Welcome to Rio!

As most blog followers would know, we had planned to leave Ilha Grande a couple of weeks back, and numerous factors conspired to delay our departure ; the arrival of new cruisers, friends, weather ( good and bad!), and Mary's tendancy to throw out a second anchor whenever we spoke of setting off! We had planned to leave on Wednesday last week, but the gribs started showing nasty easterlies, which is NOT what one wants. So we looked for the next break in the weather pattern, and saw a possible gap this last Tuesday. Having resigned ourselves to suffering yet another week in paradise, we decided to sail back round to Siteo Forte for one last visit. (This was the beach Mary first set foot on Brazilian soil, and after 15 days sailing from Ascension, she needed to learn how to walk again. ) The weather was great, and we enjoyed our three days there, swimming, cleaning the hull. Plus the odd cerveja in the little restuarant where a young "Britzy" fell in love , (and equally quickly out of love) with Caiperinha's, when Chris Sutton first introduced us to it, en route to Cape Town, in" African Renaisance", after the 2006 Cape to Bahia race.

We headed back to Abraao on Monday, and set sail for Rio at 21.00hrs on Tuesday. The gribs indicated a gentle passage up the coast , with the front moving out into the South Atlantic. We spent the first couple of hours dodging fishing boats in the ink black moonless night, with their unique ( or totally non existant) Nav lights. Thereafter we had a leisurely motor sail up the coast to Ipanema, catching a metre long Cutlass fish, and a decent sized Bonito at dawn. Then the "front" realised we were trying to slip into Rio behind it, so it changed plans and came to welcome us to Rio! The wind veered to NE, and quickly built up to a 40 knot gale ! I had put in 2 reefs when it reached 25kn, so with our baby staysail we were hard pressed as we worked our wa right across Guanabara bay, to broaden our approach tack . There was a mad scramble of fishing boats and tugs all trying find shelter. We were fairly flying in, in a mass of spray, and for the first time ever, we saw a fishing boat actually trying to get out of OUR way! Some of the bigger fishing boats were towing daisy chains of little fishermen behind them. We worked our way past the fort, and found some shelter behind Jurajuba point, before heading into the bay, past Nitaroi, and down to Club Naval Charitas to drop anchor. The trip was 65miles and took 14 hours, a leisurly 4.6knot average! Sadly, our Radar died between Ipanema and Copacobana, so its one of the first things we will need to get fixed here. It's one of the only defences one has against the fishing boats at night !

We met up with Paco , the Belgium single hander, who had left Abraao the previous Wednesday, when we had called it off. He did 15miles in his first 24hours , and ended up taking 48hours for the trip. He was quite philosophical about it, and said that we had made the right call! He had broached a few times, and been thrown off some big breaking waves, with a "crash", but no damage! When he opened his anchor locker to anchor here, he found his chain and anchor had turned upside down in the locker, and had to take out all his chain and warp to find his anchor! He has now decided NOT to sail directly from Rio back to Begium, and intends to work his way up the coast and leave from the Caribean in May 2010, so we will no doubt meet up with him again! He checked out yesterday, en route to Buzios, and asked if I would like to go in to Rio with him, so that he could take me to "check in" with the Port Captain. What a pleasure, after all the hassles of Angra! We caught the10.30 Charitas ferry into Rio (R$ 8), which takes 14minutes to do the 7miles, walked for 8 minutes to the Port Captains offices, with a few minutes to spare, as they close the doors at 11.00am. They then deal with everyone inside, so that they can go on lunch at 12.00! I was checked IN, and OUT , in twenty minutes, and, they took all the photo copies themselves!! I was back on the boat at anchor in Charitas before they went on lunch!!

The Club Naval Charitas is a super club, with fantastic facilities.They charge R$10 pd for 3 days,at anchor, R$20pd for the next 3days, and R$30pd thereafter. Its about twice that if one takes a marina berth. We are looking forward to meeting the legendry "Suzie", who make a point of meeting and greeting every new cruiser, and showing them the ropes, but with the weather so foul at the moment, we only expect to see her on the week end.