Wind and weather looked fine for the next few days so we got going to our next destination, Pinheira near Florianopolis.
In Salvador we had met Georg from Bavaria who gave us the tip to stop there so to break the trip down into intervals for which you can trust the weather forecast. He also gave us the name of a friend of his, Hildo, who runs a campsite in Pinheira. So we were looking forward to meeting him and left Niteroi in good spirits , especially because this 430 mile trip was really short for our standards, in fact the shortest we made on our yourney.
When we left in the morning we were a little optimistic, wearing shorts and T-shirt.
Just after leaving the bay of Rio de Janeiro we found ourselves in rain that limited visibility to maybe fifty meters and we were wearing all our foul weatehr gear. But, at least the wind was blowing from the right direction.
The first night watch turned out to be strenuous. The wind kept changing, swinging from 7kn wind speed to 23kn, changing direction by 20-30 degrees on top of it. This meant that we actually were changing sails and adjusting the wind pilot practically constantly.
The next day, however, was a reward. The temperature was moderate, the winds perfect and the sunset a treat. The day after was pretty much the same, just with less wind and flapping sails once more. But the fact that the air temperature pretty much stayed at 25°C over 24 hours and also the water had cooled down to 26°C made things so much more bearable that I did not care about the calms.
On day four, the next day, we had a breakage once more. The 8mm steel wire of our port stanchion snapped at the spreader. Since we were before the wind this was quite managable with a little reefing, but it left me very much wondering about the integrity of the rest of the standing rigging.
I have to say it once again, sailing along the coast of Brazil is much more challenging than across the Atlantic. And this trip was proof over again. We had to take sails down completely because the wind dropped below the 4kn mark. Next thing you know, the wind direction changes from north to south within one hour. We ended up crossing against a meager 5kn wind making 0,6kn towards target. Not exactly exciting. For some entertainment we were invaded by moths. I have no idea what they are doing 30 miles off the coast, but suddenly the boat was full of them. It did not matter which creak you poked into, there sure were moths coming out of it. Later we got support getting rid of the moths from a small bird who kept himself busy feeding on moths the entire day.
Ourt last night before arrival we stayed out at sea with all sails down, originally for not to arrive in the dark, but then the wind died completely again anyway.
Of course, when we sailed into the bay of Pinheira the next morning we had 25kn of wind.
Luckily it blew from the North again, so the good side of our rig took the load.
Let me tell you that dropping the anchor in 25kn of wind is an interesting experiance. The electric anchor winch could not take the load and slipped. Next we lost the metal hook to hook a rope into the chain and had to improvise tying lines into the chain and broke one in the process. But, eventually we managed and could finally relax after our five day trip.
All in all it was a good one, just slow with 3,4kn average boat speed. However, if you have to sail only because your engine needs fixing to be able to run over long periodes, this is what you get sailing along the Brazilian coast.
Anyway, we had arrived and we were happy. We had reached the stage where sailing was more a chore than joy and we just wanted to arrive and be able to leave the boat – and stand and walk upright.
It turned out that the warm wellcome we got in Pinheira made us forget about any discomforts in no time!
Andreas
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