THE CITY OF FLORIANAPOLIS

ARRIVING IN FLORIANAPOLIS

MAY 27, 2015

After a 5 ½ days off-shore crossing we arrive at the north end of Santa Catarina, the island off the coast of Florianapolis at 12 am.  Florianapolis is the capital of the state of Santa Catarina and the hub of all government and its workers. We spend the night at anchor off the No. coast at Jurere International and than head around to San Antonia de Lesboa, an early settlement by the Portuguese of the Azores.   We anchor after many attempts, the holding is very hard clay. Spending the day doing clean up and resting we awake early in the morning and find the anchor has slipped and we are drifting.  We head across the bay to search for better winds and holding and the contact that Josie has researched from the states to fix our dinghy, which has a slow leak.  

 Workers from Pier 33 up the Biguacu river come out to the boat and pick it up.  Another day without getting off the boat- it has now been 7 days.  Next day it is fixed and we go to shore where we meet English speaking Mauricio who is the representative for B+G Instruments, headquartered in NH.  We meet the owner of the Marina, Jackson and he shares with us his 30 day Motorcycle Rally of the whole coast of Brazil.  He has a brother who lives in Boston and has offered to crew with us if we need it. Thanks to our Brazilian friend Josie who had contacted the Marina ahead of us.  With dinghy back on board we head back to San Antonio de Lesboa.  We decide to pick up a mooring and feel secure in leaving the boat.  I am at the helm and manage to run over the line just as a squall is coming thru.   An hour later the boys have found the line and we are secured on a mooring where we will spend 3 days.

SAN ANTONIO DE LESBOA ANCHORAGE

 Time to explore the town of San Antonio de Lesboa:  A small village with many wonderful restaurants (mainly a tourist destination) 1 minimalistic grocery, small anchorage with about 40 boats.  The value of the dollar is great, 3.40 reals to a dollar, but there is a 37% tax on everything.  We stock up on some essential perishables and have fresh oyster on the beach front and take a bus to Florianapolis to buy a new line for the boat.

Next morning a local boat sails by captained by a very nice Brazilian named Umberto.  He spent a year in NH, Dublin to be exact.  He speaks good English and wants to practice on us.  He is Brazilian but owns many hechtres of land in Paraguay where he farms cattle, and his wife, Elvira was a cardiac nurse. We meet up at the oyster shack and over oysters and beer he offers to be our guide and drive us around to help us check in with Capitania and customs the next day.  The check in process takes a full day as we travel to Policia Federali,  Capitania, and Receita (version of IRS).  We and boat are allowed in the country for 30 days, and must renew before it ends for a total of 90 days.  Boat is allowed to stay in the country for 2 years.

The next day we invite Umbert to visit our boat and he offers suggestions for what to do up the coast.  Than ready the dinghy and speed off to a nearby river and get in on the full moon high tide.  We marvel at the new bird life we see including a giant blue heron, much larger than the giants we have in Dover on the upper Bellamy.  There are also some very colorful king fishers and several other new birds we have never seen before.

We were going to rent a car to tour the island of Santa Catarina and Umberto and Elvira offer to be our tour guides.  We leave @ 8 am next morning and spend a full day touring all the beaches from the north end to the south.  We have a wonderful lunch, beachside, and stop to pick up groceries at a major Mercado.  It is a 4 day holiday, St. Christoper’s, and traffic is abomidable – government workers leaving the island to head inland and mainlanders coming to the beaches.  We get back to the boat @ 8 pm and the marina gate is closed so Marc and Umberto walk down the beach to retrieve the dinghy.  We leave the next morning @ 8 am to head to Porto Belo, a 4 hour sail continuing on our northern journey.

OYSTER (ostra) FARMING

WOOD WORKING OPTIONS FOR JAMIE

LEAVING PIRIAPOLIS

LEAVING PIRAPOLIS,  MAY 

22, 21015

 

So much time has passed since we pulled into Piriapolis with Doug and Jill on Campanera, and Max and Sandy on Volo right behind us.  It was the end of our Patagonia journey with our sailmates whom we had met in Ecuador and had meetups with in Peru, Chile, the Falklands and Argentina.  They have since visited us in NH by boat.  We now leave Piriapolis after 2 years on the “hard” (out of the water for you landlubbers)..

Our Goddess of Piria, Uta, came to the boat with fresh bake goodies of apple cake and almond torts.  A fellow boater just knows what you need to start a 5 day crossing off right.  Many thanks to all of the vendors who worked on the boat.- Laurence, Diego, Diego. As usual for So. America some projects were done well, others less so (more later), but never done on time….

We had not been able to test the watermaker in the Marina (dirty water). Once on sea we realize we have a problem and Marc is now down under (5^th class passage as he calls it) replacing an intake valve. He asks me to watch for the water release off the side of the boat and we realize the bilge is releasing water much too frequently.  Like any Captain worth his “salt” Marc mentally retraces all the work that was done on the boat- we can’t figure out where the water is coming from.  Final trace to the bow, under the front cabin where the mechanic had worked on the bow thruster.   Out comes containers filled with wine from Argentina 2 years ago and suitcases.  The workers had removed a drain plug that was situated just above the waterline.  They had not replaced it.  Problem temporarily solved til we reach Florianapolis with “SNOT”, a marine grade putty or what we call clay.  This event put the watermaker project on hold until tomorrow.  And the bow thruster work that was done is now inoperable due to the salt water damage.  Incompetence x 10.

Next day watermaker is up and running after Marc has to dissemble a major part of it, put in a new pump and reassemble it all at sea. 

As I sit on the bow deck and write we are coming around the point of Uruguay, Punte del Este.  In 7 hours we will be heading North and by tomorrow mid-day the southerly front will bring rain, cooler weather, and our much awaited wind.   I reminisce about the past 3 weeks we have prepped the boat and enjoyed (not) the melodious clings and clangs of being in a marina/boatyard, and enjoyed many social gatherings and met many new friends.  Many ex-pats from many countries are making Uruguay, especially Piria their home.  It is curious but we note that many have incredible conspiracy theories to share with us about just all sorts of things.  Many are just too far out to share here but suffice it to say that in ex- pat land there is an abundance of stories to tell about the homeland.  Land lots are inexpensive and everything is paid in cash. (no mortgages here). In 5 -6 days we arrive in Florianapolis. Brazil.  Time to switch from Spanish to Portuguese and from Pesos to Reals.  Time to put on our Samba shoes.

APRIL/MAY 2015
USA TO PIRIAPOLIS, URUGUAY

After many traveling snafoos ( plane turned back to Miami due to Volcano eruption in Chile on April 22, 2 days hold up at Miami Airport hotel before heading out and landing in Piriapolis to find our luggage did not get on board, 3 bags were taxied to us and customs held onto 1 that we had to wait 3 days to get), we finally arrived exhausted and spent 5 days in a local hotel before launching the boat.
Thru haul problem required us to be assisted to our dock space and bow thruster needed to be repaired.
  We have now been on the boat for 1 week having much needed repairs that did not get accomplish during our absence.  Janaki and Graham can you relate to this?  Well we now have a new rebuilt toilet with new masserator.  Freezer is being worked on as I write and we are deleting many unneeded items that were required for Patagonia but not needed for Brazil. Think cold weather gear.

We had previously met new friends here and now have met new ones. Our friend Uta who is from Germany  sailed here with husband and 2 sons and has since split from husband and bought a farm here. We invited Uta and her friend Alex, who is German but had lived in Vermont for 20 years, and Rudy and Kristina from Switzerland and Bernhardt from Austria to join us for dinner at a local restaurant and Uta then invited us to a local party where we danced until 2 a.m.

                          from L around:  Rudy, Bernhardt, Alex, Uta, Pati, Kristina

We spent a day shopping at Punta del Este, the Miami of Uruguay and met a wonderful couple relocated from California 7 years ago. Kenny is a builder who was giving a seminar to Uta's boys and Karen had a herbology business.  We spent  Mother's Day at an Ex-Pats house where, belive it or not there we couples from NH and Indiana as well as Missouri and California.  It was wonderful hearing the unique travel stories and relocation challenges.  As you can tell by my writing (Pati) I tend toward the social side of things.  Had Marc written the blog it would be full of technical details and works in progress. We now wait for our weather window of a Southwest wind to take us to Brazil--first stop Florianapolis----where we will buy a new dinghy and explore the coast up to Recife where we will leave the boat to return to the US in mid-August to visit with our family from Tel Aviv.   We will miss Piriapolis and friends we have made. We hope Uta and sons will visit us as they have never been to the US.  We send love, peace and fair winds to all of our landlubber and sailing friends. Hope you are having a wonderful summer. Comments are always welcomed.

Marc's 65th Birthday Celebration

Well we did not leave to go back to the boat in April and will remain in the states until December.  And what a time we are having in New England in the summertime.  One of the best highlights so far was the celebration of Marc's 65th birthday and the magic that ensued with all of our friends in attendance.  Thank you everyone for your good wishes and good energy- it truly was a magical day.
We look forward to many more wonderful get-togethers over the coming months.  Want to go kayaking? the river is here for your enjoyment.  Our best wishes and many thanks.  Here are a few hightlights of the evening.

Sabbatical from Cruising

        After 14 years of calling our home a boat, we decided that we needed a place to come back to.  Our journeys to the carribean, Central America, Panama, Colombia, San Blas Islands, and South America that included our trips inland to Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Falkland Islands and Uruguay will be unforgettable.  We look forward to exploring many more countries from the same off-shore/on-shore perspective. We came back to the states in April and decided to take a sabbatical from cruising and entertained the thoughts of buying a house.

  

 As luck would have it a broker received a call from a man wanting to sell a riverside property and we made an offer the next day. “ Casa Rio Bella” as we call it is situated on a remote section of the Bellamy river  in Dover, NH and gazes over an estuary full of geese, ducks, and birds.  

     The house required a total “makeover”. Not just the usual removal of 2-3 layers of wallpaper but cutting through concrete wall, removing walls, and painting, painting,  painting.  Masons,  carpenters, an electrician, plumbers and landscaper descended on the property and for the next 10 weeks we both were 24/7 on the house.  Marc managed the crew and Pati managed Marc. GET THE PICTURE? We put up in the office, a space bigger than the boat but not much, and commuted daily to the house.  The process of bringing the house to a liveable state made living and working on our sailboat a piece of cake., well not quite. The house is about 1500 sq.ft. of living space with 3 bedrooms.2 bath, full finished basement and upstairs.  Which means we can now entertain family and friends.   We are happy to be back in New England where we have spent many months with our children, grandchildren and distant family members.. It is our first winter in the northeast in many years.  In the last week we have had 2 snowstorms and the temperature did not get above 25.  We are enjoying the blanket of white, especially at this time of year, but we look forward to getting back to the boat in April and begin our journey up the coast of Brazil.  Below are a few highlights of our remodeling experience.

 

 That was then and NOW.  If you are ever in town when we are come for a visit.  Friends and family welcome.

Peru-Club Peruano, Lima

Journey In Peru
September, October, November 2010

WELCOME TO LIMA
We pulled into Club de Peruano Yacht Club in the town of La Punta, Callao and started the process of checking-in (unbeknownst to us before we left Ecuador Peru increased their check in fees by about $400 for health inspections-(yeah right, they don’t step a foot on the boat). We lined up workers to fix the radar, fix the watermaker and fix the heater, “ching.$ ching” . A few days later our friends Jill and Doug from S/V Companera , whom we had met in Ecuador sailed in. They are both from Alaska and are avalanche rescue specialists. They have spent many years launching rescue operations in the Alaskan wilderness, an area of deep snow and extreme temperatures. 

They had been following our route and we had been in constant contact.  We met the local representative, Gonzalo Revalo, from Seven Seas Sailing Association, of which we are members.  Gonzalo speaks fluent English and is a local businessman.  He and his family have adopted us-he took us to the market, hardware store, assisted with vendors, treated us to our first taste of Peruvian food (it’s fantastic) and our very first Pisco Sours, the National drink of Peru.  He even invited us to his daughter’s 15th birthday party, took us for a tour of his cosmetics factory “Unique” which makes everything from lotions, creams, lipsticks, perfumes….an extraordinary experience..  We are now in the process of using his company as the supplier/producer for a product that we have been developing for the past five years. 
LIMA CENTRAL
What would a journey of a country be without visiting its major, crowded cities?  During our “city hike”, we visited monasteries and palaces, replenished my oriental food supplies at a Chinese market, and bought my grandson, Peter,  his first musical instrument, the Cajone- a square wooden box drum that you sit on to play, and not to be confused with cajones (bulls balls).  We again spent many weeks at Club Peruano socializing with other boaters.  A fellow boater, Pam from S/V Precious Metal, and a solo sailor at that, organized a trip for friends from Canada and we joined them visiting the wine region near ICA.  Gonzalo’s friend owns the winery “Picasso” (which is the best wine of Peru) and we were treated to a tour and tasting.  From there we went to a local hotel for dinner and sandboarding (think snowboarding on sand hills).

We took another tour, of the jewelry factory owned by UNIQUE.  Incredible to see how costume jewelry is made -  from resin stones to metal plating to assembly. This company had previously made products for the well- known, “Monet” brand of costume jewelry.  And of this writing, March 2011, we now have a working relationship with “”Unique to produce a product for us.  We’ll keep you posted.

Peru has been one of my favorite places and it was very hard to say goodbye to new friends.  Frano Branovich my Peruvian/Romanian chef who gave me the book “The Art of Peruvian Cuisine”, by Tony Custer”, a Harvard MBA who created the program “Aprendamos Juntos” (We learn together).   The program installs full time psychologists and therapists to give remedial help to learning disabled children in Lima’s poorest schools. I scanned the book and have gifted it to my daughters who love to cook.  Frano took me to a local club to celebrate my 59th birthday and allowed me to be his sous-chef in his kitchen.  He will be truly missed.  Gonzalo and his family will forever be in our hearts. And our sailing friends we will continue to meet on the sea.

A Quick History of Peru
Originally inhabited by Indigenous tribes of “paracas”, “moche” and “Huari”, the Inca Empire lasted only 100 years.  The Spanish conquistadores, heading south from Panama overland overtook Cuzco and later founded Lima.  Peru is famous for Alpaca, Baby Alpaca and Vicuna (the most expensive) wool and the weavings that are produced both as art pieces and for clothing. Interesting comparison is the history of the US and slavery.  South America too used indigenous peoples as slaves which led to many uprisings. The wealthy families of Spain were given the land and the indigenous people worked it.  The Chinese, working the Panama Canal, migrated here and the cuisine is indicative of their influence.

PERU - September, October, November 2010

Enroute from Isla de la Plata to Lima, Peru
September 2010
We became the trailblazers as not many boats have gone this route-currents and winds are not always in the boaters favor. So we took off from Isla de la Plata, Ecuador and one day out our radar stops working. Great, so this means we have about a 500 mile journey, many nights to travel, oil wells off the northern coast of Peru, fishing boats, no fog (thank god) and what to do?  Marc, great captain that he is, takes the first nights watch for 7 hours so that I am not a bitc….from lack of sleep. Thereafter we do 6 hours each and I get the early morning shift from 4am – 10am.  Every morning I get to see the sunrise, to see the world come alive. The lack of radar gives a new challenge to our cruising and Marc charts us to have an anchorage every night or two.  We can’t make landfall because we have already checked out of Ecuador and will not check into PERU until we get to Lima.  Marc has documented every location that we stopped and we now can share this info with fellow boaters.  We were told and advised not to stop in Peru until we had checked in but we took the sailor’s 5th Amendment “if you are tired ( we would be) have needed boat repairs (what boat doesn’t? or can’t say they have) or need fuel (we did eventually) you can pull in a port.
Entering northern Peruvian waters was like going thru the Cape Cod Canal-oil rigs, lights and boats everywhere meant constant vigilance.  So it took us a month to reach our destination, Lima, but we stopped at some beautiful places.

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