April 14, 2012-Holiday in Fortaleza

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Fortaleza Yacht Club

We’ve had a nice holiday in Brazil luxuriating at one of Fortaleza’s finest hotels (aboard Wings in the hotel’s marina of course). We’re swimming each morning in the hotel pool, having wonderful meals in the great Brazilian restaurants on Fortaleza’s beautiful nearby beaches, taking endless walks around the old central district, and shopping everywhere. Yesterday we topped it all off with a beautiful lunch which turned into a whole afternoon, accompanied by a very nice bottle of Chilean white, at the Fortaleza Yacht Club.

A couple of years ago an old classmate of mine saw my photo of Judy having a drink at a beach hotel in Langkawi , and commented, maybe wistfully, “your whole life is like an unending vacation”.

Sometimes, like right now, it seems that way and we love it.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Mind you I’m not whining about it but to have this kind of life we have to work at it. We work at it by keeping this boat running, by sailing it through storms and high seas, from one third world country to another, and by dealing with about a million bureaucratic and cultural obstacles each and every day.

Still, we love it. It’s why we do this.

However, this holiday is now over and we have work to do. We have to leave the easy and enjoyable life we have in Fortaleza and get this boat up the coast and into the Caribbean, which means dealing with the routine of watch-standing, three on and three off, with officials and formalities in three new countries, with unknown boat problems (and there certainly will be some), with the doldrums, the shallow waters of the Amazon Delta, and god knows what else. It will be nerve wracking but we’ll get through it. And you know what? We love that part too; sailing is still great.

We leave tomorrow; it’ll take a month, more or less, and then we’ll have a Caribbean Holiday.

Click here for a few more photos from the day we checked out of Fortaleza.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fortaleza, Brazil

April 8, 2012-The Amazon Dilemma

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Dilemma?

Six hundred miles northwest of Fortaleza lies the Amazon River Delta. Sailing into the Amazon has a lot of appeal to us. We would not have to go far, just a couple of hundred miles, and we could stop at some Amazon river towns such as Belem on the south bank and Macapa and Vila Amazona on the north shore, stay a few days, then return to the ocean and head further north. How can we sail past the Amazon River and not experience it?

But there are significant security concerns.

First of all, books we’ve read report that the two most risky places for yachts in Brazil are Fortaleza, where we are now, and the mouth of the Amazon, where we want to go. We know full well the security issues in Fortaleza and we know how to avoid trouble: we keep the boat in the marina and out of the main anchorage. But there is no marina at the mouth of the Amazon, just endless river channels with little population and no police presence. Anchoring in remote places within the river is said to be dangerous.

We know that four or five boats have been robbed in that area in last four or five years, some in the towns, but at least one while anchored in a remote area. Anchoring in these remote places is virtually required to avoid travelling at night, when hitting debris is a big risk, or going against the strong currents which reverse direction every six hours. That small number of occurrences does not seem like very many, but the fact is that only few yachts go there at all and maybe the odds are not as good as we’d like.

We were worried about this and as of yesterday had not made a decision.

Then we met a couple of boats which have just come down the coast. The crew of Mila, a South African yacht, was chased at gun point while in the town of Belem. The other yacht, a Brazilian flagged vessel, has just passed through the same area and told us that the first hundred miles of the river was very dangerous. They know some local people there who do not go through that area without armed guards. They said the coast is OK, but not the river.

OK, that does it. We are not going into the Amazon.

This is sad for us because we’ve already bypassed the Red sea and Europe due to piracy risks in the Indian Ocean and now it seems that we need to skip some interesting parts of Brazil.

Plus, the Caribbean itself has some problems and that’s where we are going next so the whole cruising experience seems less fun and more dangerous now than it used to be.

It’s something we don’t like but we have to accept.

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Fortaleza Centro

But in the meantime we’re enjoying Fortaleza. For the last week or so we’ve been exploring the nearby central area of Fortaleza and some of the beaches.

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Beach Volley Ball

And for the last two days we’ve been watching a beach volleyball tournament which has been fun and which reminds us of the many beach volleyball games we’ve played in years past.

These things take our minds off the unpleasant realities of the next few legs.

We’ve got to face them soon enough.

Click here and here for more photos of Fortaleza

Click here for more volley ball shots

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fortaleza Brazil

March 31, 2012- Uma Noite Caliente via the Back Door

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Uma Noite Caliente

We’ve gone to hear music in many places. Last night the music came to us.

A Brazilian rock concert, “Uma Noite Caliente” (One Hot Night), which we could clearly hear from our boat, occurred overnight in a specially built venue on the grounds of the hotel where our marina is located. Chiclete Banana and several other Brazilian pop bands pumped out the amps until dawn and about five thousand young Brazilians danced and partied all night.

We might have wanted join the young crowd ourselves but the tickets started at $110 so we passed on that but I realized the day before, as the construction workers were putting the finishing touches on the stages, barricades and temporary walls, that we were already inside the perimeter. I thought it might be possible to walk directly from Wings into the concert grounds without passing any gate. They left us a back door.

Judy didn’t want to chance it but I thought I would give it a try.

So at midnight, when the music was at its loudest, I grabbed my Nikon and headed out. I expected to be stopped by one of the hundreds of security guards. After all not only did I look a little out of place but I also did not have one of the colored wrist bands showing that I had paid for my admittance, but no one gave me a second glance. I walked right into the crowd and right up to the stage.

I put up my big gun camera and banged off a few dozen shots, then beat a hasty retreat; I did not want a confrontation with these guards and most of all I did not want my camera to be confiscated. Anyhow, it wasn’t my kind of music.

During the early morning hours as the beat went on and on and the aid cars came and went there was a huge fireworks display right over our boat and a number of helicopter passes which we could hear from our bed. This was quite the event. We had prime seats but we didn’t get up. Let the kids party on, we’re sleeping.

At 06:00 I did another patrol: The kids were still there, the music was still going, but there was wreckage everywhere from the long night.

By sun-up it was all over.

Click here for more shots from Uma Noite Caliente.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fortaleza, Brazil

March 30, 2012-Drinking with Russians

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Russian Sailors can sing too

Twenty three years ago, in July 1989, a group of six Russian sailors, who said they were the first sailors permitted to go cruising from Soviet Russia, and one translator, arrived in Seattle aboard a boat owned by their shipping company employer in Vladivostok. We found them circling outside Shilshole Marina on our return from Barkley Sound that late July afternoon. They had spent over 40 days crossing the North Pacific and they had just arrived in the USA and didn’t know where to go. We led them to the transient dock.

We were the first Americans they met and they became friends of ours.

We took them sailing on Wings a few nights later along with about seven other sailors from the Sloop. Lots of vodka was consumed on a tour around Winslow Harbor and the spinnaker reach back was a bit wild, the Russians sailing the boat and the rest of us riding. It turned out they knew how to sail and it was a memorable and fortunately uneventful trip, considering the chances we took with a few marks and navigation aids, all passed a bit close and one on the wrong side much to the consternation of Judy, who got quite frantic when they insisted on taking the inshore side of one of the green bouys in Eagle Harbor. “No Problem, No Problem” they said, ignoring her wild gestures to go on the other side of it, but we made it and with the pole on the headstay we reached hard into Shilshore Bay and stormed inside the breakwater with the kite still up, all hands to the takedown. Again, luckily, no incidents. Same for the “wodka “ drenched meal for 17 in Wing’s cabin afterwards, a record number of guests never since matched. My hang-over was also unmatched.

Those Russians were good sailors, good singers, good eaters and great drinkers.

Last night in Fortaleza we had a party with another bunch of Russian sailors. They had arrived in Fortaleza on a big inflatable multihull, bound for a round the world record for inflatable boats. There were also seven of them, (six official adventurers and one guest added here in Fortaleza) mostly scientists from Siberia, but the Captain, Anatoly, is a boat builder, navigator and the creative genius behind the trip. Given where they have been (they started in Thailand and expect to end up there as well) and their wild and exciting rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 50kts of wind (they showed us video footage of it) and where they are headed, (Across the Pacific and back to the far east), we can presume that they must also be good sailors. Although we did not get a chance to go sailing with them we can say from our experience last night that that they are good drinkers, eaters, musicians, and singers. Judy and I joined six other cruisers and the Russians on the afterdeck of their vessel for a long night of “wodka”, sweet wine, warm beer and a lot of music. The Russians had a guitar and it seems like all of them could put it to good use. They serenaded us with Russian songs for hours. When they sang the Beatles’ “Let It Be” we all joined in and one cruiser, Robert, from the Dutch yacht, Mary Elisa, had brought his trumpet and also joined in.

I enjoyed the music and food but stuck to “wodka” for my drink. Remembering my previous experience with Russians and “wodka”, or maybe just being older and wiser, I paced myself and had no hang over today.

This morning the Russians headed out going north up the coast with a planned stop in Sao Luis, Brazil (where we plan to stop as well) for provisions and their next major destination is the east coast of Mexico. After that, the Pacific, Easter Island, and then on to finish where they started at Phuket, Thailand.

We wished them well.

Click here to see more photos from our party with the Russians.

Click here to read the log book page from our trip with the Russians in 1989

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fortaleza, Brazil

Energy Diet HD, Departed March 30 from Fortaleza for Sao Luis, then Mexico, (port undecided)

Anatoly Kulik (Tola),
Evgenii Kovalevsky (Jack),
Yurii Masloboyev, (Gold Tooth)
Evgenii Tashkin (Video)
Oleg Blinov (Big)
Stanislav (Stas)Berezkin
Alexander Gainer (Professor)

Click here to go to thier web site

March 18, 2012- Fortaleza, First Thoughts

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Fortaleza

The Brazilians from down south say this is not Brazil; they say Fortaleza is not representative, for the real Brazil you must go to Rio or Salvador.

Maybe, but Rio or Salvador we won’t ever see, not from the deck of this yacht anyhow.

No, for us Fortaleza is Brazil, so what are our first impressions?

At a first look, we like what we see: Beautiful people, beautiful Brazilian Portuguese language, and a beautiful city with tall buildings and beautiful sandy beaches. There are old churches, cathedrals, and soccer fields everywhere. Also we see high prices, traffic jams, pickpockets and dangerous barrios, of course, but despite that there is a zest for life in this town which we picked up the minute we arrived and when we hit the streets of Fortaleza we started to see all sides of it.

On the sidewalk we saw the desperate young men from the barrio whose furtive eyes watch for an easy prey and for that reason, if no other, we know we need to pay attention on these streets.

On the other hand we also saw the upper class in the expensive restaurants and exclusive shops, or just riding in their motorcars, comfortable men of power and position with elegant women at their sides, so we see who is paying those high prices.

But most of all here we have been seeing the ordinary folks around the town, on the beaches and in the shopping malls and supermarkets, and we have seen taxi drivers and shopkeepers with ready smiles. Everywhere we see middle class Brazilians, of all ages, simply going about their lives.

In that way Fortaleza is like a lot of other cities.

But Brazil, unlike some countries, is a nation rising, one of the BRIC’s, the future. And we see both the dynamism that has earned it a place in that club, and its paradox. The paradox is that despite the fact that it is an economic powerhouse, where we see the hustle and bustle of businessmen on the move and construction everywhere there is the seemingly slow pace of everything. There is the daily two-hour siesta when shops close. There are the officials who, however polite and incorruptible, work at such a leisurely pace you want to tear your hair out, and there are the clerks in the stores who will happily spend twenty minutes or more with you while other customers are waiting. You can’t hurry these people.

We need to stay here a while and try to understand these things better.

So, we’ve signed up for a month at the marina and we’ve started a daily routine of swimming in the pool each morning, and we will go out on most days to try to get the real feel of the pulse of this enigmatic Brazil.

Which is why we came here.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Fortaleza, Brazil

PS: We arrived on March 16, Docked at Marina Park, Randy & Laura signed off, and we are on our own and settled in already.