in cans or plastic cups, and various local snacks. We experienced the ‘atmosphere’ in the crowds and sitting at a bar on the edge of the circuit, a little more pleasant, but not being able to join in some of the songs which the locals new, or wishing to dance, we were not as impressed with this area. We had enjoyed walking round the Pelourinho area with the drum bands beating out their African rhythms making it impossible not to move to the beat, and the imaginatively dressed dancers were a delight to watch and photograph.

Lyn's Web Log, Jan - June 2006

Index

Atlantic Passage Part 1
Atlantic Passage Part 2
Fernando de Noronha
Recife, Brazil
Salvador, Brazil
Carnaval

Fortaleza
Passage to Belém
Up the Amazon
Iles du Salut
Tobago
Trinidad

Atlantic Passage Part 1

Welcome to 2006 (well nearly – 27^th December) and I’ll start with the subject which seems to dominate passage making, the weather.

We left Praia on the Wednesday afternoon after a strong offshore wind blasted us the previous afternoon and night sticking a fine brown sand over the entire yacht. It was a good start, covering 120 miles in the first 24 hours not too uncomfortably with the wind always from the northeast and us heading slightly west of south, but it was consistently cloudy. After 3 days, the night before Christmas, we had our first night of sheet lightening and thunder and some rain. The balloons I had just put outside all burst. But as dawn broke the sky cleared giving us a beautiful Christmas day. As night came on again (we have 12 hour days and nights here) a particularly black cloud appeared and was sending out lightening. How ever Andrew tried to avoid being under it, it wasn’t long before there was thunder and bolt lightening shooting straight down from the clouds to the sea all around us. As the previous night, the wind almost died away. We unplugged all the aerial cables and drifted, hoping that we would not get hit with the lightening. Andrew wanted us to stay inside away from anything metal, apart from taking a look out every 20 minutes. The next day was good sailing under normal cloudy skies. There was a lull long enough in the morning for us to have a swim and inspect the rudder. There is play in the rudder which causes it to make a knocking, but everything appeared alright. But in the early hours the wind increased to such a force that we had to put three reefs in the main sail and the rain lashed down. Even with only that amount of sail we were still making 6 knots. Eventually it slowly decreased and by dawn I had the full main up again. Such strong winds are not meant to happen in this area. What will we get in future nights, fog?

Much of our off-watch periods are spent trying to catch up on the sleep missed at night. Christmas day was very pleasant. We opened the few presents we gave each other in the morning and I dressed for the occasion in a two-piece swimsuit and my new crystal jewellery. We listened to the Christmas pop songs on tape and took photos of us under the tinsel and fairy lights. I slung the hammock from the baby-stay to shroud so that I could lie just above the side deck and not fall overboard, listening to the water rushing by. In the afternoon I played lots of carols and other Christmas songs on my clarinet, with Andrew trying to sing ‘Rudolph’ to ‘White Christmas’! Boxing Day we put the inflatable dinghy in the water and had a swim and a shampoo. The water was warmer than most swimming pools and was an incredibly clear blue. Other days, under the clouds, we have made a few minor repairs, including putting a patch on Andrew’s rotting trousers which were new when we left England. We have made mug/glass holders from the bottoms of plastic bottles velcroed onto the ends of the table and beside the cockpit. I made a Christmas cake and bread. And sometimes we have fished. Two days out I caught a small tuna fish which, with the addition of a small tin of seafood, an onion, a tin of mixed vegetables and vermicelli, made an excellent meal. I have never tasted fresh tuna like it.

We had one ship come sailing by on Christmas day in the afternoon, but several in the nights, often coming closer than a mile and keeping us anxious, sometimes requiring the use of the radar to check on their course.

We have opened the second of the ten bags of 5-days’ supply of tinned food, but for Christmas day we had fresh-baked rolls with white crabmeat in seafood sauce for lunch, some small figs from the Canary Islands, and in the evening we opened a chilled bottle of champagne and had dinner. This was 3 duck legs from a tin with some of the fat and juices, heated in a casserole with slices of orange, served with potatoes and tinned artichoke hearts. Dessert was a lovely Christmas pudding given to us by our friends Denbigh and Bon, with rum sauce. (The second half was eaten on Boxing Day).

Today the wind has gone round to the South and we enter the Doldrums. It is 376 miles to our waypoint on the equator.

Atlantic Passage Part 2

Happy New Year! We celebrated with the BBC world service who, after cricket results, broadcast the chimes of Big Ben and wished everyone a Happy New Year before reading the news. Not terribly exciting but we had a drink and then I went back to bed. This morning we crossed the equator at midday local time, sharing a rum and coke with Neptune.

The Doldrums were a time of changing winds and weather. The wind was mostly around the northeast and the skies various amounts of cloud. One day was the day of rain. During the first torrential downpour I shampooed my hair and body and got it all rinsed out before collecting 17 litres of drinkable rainwater, filling our empty water bottles. It wasn’t filtered through rocks etc, as spring water, but poured through the bulge in the reefed mainsail. It looks clear and tastes fine. It continued to rain that day which meant having all the windows closed and often the hatch as well. It was very hot and damp and I don’t think my hair really dried all day. To add to the misery, we had a gas leak around the gas tap in the cupboard directly underneath where the gas bottle is on deck. When this is turned off, there is no leak, but when we want to use the cooker, the gas leaks into the cupboard. We could not keep the saloon shut up for too long. Now Andrew has smeared a lot more Calortite around the joints and it seems to be holding.

We knew when we came out of the Doldrums because the wind suddenly changed to a constant south-easterly direction and a westerly current set in. This meant we had to sail close to the wind which, although we heal over in one direction instead of rocking from side to side, becomes rather bumpy when trying to go as close to the wind as possible. If we go too slow or bear off the wind, we cannot sail towards Salvadore. Eventually we have decided to make for the 4-mile long island of Fernando de Noronha, 200 miles off the eastern bulge of Brazil. This gives us another 5-10 degrees off the wind, but we are advised that the westerly current and the winds get stronger as we go West. Going to Salvadore would have taken perhaps another 12 days, whereas Fernando is 4 days. It is not a comfortable sail. Keeping the seacock off under the main sink makes the water in the drainage pipes get smelly every day and we have to ease the boat upright for a time long enough to open the seacock and change the water down the sink. We hove-to for a short while one day to make some small repairs/adjustments to the Aries steering.

On New Year’s Eve another food bag produced a lovely tin of ham of which only half was needed for lunch, so I decided to use the rest in the evening meal. Nothing keeps very long as we do not have enough power for the fridge. Our generator barely gives us enough power for all the lights at night. I had a very pleasant evening with the fairy lights on and a Beatles cassette playing. I pampered my poorly neglected feet, soaking them in hot soapy water and then massaging them with T-tree moisturiser. Andrew gave them a lovely massage. Then I chopped an onion and garlic, fried them and added the chopped ham, a tin of ‘tomato frito’ and a tin of sliced mushrooms and some ground black pepper, and served it on cooked pasta, with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

For the last few days the wind increased so that the seas kept beating into and over us making it a very bumpy and hot ride for us inside, and not very easy to sleep at night. The increased speed meant we had enough power to have the fridge on by day and cool our drinks. It was a pity I didn’t put the bread in the fridge as it was mouldy by the third day after baking. We had dolphins with us a few times, and a lot of seabirds, mainly shearwaters, but I think we were going too fast to be successful with our fishing. When one of the birds went for the lure, I had to pull in the line very quickly and we lost the weight.

We had a second wash day. We leave the dirty clothes in a bucket of hot soapy seawater for a couple of hours, rub it through, rinse three or four times in fresh seawater and then have a final rinse in half a gallon of fresh water. It is then pegged out on lines round the boat and dries in a couple of hours. In the heat the best clothing is swimwear, with T-shirt and underpants worn at night for that little extra warmth when on lookout or adjusting the sails. When it rains it is too hot for oilies, but I have made a sort of skirt out of a plastic bag to keep my bottom dry. Not exactly the height of yachting fashion!

Fernando de Noronha

Fernando de Noronha appeared as expected and we picked up a mooring around 9a.m. on Thursday 5th January. Time for a celebratory drink and a proper sleep.

We arrived in the port area with a dolphin escort, several of which spun right out of the water. In the afternoon we went into the port office where two very friendly and helpful men took us through the paperwork, taking the equivalent of £140 in mooring and park fees for three days, and then volunteered to drive us to the airport where we could get some cash from apparently the only ATM on the island. We took a bus back. The island reminded us of the Caribbean. It struck us as being a rather pleasant, laid-back sort of place, a military base until recently but now given over to Brazilian tourists. There are lots of boat trips for fishing or diving, beautiful beaches with areas for snorkelling and possibly seeing turtles, palm trees, trees full of bright red flowers, and lots of buggies. There is one proper main road across the island which the bus takes, and the rest are dirt tracks. We had a lovely time snorkelling off some of the beaches, amongst a huge variety of colourful fish. With it being so warm, I felt I was swimming in a tropical fish tank. The reef fish were fabulous, parrotfish, angelfish, basslets, grunts etc, sometimes in huge glistening shoals. Most were varieties we had not seen elsewhere. They weren’t at all timid. Several changed colour to match the background, so Andrew had fun chasing them back and forth from sand to rocks. One type would flush bright pink in the fins after it had been made to change from yellow to mottled green/brown and back several times.

Recife

After four lovely days we decided it was time we set out for Salvador, but the wind was still not free enough to sail straight there, so we were heading for Recife. Three days later we arrived in Recife and picked up a buoy a little way inside the harbour wall just as dawn was breaking. After lunch there was enough depth with a rising tide to go to the recommended yacht club at Cabanga.

This proved to be a wonderful place at a very cheap rate. The yachts are secured to a buoy at the stern and two long ropes from the bows to the marina wall, and although it is not possible to step ashore, there is a water by each mooring, though unfortunately not electricity. A good breeze blew through much of the day so the wind generator provided most of our power needs. On shore there are two swimming pools, one with flumes, a sauna and gym, bar-b-que areas, tennis court, an area for washing and drying sails, a restaurant and bar, and lots of helpful staff. All this cost around £4 per night.

The old town of Recife and the port area are too far from Cabanga to walk, but the taxis are cheap and make travelling around very easy and at a bearable temperature. To check into Brazil we had a mass of paperwork to sort. We started with the Federal Police branch inside the port gates, then the Customs in a building opposite the police. The police did not take too long and gave us papers allowing us a three month stay in Brazil. Customs had us filling out similar forms again which the officer then had to transfer to fill in his new computer forms, a task with which he was clearly unfamiliar, having to refer to the manual page by page for every answer until complete and printed off. An hour later he was ready to give us our paperwork. He said that we must return when we left, and as that would be in three days we asked to have our leaving papers as well to save us a return trip. As the weekend was approaching he agreed, and without taking too much longer. We then rushed around to the centre of the old town for Port Control. This was a magnificent naval building into which we were ushered and asked to wait. A junior official came to see us, speaking only Portuguese. He looked through our sheaves of collected paperwork and eventually we understood we should have visited port health as well whilst in the port area. So the next day we visited the port health to fill in forms asking us if we had any rats aboard, had any of our rats died, had we had any burials at sea, etc. The lady in charge was married to a Scotsman and had only been back in Brazil a year. We had a long talk with her as it was possible that her husband could have taught Andrew’s stepson medicine at university in Scotland. It was then back to the port control and eventually we thought we had all the papers we needed.

We spent a few days sightseeing and swimming in the marina pool, and then left for Salvador on Thursday 19th January.

Salvador

We arrived in Salvador on Monday 23rd January, the last ten miles with very little wind and a very hot sun. The umbrella had to come out again as a sun shade. The marina offices had no signs on the doors, nor was there a sign on the stairs to indicate the bar was above! We eventually spoke to Nicolaus who was the assistant who organised one’s arrival and departure and any other problems, especially as he could speak a little English, but he was so busy with the South African rally from Cape Town to Salvador that he did not really want anything from us. He told us that a man from the Federal Police would be coming to the marina to sort the South African boats and it would be best if we could catch him then. We didn’t see him and walked a long way trying to find the Federal Police Office, but it was impossible, and we eventually caught the man at the marina three days later. We presented him with all our papers from Recife, but we did not have the one important one he wanted. This was a leaving paper from Recife police, that they had not told us we needed. It appeared we had three options:- get the paper from Recife; get our passports stamped but get a fine for not having the correct paper; or pretend we hadn’t left Recife so that when we return there it is as if we hadn’t left. We would just have to be a bit careful whilst in Salvador as we were not officially there. We chose the third option so at least we didn’t then have to visit Customs and Port Control, and do it all again when we left!

The marina is at the foot of an escarpment in what is said to be the most run down part of Salvador. People only come down here to work. The old town is on top of the escarpment where there is a breeze. There are four large lifts nearby, and a funicular railway (almost a lift), to take pedestrians to and from the top at a cost of two and a half pence each way. There is an interesting building by the marina which is an old market place, Mercado Modelo, now full of artisan shops. There are two restaurants upstairs, and Capoeira and gymnastics on display just outside. On Friday nights a small stage is set up and a live group play from around seven to eleven thirty for free. It gets very well attended but most of the drinks are beer or soft and there seems to be no trouble. The age group is much lower than ours, though.

The marina bar does some very good caiparinhas, a local rum with chopped limes and much ice, and here we often socialised with some of the crews from the South African rally. One crew was from Germany and very kindly gave us several tins of food which they had cooked and tinned themselves before sailing. The meatballs and duck will help augment our rather poor selection of tinned frankfurters and feijoada from Brazil. Frankfurters and corned beef seem to be the only tinned meat available in the supermarkets. There are some really nice freshly prepared fruit juices, ‘sucos’, to be had from bars and restaurants, but when buying the boxed juices from the supermarket, it is good to get to know the brand you prefer as they vary considerably.

After visiting the marina next door to have a ‘lift and hold’ for an hour to tighten the rudder bolts, we set out across the estuary to visit a couple of the islands for a few days. We were in the process of derusting and painting the anchor well cover which holds the windlass and so could not easily use the anchor. There was one marina at Itaparica in a pretty bay with sand banks appearing at low water like a small version of the Goodwins. The marina was no dearer than at Salvador, around £5 a night, but with cleaner water we could swim and enjoy a breeze. We sailed around the Ilha Do Frade island to check out its anchorage, deserted, and the next morning found ourselves enjoying a race to windward with two of the local wooden sailing craft. We beat them back to Salvador, but it was close in the early stages until we realised how they were sailing well inshore to keep out of the tidal current.

A few days later when the paint was hardened and the windlass back in operation, we took a week out around the rivers and islands in the bay. It was beautiful and peaceful and we enjoyed some secluded anchorages. Sometimes we drifted under headsail alone, sheltering from the sun under the awning over the boom; some mornings there was no wind and we motored; and other times we had exhilarating windy passages tacking up wind against a current making progress frustratingly slow. One afternoon we anchored off a small village up river. It seemed that school had just finished for the day and a few adults and many children arrived at the small beach, the children jumping into the water and splashing about merrily. A water bus brought a mother of some of the children, and departed with the other adults from the beach. In the morning a full water bus arrived but could not reach the shore due to the low tide. It continued upstream close to the edge. Then a few people arrived at the beach looking rather like they had just missed the bus, and after a while departed again.

On the 14th February we went back to the marina in Salvador to be sure of a place there for Carnaval. During the following week there were many workmen making preparations for the big event: putting up staging, boarding around certain buildings and statues, extra lighting, etc. The marina also filled up. Something large was constructed at the marina next door which began playing music until the early hours which was loud enough for the whole of Salvador to hear. Not too good for us when we want all the windows open for ventilation at night. The excitement and anticipation grew. Our newly arrived Spanish neighbour said, “Salvador is the best place in the world for Carnaval”. It was why he came. Whilst waiting, we continue to derust and paint, and get to grips with the local buses, doing a bit of sight-seeing.

Carnaval

Carnaval started modestly on Thursday evening 23rd February and grew each day to the last on Tuesday 28th February. The buses from outside the marina, the old centre of Salvador, which went to Barra during the earlier part of the evening, were full to bursting, despite there being a lot of them. The queue for the lift up to the Pelourinho area grew from just a few metres to right down the street. On board in the marina we were blasted with a cacophony of sounds. It was impossible to miss Carnaval! You just had to get out there as there would be no sleep before two in the morning, and then rise late in the day.

In the Pelourinho area there was an area where some smaller bands paraded on foot. They often included children and many families with children visited this area. Sometimes the bands had a short time on a stage in front of a large band of dummy figures. In the main circuit the drum bands played just in front of the trucks containing all the sound equipment and speakers, and its own, or hired, singer and band on the top. In front of the drum band were dancers in matching outfits, and sometimes a caipoira group as well, performing their dance-fights at intervals. It was good to see all ages and shapes of people both dancing and in the bands. The whole thing slowly moved forward with frequent stops. In the Campo Grande and Barra areas the trucks were impressive long-vehicles packed with sound equipment and enormous ear-splitting speakers, with the band and ‘king and queen’ of the Bloco dancing on the top. There were no drum bands in front of these. Sometimes there are so many followers that there are two trucks, the second having a bar in its middle. Many of the Blocos have men in drag, dressed in matching mini skirts and tops, one lot as geisha girls, in front of the truck. The whole Bloco with its followers, are encircled in a rope guided and pulled by men stationed all around it. To be inside the rope you have to be a follower wearing the right coloured gear. One day there were hundreds of men wearing blue and white robes, matching sandals and socks and blue towelling imitation turbans, with ’75 years sons of Ghandi’ written on the robes. We wondered it were possible to be a Rastafarian son of Ghandi as one man had dread-locks hanging from beneath his turban!

There were enormous numbers of military police on guard in groups of four or five, some on raised platforms and some walking the circuits. The crowds were also interspersed with lads carrying large polystyrene boxes containing beer, water bottles and cans of fizz, kept cold in ice. At various road junctions and squares were stalls selling drinks, only in cans or plastic cups, and various local snacks. We experienced the ‘atmosphere’ in the crowds and sitting at a bar on the edge of the circuit, a little more pleasant, but not being able to join in some of the songs which the locals new, or wishing to dance, we were not as impressed with this area. We had enjoyed walking round the Pelourinho area with the drum bands beating out their African rhythms making it impossible not to move to the beat, and the imaginatively dressed dancers were a delight to watch and photograph.

Fortaleza We returned to Recife and Cabanga Yacht Club for ten days. We needed a chandlery, and were told of one on the other side of Olinda, to the north of Recife. We took a taxi to the old, touristy part of Olinda but could not find the chandlers. Eventually we asked the ‘tourist police’. They were most helpful, telephoning for a young officer who spoke English and could understand just what it was we wanted. He found out where it was and got us a taxi to take us there. It only took nearly an hour to organise!! Here we ordered a new depth sounder and the manager kindly delivered it to the yacht club in four days. We checked out with the police, customs and Capitainerie, stocked with food, diesel and water, and proceeded northwards to Natal. Having now got a new depth sounder, the original one has been working perfectly, of course. Sixty eight miles along the coast we entered a river at Joao Passoa at three in the morning, and left twelve hours later. It was a beautiful peaceful spot. We were looking forward to seeing Natal, a further 77 miles north as others had said how nice it was. But when we picked up the one free buoy, someone came out of the club and waved us off. No-one came to explain or help and we anchored as close as we could get without fouling other moorings. Feeling unwanted, I rowed ashore and had to break into the back of the yacht club grounds in order to reach the road. I bought some food and returned to the yacht. In the morning we left. On the other side of the river from the town, is Natal's holiday resort on sand dunes where beach-buggy rides are the main attraction. The sands stretch for many miles north from Natal. A long new bridge is being built over the river estuary and will be an easy landmark for identifying Natal from the sea. Continuing north for another two hundred miles we had a very pleasant few days with moderate winds anywhere from the side to behind, and up to two knots of current speeding us on our way. This makes for comfortable, easy sailing. It was so hot we stripped off and threw buckets of seawater over each other. We had one downpour during the day when I had just shampooed my hair and the rain rinsed me off well. We arrived at Fortaleza in the early hours and anchored behind the breakwater. We had a cooling swim in the morning and watched a 350 foot four masted Spanish naval training ship, Juan Sabastian de Elcano, moor while their band played and the crew lined the deck in their whites.
The marina at Fortaleza.	From the Fortaleza breakwater, we motored across the bay to the marina and found a small area crowded with yachts moored stern-to on a rickety steel pontoon with ropes and anchors stretched out in front leaving very little room to move. Several of the yachtsmen already there started to shout conflicting instructions as to what we should do. We decided to drop a stern anchor and come bows into the pontoon in the one convenient gap, but almost immediately we hit bottom and it was still a long way from low tide. We pulled back retrieving the stern anchor, but it fouled one of the mooring buoys. Then as we tried to back clear it just went from bad to worse and we managed to get about three stern anchor ropes from other yachts caught under our hull, between the rudder and keel. One went around the propeller, and we were helpless.
Too demoralised to sort ourselves out, we were very grateful to John from Miyott who offered to dive under and free the ropes. All came clear without cutting, and two hours after our disasterous arrival we were at last tied up properly, though still a boat length off the pontoon. This was no real problem and we were not the only ones having to use the dinghy to cross to the pontoon. It saved the yacht from hitting the pontoon accidentally when they all surged around. We rewired our shore power cable to fit the local three-pin socket available, and there was also a hosepipe provided. The best thing about this marina was the fact that it was part of the five-star hotel complex. This meant that for £10 per night we had full use of the marvellous swimming pool, poolside bar, games room, restaurant, and wifi. The restaurant did an ‘eat as much as you like’ hot and cold buffet every evening for £6. It was very smart with lots of attentive waiters, and so air-conditioned the heat hit you as you walked outside! We did the checking-in formalities and as usual there was one vital form missing. This time it was for customs, but luckily they were satisfied with visiting the yacht next morning rather than sending us back to Recife again. Then we had to visit yet another police federal (immigration) office and got our three month extension on our visas. There were only us, a family of three from Cape Verde and a Portuguese girl wanting extensions, but it still took two hours for them to process masses of paperwork and collect another £5.50 from each of us. Now we have to go back to customs to get the same for Sentinel. And then we do the whole round of federal police, customs and Capitainerie yet again, in order to leave. We have done a little sightseeing (there isn’t much to see except beaches) but mostly, after working on the boat, we spend the latter part of the afternoon around the pool and bar. Then, after dinner, we visit the games room and play table tennis and bar football. We had some pleasant tiimes with our new-found yachting friends; Erwin and Michel, two Frenchmen sailing alone, (Erwin we had met in Salvador and Recife), and Delyn and John from South Africa with their twin teenager sons. Andrew took one of the rotting wooden dorade boxes off the deck while doing some more derusting, and then we had a couple of holes in the steel to patch with fibreglass after painting. We found and bought a small thick, sheet of polystyrene and put blocks of it under the dinghy seats for bouyancy should the dinghy capsize. I made some rain deflectors from PVC which stick out of the cabin windows when the mosquito screens are jammed in, and a cover over our aft cabin where we sleep so that the windows could be left open when it rains. The rainy season is definitely upon us (six inches one night) and humidity is between ninety and hundred percent. We have collected gallons of rainwater to drink and have now got a drain pipe from our awning to the main water tank. We shall have been in Fortaleza just over a week. When we have checked out and stocked up again, we shall head off to Belém (a week at sea) and decide whether to go up the Amazon. We have started on the malaria pills and are hoping not to suffer from nasty side effects. We shall miss having free internet and Skype and may not find any internet from now on until Trinidad. Passage to Belém We left Fortaleza on the 13th April. We pulled ourselves out of our mooring without entagling with anyone else's ropes, but then as we put the engine into gear it made a very loud rumbling noise which might have been caused by a damaged prop shaft. This can happen if ropes tangle the propellor, and we had not tested the engine again after our disasterous arrival. At the very least the cutlass bearing might be damaged. To check it we would need to get the boat on dry land. We dropped the anchor and rowed back ashore to ask the marina manager if there was anywhere around where we could dry out. It seemed there wasn't. The best idea, Armando assured us, was to sail to the fishing village of Luis Correia some 200 miles along the coast, where there was a brand new marina that would surely be able to assist us. With no better suggestions, we set off. Two and a half days later we arrived at the breakwater at the entrance to Luis Correia. The village was over a mile up the river against a 3 knot current. We gingerly engaged the engine and found to our relief it was no longer making a noise, at least at low speed. We anchored off a small beach with some fishing boats and had a drink in the bar. Andrew rowed a little further up river to investigate the so-called marina and found some pilings crowded with fishing boats and a small rickety pontoon where one yacht, at its peril, might just about tie up. There were rubbish bins nearby and a closed office, but nothing else. The fishermen were friendly and tried to converse with us, but unfortunately they did not speak slowly with hand gestures and we understood very little, only that it was Easter and perhaps something was happening in the town in the evening. There was obviously nowhere we could dry out so we never mentioned it. It was a poor fishing village, with few amenities other than an ice factory and a pretty church. Largely single-roomed dwellings and unmade roads. The remains of some old military buildings, roof tiles and paving slabs, were being dug up by local people re-using them for their own properties. The following morning we went back to the breakwater anchorage where the sea was a little clearer and Andrew could dive down to see the prop shaft. He decided the cutlass bearing must have worked loose, which was causing the noise, so he took a spanner down and tightened it a little. It took a lot of diving over a few hours. Being my birthday, we then decided to go back up the river to the "marina", as it was near the village centre, and eat out. We saw no decent shops - just an extremely basic bakery with a few other provisions, and a couple of tiny, open-air bars, one serving food. We had spicy fried chicken, black beans in gravy, rice, spaghetti, salad with herbs and two large beers for just over £3. We were the only (paying) customers, so the lads running the restaurant changed the video tape to one in English of a past American pop concert (artists and songs I haven't heard in a while) and the food was well presented. There were huge smiles when we left a £1.20 tip! It must be my cheapest ever birthday treat, but not bad for all that. The one thing I missed was a caiparinha - they apologised but I don't think they had any ice. Next day we set off for Belem expecting a 5-6 day passage for the remaining 550 miles, and in fact it took seven. One day was extremely slow with no wind, and another was constant heavy rain. We hitched a bucket under the gooseneck, where the boom meets the mast, and collected 15 gallons of drinking water. Mostly though it was a pleasant passage with moderate winds, and hot sunshine. The current often gave us an extra knot which helped a lot. At night the phosphorescence illuminated our wake, and at times great explosions of light seemed to bubble up in the sea around us. As we got nearer to the Amazon, the sea became shallower and increasingly a green-brown tinge. I made bread twice, used up our most rusty tins of food (see "Passage to Recife"), and managed to smash my thumb opening the hatch. We anchored just inside the mouth of the river Pará at the entrance to the Amazon system, as it got dark in the evening of 23rd April. There was a three knot tidal current in the river, so at dawn we took advantage of the favourable current to get going again. Fishermen were spreading drift nets half a mile long across the river and we had to zig-zag around them - travelling at night would have been impossible. We anchored by a pretty looking village for three hours during the worst of the foul tide, but unfortunately the current was too strong for us to go ashore. Then we just made the last 20 miles to Belem as it got dark, but could not find the yacht club moorings and had to anchor off, clear of the busy river traffic. In the morning we realised the club was directly opposite on the other bank of the river, about a mile from where the chart marked it. Amazon After about a week in Belem sorting out our arrival and leaving documents and buying charts from the navy, we topped up with fuel, water, food and drink and set off up the Amazon on 30th April. We motored around 50 miles a day and kept the sun awning up to give us shade from the sun and collect water when it rained. The current in the river reached two and a half to three knots but we managed to have it with us most of the time. As long as we could make more than four knots over the ground we kept going. The fastest speed we made over the ground was when leaving the estuary, making ten knots! For a day or two the river was quite wide and shallow at the sides, so we could not see much of what was on the shore, but on the river were various ferries and local craft, logs and floating islands of mangrove caught up on bits of wood – all best avoided. There were also barges mostly carrying long-vehicle trucks. Two of these barges, one behind the other, were pushed by a short boat three stories high, as high as its length, so that the helmsman could see over his load. The biggest pusher we saw had four barges carrying fifty trucks. Sometimes we heard a big splash in the water like a large fish had jumped. Then we might see a dorsal fin. These were dolphins of which there appeared to be two kinds in the Amazon rivers, very pale in colour. Some were pearly pink and some silvery grey. We heard their breathing holes as they surfaced and saw a bottle nose and a fin more fish-like than normally associated with dolphins, as they curved through the surface of the water. The part we enjoyed the most was when we went up a couple of smaller, less used rivers. There was always at least one residence in sight. These dwellings were very like the summerhouses found in garden centres in England - single storey pitched roofed wooden huts with a door and one or two windows in the front, and maybe a porch. The windows would not have glass but possibly wooden shutters inside. They were built on stilts with a wooden staging jutting out into the river on which would be tied a dugout canoe. As we came up the river the children and often the women too, would leap into their dugouts and come paddling out to get a closer look. Sometimes they would try to paddle as fast as we motored, and loved to get in the wake behind. Everyone waved.Now we know how the queen must feel waving and smiling for hours on end! When we stopped near one house for the current to weaken, some children paddled over and offered us some bananas and a jar of palm hearts. Two nights later we anchored off a tiny village in the middle of nowhere just before a terrific thunderstorm. Soon after we had a surprisingly pleasant visit by a mother and two daughters who paddled out to give us a couple of fish beautifully prepared for cooking with a couple of limes, and some fresh bread. We insisted on giving her a little money and the girls each a tin of guarana (a fizzy drink). We were probably invited to visit, but not speaking the language makes it very difficult and we would have been too embarrassed to visit. Their house seemed to be larger than most and shared by at least two families. Their staging was where the ferry docked. They were the only house with a noisy generator providing them with electric light until around ten o’clock when the ferry had left. There were three villages we visited en route, Breves, San Sebastian, and Afua. Here we were able to get very basic food supplies and top up on diesel. I enjoyed these towns, particularly Afua, more than the city of Belem. In Afua, the children were flying kites they had made from pieces of plastic, thin canes and fishing line. There were bikes everywhere with passengers on the crossbar or rack behind the saddle, and four-wheeled bikes with bench seats able to carry four to eight people. The whole town was built over mangrove swamp with the buildings on wooden stilts, joined by wooden boardwalks. The people wanted to shake our hands and talk to us, asking if we were from the yacht and where we had come from. Wherever we went in the Amazon we were a curiosity. It took a week to get from Belem to Afua, and then another three days to leave the Amazon waters. After another three days we anchored off French Guyana at the Iles du Salut. Iles du Salut The three Iles du Salut are tiny dots twenty miles off the coast of French Guyana, a little further north from Cayenne. I have never seen so many palm trees so close together as on these islands, and they are small enough to walk round in a couple of hours. Until 50 years ago the islands were a prison and now the buildings are mostly very overgrown ruins. Coconut palms obviously grow quite quickly. Part of the prison cell buildings have been preserved enough to see what the awful conditions would have been like, and some of the surviving warders cottages are still either lived in or can be rented for holidays. There is a camping area, and a small hotel with a restaurant and bar. This was wonderful not only for the glorious views and cold drinks, but also to enjoy the French cuisine and wine again. In the grounds we found many aguti, iguanas, parrots, peacocks, and monkies. There were many coconuts lying on the ground, both green and brown. It was the green ones that the Brazilians used for chilled coconut milk, but we took a brown one back aboard. We could hear the milk inside of it and was surprised just how light it was. We sawed it in half losing the small amount of milk but enjoyed a fresh coconut meat. There were also bananas and limes ready for eating, but as they were still attached to the plants we left them alone. When the monkey shook some limes out of the tree, the aguti beneath were waiting to carry them off! The first day at the islands was very windy and wet, with just a brief spell in the afternoon for a quick explore, but the second was calm with a hot sun. It was not possible to get any kind of supplies on the islands but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and break from sailing. We now had 600 miles left to get to Tobago. We left the islands on Tuesday 16th May and soon left the clouds and rain behind and had the Trade winds blowing us steadily on our way, with the Guinea current giving us anything from half to two knots extra speed. It was sometimes rather rolly, but the seas calmed down and it was a pleasant, fast passage of only five days. I have to admit though that I do get bored. But there were two or three memorable incidents. The cooker swings back and forth as the boat rolls, but on its forward swing it would keep sticking and then would suddenly unstick, throwing around anything in the oven and spilling the pot on the hob as it jerked backwards. One evening Andrew got so annoyed at this he kicked the cooker. In the oven he was cooking a tinned pie and the half-baked pastry topping slid all over the gas jets at the back of the oven. A big sticky mess caked itself over all the nooks and crannies at the back of the oven and glued up the jets. We got it cleaned up eventually when in harbour, but it was not a happy evening. The next evening after dinner we had enjoyed a French tin of duck legs in lentils and the bones and skin were in one of our dishes for disposing overboard. Andrew went to throw out the waste, but somehow lost his grip on the dish. The waste was plastered over the boom and the deck and the dish floated in the sea. Andrew went into man-overboard drill turning the boat round and, with the boat hook, a looked out for the dish. After a while we turned around again and I saw the dish. We had three attempts at retrieval, not it was impossible to actually hook up the bowl in quite big seas, and then it became too dark to find it any more. We'd put on the engine in reverse during this exercise, forgetting about our towed generator, and were very fortunate that its rope hadn't got wrapped round the prop shaft. During these manoeuvres the preventer rope, which is tied to the booom to stop an accidental gybe, had been partly loosened to enable the boat to turn, and we forgot to reset it. Later when I was steering, the boom gybed accidentally which would not normally have been a problem, but the loose preventer swung across the cockpit and caught me around the neck trying to decapitate me. It left me with a nasty rope burn halfway round my neck, though it did not break the skin and the accident could have been a lot worse. One afternoon when I was in the saloon, I heard a lot of squeaky screeching. Looking out, there were lots of noisy birds flying around as if there were fish nearby, and then I heard a blow and spray and saw a long dark back glide through the surface of the water beside us. It was a whale as long as our yacht. We watched it blow several times as it moved on but never saw any more of it. It was the closest I’ve seen such a large whale. Tobago We would have arrived at Scarborough, Tobago around midnight on 20th May, but as the main harbour has a notorious rocky reef outside we decided not to enter in the dark. So we hove to and drifted for several hours offshore before making our entrance at dawn. We were now arriving on a Sunday, which meant we had to pay overtime fees to the authorities. They are quite strict about reporting arrival immediately regardless of time or day or night, even if it means the officials have to get up to see you! If we had realised we were going to have such a fast trip we might have stayed another day in the islands of Salut. Anyway, it was great to be back in civilisation and have a comfortable sleep well into the morning. The Customs and Immigration were very pleasant and did not take very long. We found an ATM and got some Trinidad dollars, some bread, and later looked for a restaurant. Being Sunday afternoon, nearly everywhere was closed, but a KFC was open and we were tucking into fried chicken and chips, with red banana drink, listening to calypso music. As we listened we realised it was a song about being careful during carnival not to sleep with anyone or you might wake up dead! It was not the only time we heard songs with AIDS messages. People here drove on the left and spoke English – well sort of. It kept taking us by surprise when stallholders spoke as we passed, and instead of us just looking blankly in ignorance, as we had through the sucession of Portuguese speaking countries, found we did understand despite the accent and perhaps should respond. One day we went on a day trip around the island. There were just us and the driver, who chatted away giving us lots of information. He showed us the cocoa tree, of which there are many, broke the shell of a bean pod exposing the seeds inside. We sucked the white substance off the seeds and tasted the chocolate flavour. When the seeds are dried, they are ground to make the cocoa. We viewed many of the beautiful beaches and forest scenery. There was one long high ridge across the island but the rest was extremely hilly with houses built on stilts somehow attached to the pinnacles or beside the winding roads dug into the hillsides. We stopped at Englishman’s Bay and had a short swim and a drink, and then later at a restaurant built around the branches of a tree right on the beach. The lunch provided here was as excellent as the location. We drove through the forest and made another stop where, with a guide, we visited a three-tiered waterfall. The bottom pool was deep and people were feeding the fish. We clambered up to the middle pool which was about six feet deep and swam under the shower of the waterfall from above. The guide pointed out to us a tree whose fresh leaves could make shampoo, boiled dried leaves made a tea to relieve flu symptoms, and the centre of the stalks made cigarette filter tips. There were cocoa trees, bread fruit and bread nut trees, huge Japanese canes, and some pretty birds. Lastly we drove to Fort George on the high hill by the port, beside the lighthouse, where we could see our yacht and much of the island. Andrew had to see a dentist and will have to have a tooth pulled in a few days time, so we decided we could sail round the island in that time, clockwise. I’m not sure why this was the recommended way to go because we had adverse current for 70% of the way. The first short leg was round to Store Bay, rounding the far southwest flat peninsular on which was the airport and runway. This was a rather pretty anchorage and very popular. There was easy landing on the beach, a small town and buses to Scarborough for greater shopping when needed. There was a cooling breeze in the bay and the water was magnificent for swimming or snorkelling around the rocks near the shore. The next day we sailed to Parlatuvier Bay, although the last third of the way we motored due to making little headway against the wind on the nose and the adverse current, and then a blinding downpour. One other yacht came to join us. We anchored not far from a concrete fishing dock where we could get in and out of the dinghy with dry feet. Andrew collected a few jerrycans of water from a tap on the dock. It looked like the weather would not make for pleasant anchoring further east along the island, so we stayed here two nights. Just up the road we tried to find a waterfall mentioned in our guidebook. We crossed the little river and followed a track up high into the hills for an hour or so through thick jungle until it eventually petered out into a stony stream. Here we decided that either there wasn't a waterfall after all, or we had come the wrong way, so we went back down. This time we followed the river's edge round a bend, to discover we had been right by the waterfall at the start. There was no-one around so we bathed in the cool water, took some photos, and returned refreshed. We may have taken the wrong track at first but it had been worth it for the scenery. The next afternoon we went to Man-of-War Bay and Charlotteville in the northwest of the island, where I bought a cap to replace the one I had just lost at sea, some fruit and two cold beers. Andrew did not go ashore. The next morning we made our way north and east between the island and its off-lying rocks, one of which is a complete arch called locally 'London Bridge.' The water became extremely rough in this area, one of the roughest spots we have encountered anywhere with fierce cross-currents, complicated by a very dangerous unmarked rock just beneath the surface where we could see the water swirling as we passed. As we came around the northeast corner of the island and started heading south to go inside Little Tobago, the sea smoothed a little but the current increased to 4 knots against us. We motored sailed through the worst of it. It eased off somewhat as we headed west again along the south coast of the island, but did not become favourable until we were nearly back to Scarborough again, in good time before nightfall. Trinidad After the dentist pulled the tooth, we checked out of Tobago and returned to Store Bay early afternoon for a last swim. At 10 p.m. we set out to Trinidad to arrive well off any dangers by dawn. We made our way round the northwest point into Chagaramas Bay during the morning and were taken aback by the sheer numbers of boats. We hadn’t seen so many boats in one place for a long time. The anchorage was now full of mooring buoys and all were occupied. On the seaward edge some yachts were at anchor and we joined them. It was a long row to get ashore.
Immigration and Customs had to be revisited even though Trinidad and Tobago are one country, but were very quick, only requiring a look at the papers from Tobago. We then visited the boat yard we hoped to lay up in and found it was a national holiday so we could do nothing until the next day. That seemed to happen regularly during our stay in Trinidad. Chaguramas in the northwest of Trinidad is an enormous complex devoting to yachting, the largest in the Caribbean. There are around ten boat yards. They mostly have small mooring pontoons for a few yachts, but huge yards covered with boats laid up. It is rather like the Hamble on dry land. The yards have chandleries and workshops of all kinds, internet cafes, restaurants and a couple of food stores.	The anchorage, Chaguramas Bay.
Coral Cove yard, to which we had been recommended, insisted they had no room despite appearances, so we made our way to Peakes Yacht Services. Here they were more accommodating and even had a lift-out for us for the following day. Their prices looked pretty similar to Coral Cove but there are no cooking facilities or swimming pool as at Coral Cove. The location is quite good though. The food store is in the next boat yard, Power Boats, and next to that is the large Budget Marine chandlers. The maxi-taxis to the town of Port-of-Spain outside. There is free wi-fi at the restaurant on site where almost every day we sit on the verandah with a cold drink checking emails etc. We have had bad reception with Skype, so we bought a local SIM card in Tobago and it is much cheaper to use this for England than the world-roaming card we usually use, but text messages are still the cheapest! There are literally thousands of boats laid up here but not many are occupied. People very quickly fly home for many months. Maybe that is why there are so few toilets and showers, and they are not always very clean. We do not know if we will be able to get small jobs done for us, such as some welding, as they seem only interested in the major jobs they have for absent owners. We can't refill our gas bottles as there is said to be a strike at the depot, and no-one will tell us where this is as the yards make a handsome profit for sending them out for you. The yacht has been stored at the back of the yard under a powerful night-time security light (which someone said just helps would-be thieves), next to a large mango tree which is providing us with more small but sweet juicy fruit than we can eat. There is 110 and 240 volt power and water to hand, so ice-cold water, fruit juice, etc. from our on-board fridge is no problem. Our plumbing ashore though is tricky, and we have to rely on a Porta-Potti if we can't face the walk to the communal toilet. We have started tackling some rusty areas aboard and repainted the cockpit, but most of the work will be done on our return from England. If we replace all our deck hatches we may feel the need to rent one of the rooms. I am now looking forward to a break seeing everyone again back in England when we return on 22nd June.

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