9 March 2018 St Helena to Brazil (Day 14)
The days really are blurring together. It was another beautiful morning, sailing wing on wing, with 8-15 knots of wind, fluffy white clouds, 130 miles yesterday, 190 miles to go, meaning that we still have to do an average of 5.3 knots to get in at sunset tomorrow.
We’ve given up worrying about trying to get to the anchorage before dark - we’re going to go in at whatever time we arrive. There’s a buoyed shipping channel up to a quarantine anchorage at Cabadello, which I’m guessing will be free of hazards. It’s then 4 miles up river to the yacht anchorage at Jacaré. We’ll make up our mind which anchorage to stay in when we get there.
You’ll be relieved to know that my Big Toe is much, much better. It’s calmed down to half a dozen small red spots that look suspiciously like a fungal infection. I’ll buy some antifungal cream when we go into town.
The wind became lighter and lighter as the morning progressed. We cracked up at lunchtime and turned the engine on. The wind came back three hours later, but only enough to push us along at 4.5 knots.
It was another blisteringly hot afternoon. On my off-watch, I tried to sleep in the back cabin, but in spite of having a fan running above my head, it was stifling and I only slept fitfully for an hour before giving up and trying to find a corner in the cockpit where there was a bit of breeze. I think that our bodies have become used to the colder latitudes and it will take a while to get acclimatised to tropical heat again.
By sunset, it had cooled off considerably and the wind had increased a little, giving a welcome breeze to cool us down. At 19:00, we had just enough light to see and only 125 miles to go, so if we’re lucky with the wind tonight, we might be drinking a beer watching the sun go down in Jacaré tomorrow.
On my evening SSB chat with “Sabir” and “Jomaro”, “Sabir” told us that they arrived in Fernando de Noronja this morning, but they couldn’t stay because there was a 2½ metre (north) swell in the anchorage and it was impossible to land a dinghy. Stefan and Ilya are now on their way to Grenada – they should be there in 2 weeks.
“Jomaro” are also heading to Fernando de Noronja and should arrive on Monday 12th. They’ve been doing a lot of motoring since they left St Helena and are hoping to get diesel in there. Hopefully, the swell will have dissipated by the time they arrive, otherwise I guess that they’ll have to find somewhere to refuel on the north coast of Brazil.
During my 7-10 watch, the wind gradually picked up, and when I handed over to Glenys at 22:00, we were tromping along at 6.5 to 7 knots on a broad reach. The 12-20 knot winds continued until 03:00, knocking off a fair few miles.
10 March 2018 St Helena to Brazil (Day 15)
At 0700, we had 55 miles to go, so we felt confident of making it to Jacaré before dark. The wind deserted us at 09:30, so we motored for a couple of hours until we were able to sail again. The wind was veering about and we had to gybe a few times.
Just before lunch, while we were still 30 miles away from land, Glenys spotted the skyscrapers of Joao Pessoa - so exciting. I had a quick kip for an hour before we approached the entrance to the river. Large buoys mark a deep channel, which is used by commercial ships coming into the port of Cabedelo. We rolled away the main sail and sailed up the channel with just the genoa, but we had ½ knot of tide against us, so we soon turned on the engine. There were quite a few jet skis and speedboats whizzing about off the beaches on the seaward side of the peninsula.
Cabedelo is a scruffy looking town on the end of a long peninsula and had one large ship alongside the dock. We were soon past the built up area and the shoreline turned into mangroves with the occasional break for a house or two. The river is 4-5 metres deep in the middle, but we could see herons strutting around only 50 metres away, so it’s shallow a long way from shore.
After an hour motoring up the peaceful river, we turned a corner and saw the busy waterfront of Jacare. There are five little marinas all packed together along a ½ kilometre section of the shore. I would estimate that there are over 100 yachts and power boats moored at the docks, with half a dozen yachts on moorings or at anchor. We dropped our anchor at 07°02.13S 034°51.46W in 6 metres on excellent holding mud.
The area around Jacaré is a holiday destination for Brazilians and tourists flock to the waterfront to watch the sun go down over the river. Loud music was pumping out from an area at the south end of the waterfront and we could see hundreds of people enjoying themselves. Several large tourist boats were motoring about packed with people dancing to their own loud music. It’s a party town.
By the time we were settled it was 18:00, so we cracked open a beer and settled down to watch the tourists. Stefan and Anna from “Zanzibar” were going past in their dinghy, so I waved them over and invited them on board for a beer. They’ve sailed here from Europe via the Cape Verde Islands and have been here for six weeks. They gave us the run down on the local area.
After dinner and a nice bottle of celebratory red wine, we collapsed into bed.
11 March 2018 Jacaré, Brazil
We understandably had a late start to the day and after breakfast, popped over to meet the only Brits in the anchorage, Steve & Alex on “Christiana Pearl”. They gave us lots of local information, including advice on the clearance process, which sounds like it will take us a couple of days. It’s a Sunday, so we can’t do anything today, but tomorrow we’ll have to tackle the bureaucracy.
Stefan and Anna on “Zanzibar” kindly gave us a lift in their rental car into the nearby town to get some cash out of an ATM and to go to a supermarket. The ATM charges an outrageous 24 Reais (£6) for the pleasure of issuing cash and, to add insult to injury, they limit the withdrawal to 1000 Reais (£200). (We later found out that the Bradesco Bank in Joao Pessoa has ATMs that don’t charge anything.)
Back at the marina, we caught a water taxi with Stefan and Anna to a small village on the mainland which is 1½ miles away across the river. The water taxi was a long tail, built from an 8hp auxiliary engine which you would normally see on a lawnmower. It was only 3 Reais each (£0.75)
The purpose of our little trip was to go to a local street-side food stall where they sell various types of soups. The place has become a bit of a cruiser’s Sunday destination and there were already about 15 sailors sat around the small plastic tables. It was interesting with different types of soup including fava beans with pork, prawns, crab, small clams, etc. We had a couple of small bowls each and a couple cold beers and a lot of pleasant conversation.
Back at the Marina, I took advantage of their Wi-Fi and sent out a few emails, catching up on administration. I did the electronic check-in on the Brazilian customs website (https:// www.edbv.receita. fazenda.gov.br). It took me four attempts to complete the “Entrada” form because of the poor internet speed.
The purpose of the form is to declare that I was temporarily importing my yacht and to state the value of the yacht, but it’s not clear what is required and which buttons to click. I was also confused for ten minutes because “United Kingdom” wasn’t present in the list of countries. It took me a while to figure out that “United Kingdom” was “Reino Unido” in Portuguese.
I had an online conversation with Paul and Lilian from “Luna Blu” and I was shocked to find out that they were boarded and robbed in Fortaleza on the north coast of Brazil. Six men boarded them at night, smashed open their door and rushed inside armed with machetes. They smacked Paul about, hitting him hard on the head and threatened Lillian with a machete. They were highly aggressive and took lots of stuff. Paul and Lillian reported it to the police and coast guard and then upped anchor and sailed to Grenada. They are understandably shaken up.
12 March 2018 Jacaré, Brazil
Last night, when I printed out the “Entrada” form for the customs, I discovered that I’d spelt my name wrong, so I was up at 06:00 to go into marina to use internet and fill in the form for the 5th time. After going back to the boat to print out the form, we took a taxi to Immigration with Peter and Theresa from “Leyna”. I was relieved to find out that, contrary to what is said on Noonsite, you don’t have to wear long trousers and long sleeved shirts with collars to visit the officials.
The marina organised the taxi for us. The driver was called Bernaldo, who didn’t speak any English, but saved us a lot of grief by accompanying us to the Immigration; then into Cabadelo to the Customs; and then waiting while the formalities were done. He charged us 70 Reals (£17.50) for the four of us, which I guess is a rip-off in local terms, but the whole process took three hours, so it was worth the expense.
Immigration is in the Federal Police building about 2 miles from the marina. We had to give our passports to the desk clerk, who then registered us on some system and then we sat down to wait for 45 minutes until 10:00. Once we saw the immigration officer, the process was relatively fast and we soon had our passports stamped.
Bernaldo then drove us into Cabedelo, which is a further 3 miles away. We went to the main port entrance and found customs in a small office inside the port. The customs guy was an officious little man, full of his self-importance. I handed over my papers and the printed copy of the Entrada Form. At this point, I noticed that there was a mistake on our paperwork from Immigration - everything was correct apart from the boat name wasn’t Alba.
I pointed this out to the customs guy and pretended to draw lines through the name with my pen, to explain that it was the wrong boat name. He became all agitated and told me not to deface the form. He realised that the boat name was wrong, but that was on the Immigration form and nothing to do with him. He allowed me to lightly change the name to Alba with a pencil. Having taken my paperwork, he turned to process the others.
By this time, four cruisers from two French boats had also arrived to clear in and the small office was crowded. The customs guy took Peter’s papers, but Peter hadn’t done the electronic Entrada form, so he was waved to one side. The French had filled in the on-line form, but hadn’t entered the details of the boats that they were importing.
For the next hour, it was chaos with the officer berating us all for not following procedures, while we used his computer to fill in the electronic forms. The officer should have sent them away to an internet café, but he was being chaotically helpful. Once he had obtained the correct paperwork from all boats, he then finished off everyone together, by printing out a form and signing it with great ceremony. I don’t know why he didn’t finish off our paperwork an hour earlier…
We paid Bernaldo and had a walk around town. There’s not a great amount to see - there’s a nice colonial church and a small fort, which took us 15 minutes to walk around. The town is a typically scruffy South American place.
The highlight was going to the wet market, buying a few vegetables and then having a meal in a small eatery on the first floor. It was a self-service place and the guy was very, very helpful, allowing us to taste a few things before piling it on our plates. He then kept coming over to make sure that we were okay and brought us some salad. We had a very typical Brazilian meal of Rice, Beans and Chicken - I’ve not had a proper plate of beans since we left Ecuador in 2014.
We caught a train back to Jacaré. The train runs between Cabadelo and Joao Pessoa, which is about ten miles. There’s only one railway line and the train runs about once per hour. It’s a very nice modern train similar to an underground train with automatic door. Apparently, we could get a free ride because we’re over 60, but it only costs 0.50 Realis each (£0.12) for any length of journey, so it’s not worth the hassle of trying to explain.
Back at the anchorage, we went to visit an English guy called Brian, who owns the Jacaré Marine boatyard. He’s about 80 years old, has been living here for 40 odd years and is very friendly and helpful. Brian gave us a very detailed hand-drawn map of Cabedelo and Joao Pessoa, showing the places of interest to cruisers.
13 March 2018 Jacaré, Brazil
Having done Immigration and Customs yesterday, we still had to go to the Port Captain to finish the clearance. We hopped on the train into Joao Pessoa. The port captain’s office is a white building with blue outlines, on the right hand side of the road leading up from the train station (about 400 metres walk). I filled in a form and handed over various documents, which took five minutes. We then had to wait 45 minutes for the sergeant to sign the form. Oh well, at least they had comfy chairs to sit in.
With our clearance finally finished, we wandered around Joao Pessoa. It’s a mixture of old colonial buildings and run down 1960s high rises. We found a large ornamental lake, which was near the wet market.
It was good to be wandering around a local market again - they just don’t have them in South Africa. There was a huge range of goods on sale, including scores of different types of dried beans and I spotted several stalls selling old fashioned Loofahs. (I discovered that these are made from drying a type of fibrous cucumber.) The market was better than the one in Cabadelo, but it’s a long way to lug a lot of vegetables back to the railway station.
There’s one area where there are many old churches, which seems to be the old part of town. Some of the churches date back to 1600 and there’s the Convent of San Francisco, which was built in 1589 and is now a cultural centre. We didn’t have time to go in but intend to return. The buildings in the surrounding area are interesting and there’s a very gaudy Masonic lodge, which looks like it should be in a Dan Brown novel.
We had lunch at a small self-service buffet - pile your plate up for 7 Reals (£1.70 each) - rice, beans and chicken - lovely. I could get used to this.
After lunch, we checked the train timetable and found that there was a train going in 20 minutes or another one in 1½ hours. I couldn’t face another hour wandering aimlessly in the beating sun, so I frog-marched Glenys down to station. She says we’ve got to go back and do some churches another day.
We seem to have been running around non-stop since we arrived here, so when we got back to the boat, we had a shower and an afternoon siesta.
14 March 2018 Jacaré, Brazil
We had a day of catching up on some chores. Glenys dropped off a load of laundry and we lugged 120 litres of water back to the boat to top up our tanks - the river is a deep brown colour from the sediment coming out of the mangroves and there’s no chance of running the water-maker. One of our two cooking gas bottles ran out last night, so I dropped it off ashore and someone is going to fill it for me.
The rest of the day was spent doing internet jobs. Glenys has booked us into a nice Pousada (Bed & Breakfast) in Olinda, which is a colonial town, 6 kilometres outside Recife. We’re going to travel there by bus on Saturday 17th and stay a couple of nights, which should be interesting. We’ll celebrate Glenys’ postponed birthday there.
I created adverts for selling Alba on four websites. It was a tedious process, not helped by the slow internet, but I’ve published the adverts and invested £120 for 3 months’ worth of advertising. We’ll see what comes out of that. We made the decision to sell Alba while sailing here, but to actually create adverts to sell our home is a bit unsettling.
The Jacare Marina Village is owned by Nicolas, a dour Frenchman, who only begrudgingly speaks English. I estimate that 90% of the berths in the marina are occupied by French speaking cruisers, so when they greet us in the morning it’s not “Bon Dia”, but “Bonjour” - it’s a French ghetto. Nicolas is charging me 125 Reals (£30) per week to use the marina’s facilities including showers, internet, water and use of the dock for our dinghy - I’m sure that I’m being charged non-French prices, but I can’t be bothered to argue.