Beautiful Buzios!

We hauled anchor at 3.00am on Monday, and worked our way out of Guanabara Bay , and up the coast towards Cabo Frio. We had hoped to benefit from the cold front SW winds, but in reality, they were too gentle, and we had to motor sail almost the entire leg to Cabo Frio. Without Radar, and the enormous number of unlit fishing craft, we wanted to do as much daylight sailing whilst close to the coast. We had therefore planned to stop overnight in a little bolt hole anchorage between Cabo Frio island ( Light House Point) and the mainland. It has a narrow (50mtr) head entrance on the West, which can get quite boisterous, with strong currents, before opening up into a very pleasant safe haven. As seems to be our usual habit, the wind started honking just 4 miles before we reached this target, and we had to run the gauntlet! Once inside, we did a right turn to get behing the cliff shelter, and dropped the hook. Despite the rather rolly anchorage, we slept like babes, as neither of us had got much sleep the night before, getting the boat and ourselves set for the early start.

Although the anchorage opens up into a lagoon facing east, which is theoretically navigable via a shallow channel, the charts show chart datum of 1.2mt at the deepest, and as we were leaving at 7.00am, and it would be Spring Low, we elected not to explores the moving sand banks, and go back out the way we entered , through the heads. This added about 4- 5 miles to our leg up to Buzios, but we enjoyed the trip around this Cape that always seems to be the change over point in the weather systems. The wind dropped down to about 8 knots, dead downwind, so we were forced to motor the whole way again, in a rather lumpy sea against the 0.8 to 1knot current that runs down the coast.

We arrived in Buzios at about 1.00pm, and checked out the anchorage options, before chosing a spot outside the Yacht club, with good SW protection, and some NE protection behind a point and reef. We were surprised to find ourselves anchored near "Basta", the yellow steel French boat owned by Francis and Silvia, last seen in Abrooa nearly 2 months earlier. They were heading off to the Carribean in search of work there. Instead, they found Buzios, and have entered into a long term lease and project, to renovate, and then run a Pousada restuarant & Bar on the waterfront here. Francis is working like a dog to have it up and running in October, to coincide with the arrival of the cruise liners. His long term plan is to build up a successful business in 5 years, and then sell ti for a big profit, with 5 years of his lease option remaining! Quite a project, and we wish them luck!

The wind has now swung NE, and the sun is out again, which always brings out the best of a place, and Buzios looks quite special. It started out as a quaint fishing village, with numerous small protected beaches around the rocky peninsula of Cabo Buzios. It is now a major tourist driven, and holiday home resort, being only a couple of hours by road from Rio. Bridgitte Bardot spent many of her early years here with a Brazilian boyfriend, and she is depicted in bronze, in one of the three very good sculptures, along the waterfront. The most striking one is of the "three fishermen", lifesize figures hauling in nets , from rocks set in the sea. Very realistic ! The other, is of President "DK", whose full name escpaes me ! Brigitte is depicted sitting on her suitcase looking out over the sea from the side walk. Her lap , head and lips, are polished shiny bright by all the tourists wanting to strike a pose with her!

With the sun out, it is time to explore again, and to find a wifi spot to check out the weather pattern again,and to see how long we have got here before continuing North!