At first I was slightly annoyed. As soon as we set anchor someone was swimming up to our boat, and you just don´t like a total stranger to get onto your boat if you do not know the area.
However, it turned out it was a fisherman offering fish who just swam away again when we said no. Just when I was relaxing again someone on the shore got into the water and swam right up to our boat. But this man was more persistant, he even shouted our names. It was Hildo, the contact that was recommended to us in Salvador, who had obviously allready been awaiting our arrival. This certainly was a first, someone taking the effort to swim up to the boat to greet us! It has to be said that Hildo must be one of the world´s most friendly men, so we immediately started having a great time together. He also introduced us to a German Couple, Thomas and Claudia, who just spent their last day on holiday in Pinheira, and we agreed to meet up at night for beers.
When we went ahsore in the evening we put our dinghy at Thor´s house as Hildo recommended to us, just that Thor didn´t kow that. However, when we went there his son saw us and immediately invited us in. Next thing we knew we were invited for lunch the next day.
When we set together for beers at the appartment where Claudia and Thomas were renting, a nice place run by Alvaro (www.solardonamaria.com.br) we not only had a great evening, but Alvaro also invited us to use his guest room with wireless internet whenever we wanted to.
There is one more thing you need to know about Pinheira to understand why we enjoyed our stay there so much. The houses have no metal grids to protect their windows and doors. This always is a sign that criminality is no issue in such a place, and it wasn´t. We had arrived in a total different Brazil than we knew up to then. And the friendlyness and helpfulness of the people was incredible. We felt at home in Pinheira immediately.
Hildo instantly became a close friend of ours and we ended up feeling unseperable from him, his wife Jaquelin and his little boy Vincenti. At one point I was joking that we would move into his house if he is not careful. Hildo drove us to Florianopolis to buy the spares to repair our rig, and he also drove us to the back country to take a walk and visit a nice waterfall. It seemed that what Hildo enjoyed most was finding Brasilians who speak German, there is a significant minority of German descendants living in Brasil, and test whether we can understand them. And we did in fact, apart from he ones who speak Plattdeutsch. Brazil really has some diversity to offer.
Even though our stay in Pinheira was thoroughly enjoyable it only lasted for nine days, then the weather files told us that we would have the right wind for our last leg down to Uruguay, Piriapolis. So we left after only a relatively short time, but it turned out it was the most enjoyable part of our entire trip.
Andreas
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