may, 2005 -- more on brazil and a few boat chores


boat chores
-----------

finally solved the overheating problem after numerous attempts by me
and other boaty folks.  hired a diesel mechanic who really knew what 
he was doing.  first he started the engine and just felt it, all over,
he seemed to know how hot it should be in each spot he touched.  he
also pulled off hoses and knew how much water/coolant should be coming
out of the various hoses.  he blew on them and knew how much back
pressure he should feel.  and voila, half an hour later he had found
the culprit, my hot water heater that produces hot water when plugged
into shore power or when the engine is running.  the hoses to/from it
were partially clogged and probably the unit itself is clogged.  since
its dastardly hot in brazil, i opted for short circuiting the hot
water heater instead of trying to clean it and the hoses out.  as he
was pulling hoses off and on, my coolant was running out and into the
bilge.  i had just gotten new coolant and distilled water in one of
my attempts but it and all my spares went into the bilge with his
various checks to see how much coolant was flowing.  a small price
to pay for a functional engine.

i think i'm a bit of a fair-weather sailor, i sure like having an engine
i can count on and just crank up whenever the wind is too light or in
the wrong direction.  was getting spoiled by my trusty diesel.

just as i solve one problem, i discover another.  my masthead (the piece
of aluminum welded to the top of the mast to hold all the wires and 
pulleys and whatnot) is corroded.  pretty bad.  bad enough so that
two riggers with about 70 years combined experience had never seen
anything like it.  probably electrolysis from current leaking from
my tri-color masthead light.  thanks to the magic of digital pictures
and email my rigger (andy wall in florida) was able to evaluate it
and says that it will make it to trinidad where i can get it fixed.
much easier there than here with my minimal portuguese and my nieces
minimal knowledge of masts and mechanical things in either portuguese
or english. the most critical piece up there is the forestay that holds
the mast up to the front of the boat.  a friend (hannah's boyfriend jeff)
made sister pieces from a piece of stainless steel i had and installed
them on either side of the place where the forestay attaches.  so i
am pretty confident the mast will be ok.  although it looks very 
corroded, when jeff installed the stainless pieces he broke my brand
new industrial strength 1/2 inch drill bit, so there certainly is some
good, strong metal left there.  i am a bit more careful now about how
much jib i keep up in strong winds or how much i let it flog itself in
light winds.

i replaced the tricolor in case it's causing the electrolysis/corrosion
there and because it's also a pig electrically.  uses over 2 amps,
which is a lot for me when sailing at night when my solar panels are
asleep.  the new one uses LEDs instead of a bulb and is a power miser.
only problem with it is that my original fixture was also an anchor
light and the new one is just the tri-color navigation light, so
sometimes at anchor i cheat and use the tri-color even though we are
not moving.

i have a 2 horsepower 4 cycle outboard engine for my dinghy.  its a 
honda who i thought made good products.  but their little outboards
are terrible and rust out very quickly.  the outboard one day, started
dripping oil on the stern of the boat and soon had no oil.  i took it
to an outboard repair shop and they took it apart (with difficulty
due to the corrosion) and found it was the valve cover that was bad.
there were none in brazil, so they put the engine back together to
wait till a visitor could bring me the part.  it came at the end
of may and with help i installed it.  on opening up the engine i
noticed 2 bolts with nothing attached (where the exhaust manifold
should be) and putting it back together again noticed that the choke
lever didnt connect to anything.  so while my overheating mechanic
was a gem, not all brazilian shops are as good.  they charged me
as if they had fixed the problem (fair since they did spend time on
it) but forgot 2 parts.  another boaty made me a choke cable from
a coat hanger and we just have the noisiest outboard on the planet.


ilha grande cruising area
-------------------------

we discovered a lovely cruising area about 100 miles beyond rio called
ilha grande.  ilha grande itself is an island in the middle of a big
bay.  its a national park and full of hiking trails, fruit trees waiting
to be harvested, local fishermen with fresh fish they want to give/sell
you or trade for cashasa which is a local liquor made from sugar cane
that costs about 40 cents a liter.  both the island and the bay have
long fiord like harbors where we were often the only boat.  on every
beach is a little shack where you can buy a drink or meal.  locals 
come to the beaches in boats called escunas (pronounced schooner)
that are sort of modeled after the old sailing schooners, but most
have never had any sails in their lifetime.  there are no roads on
ilha grande, just hiking trails.

on one hike i harvested a jack fruit.  it's about the size of a 
basketball, slightly squished so as to be more a football shape.
this particular one was dead ripe and about 1/3 had been already
harvested by bees and other small critters.  my nieces were not
too keen on taking it, but my provider instincts won out and we
carted it home.  i was banished from the boat with it while it
smelled rotten because of the already harvested section.  so i
cleaned it in the dinghy and it entered the boat all nice and 
clean in tupperware containers.  two thirds of a basketball size
is a lot of fruit and i found that my nieces were not too keen
on it, since they had all seen its original state.  i ate it for
about 3 days, on cereal, as a snack, as dessert, ... also gave
a lot away to other boats who welcomed it (they hadnt seen it
in its half-rotten state).  future harvesting will be limited
to bananas that can always become banana bread when they get
a bit long in the tooth.

one of the fiords on the mainland side hides the little town called
paraty (pronounced para-chee) that is an old colonial town 
now full of tourists. the whole downtown area is blocked off as a
walking street.  the streets are cobblestones and are designed so
that high tides (especially spring tides) flood and wash the streets.

our first afternoon there we had 2 invitations from locals to go visit
waterfalls the next day and to go dancing that night.  one came
from the boat we anchored next to and the other from a boat that
sailed by real close and gave us a card for his bar in town where
there was live music that night.  we were tired, but not too tired
to pass up live music and a cute town.  the trip to the waterfall
the next day was neat.  we swam in the water, sat in the falls and
held on for dear life to not be swept away, and had one of the best
meals we have had in brazil.  we went with the owner of the bar
where we danced.

the girls found temporary (?) boyfriends in paraty, so we stayed weeks
instead of days and had lots of pot luck meals with the boyfriends
who were also boat people.  one had a car so i got lots of boat
chores done (like the overheating). did a second waterfall that
was over a smooth rock and you slid down on your butt.  scary at
first but lots of fun. 

brazilerios seem to be very attentive suitors while you are anchored
right next to them and inviting them to yummy dinners, but not so
reliable when you are out of sight (out of mind).  one said he wanted
to sail with us in june in the north of brazil and would call or
email and connect with us.  we never heard from him.  someone had
told us that brazilerios never want to say no, so they say something
else that we interpret as "yes, but later" but that is really no.  we
got burned by that a few times.

libby, my other niece (the middle one) came to visit, bringing lots
of goodies including chocolate covered hazelnuts from the dilletant
chocholate factory in seattle.  if you are ever in seattle i highly
recommend it (it's on broadway) -- it has the yummiest chocolate in
america and also wonderful icecream deserts.  take a friend, the
deserts are big.

rio de janiero
--------------

we sailed back to rio, motoring most of the way because the winds
were light.  instead of 2 days at a snails pace, it took just overnight
and we arrived early in the morning.  the wind had picked up and 
we had a lovely sail into rio at dawn. we had left the boat in rio
at a marina when we went to the amazon and didnt like the marina
so we tried the local yacht club.  its very fancy like the new york
yacht club or the san diego yacht club.  way out of our league.
we asked at the office saying we were members of a yacht club in
america (the ogalalla yacht club on lake mcconnahee in nebraska)
and they looked in their book of reciprocal privileges clubs and
didnt find it.  no surprise, it has only about 50 members. turns
out the only one listed was the san francisco yacht club.  so they
said we could stay overnight but then would have to go to the
lousy marina.

we wandered around and looked at the bulletin boards, hoping to
strike up a conversation with someone who was a member and get
them to invite us as a guest.  usually this is no problem
with my nieces as crew, but the yacht clubers were more my age and
not obviously interested in 20ish young ladies.  but the bulletin
board had an announcement of a regatta the coming weekend so i put
them up to asking one of the old men having coffee about it.  after
a bit of portuguese discussion, he switched to english and we asked
how we could stay at the club for a few days.  he went to the office
and asked and told us to write a short letter saying who we were 
and how long we wanted to stay and the office would probably say yes
without his sponsorship.  he was willing to sponsor us if we needed.
wrote the letter and it worked.

we had coffee there every morning (free). didnt have to launch our
dinghy, they had a taxi boat that would take you out to your boat
whenever you wanted, even at 6am after a night of dancing.  was
a very nice place, protected bay, good strong mooring and wonderful
coffee.  we stayed a week.

saw the most touristy thing in rio, corcovado, the huge statue
of christ overlooking the city and the bay that its in.  rio de janiero
means january river.  when discovered in january by the portuguese,
they thought that the bay was a river delta and named it accordingly.
the statue is huge and spectacular.  we took a taxi up and our taxi
driver became our tour guide, waiting while we looked at it, taking
pictures with our cameras so we were all in them, driving us around
the park that it is located in so that we saw the statue from all
angles, etc.  he was an awesome taxi driver and guide, so proud of
his city. i was worried that the taxi bill would be a fortune but
it was a fixed price and he threw in the touring the park for free.

we also did a favela tour.  favela translates most closely to slum
or ghetto.  but with a bit of a different twist.  in brazil if you
live on land for 5 years and no one challenges you, the land is yours.
so the steeper areas of the city, that had no development on them
became squatters havens. people built shacks, hooked onto the power
grid randomly, got water somehow, and voila, they owned their own
home.  there are no roads in the favelas, obviously no building code,
no zoning or setback requirements, just poor people who built their
houses and now own them.

each favela seems to be "ruled" by a drug dealer gang.  the people
living there are too poor to use drugs and brazil doesnt produce
drugs, but they are a major distribution center for their own
middle class users and they transport it to the usa and canada. the
gangs employ kids to watch out for cops and warn them if any come
near.  the warning device of choice seems to be fire crackers and
you hear bunches of firecrackers going off every hour or so as a
police car drives the perimeter of the favela.  the drug gangs sort
of also take care of the people who live there, so if someone is
hurt and cant work the drug gangs will give the family money for
food or doctor/hospital care.  there seem to be no social services
for the poor as you have in american cities. walking around i took
pictures of the wiring, it would make an electrician faint. the
plumbing was interesting too.  seemed you just hooked into the 
nearest live wire/pipe.  some organizations (ngo's) are trying 
to use the favela tours to support the communities.  we visited
a family's house, a school, a crafts area where local artists were
selling their wares, as well as walking around the favela.  it
was a maze of twisty little passages all alike.


north - heading out of brazil
-----------------------------

after a week of touristing in rio we headed north, against the
prevailing wind and current.  the trick is to wait for a cold front
to come thru from the south and then ride the southeast wind
north.  we left at the tail end of a front and found it harder
than it sounds.  we were close on the wind motorsailing with our
new non-overheating engine and in about 12 hours had made 5 miles 
to the good.  wind and current against us was too much.  so we went
back to wait for the next cold front or for a day or two of no
wind.  the first 100 miles is due east, but after that the coast
line turns more northeast or north.  a couple of days later we
tried again and made it to buzios around the corner where the
coastline changes direction.  we anchored there overnight and left the
next day just as the cold front arrived with 35 knot winds for a bit
and rain.  the winds held from the south for several days.  we
were heading for abrollos, an area of reefs and good snorkeling
about 60 miles off shore.  there is an anchorage with moornings
that is protected from north winds and you go to the other side
of the island if the winds are from the south.  in the winter
(june/july) the whales from anticartica are there with their
babies and its pretty neat/spectacular.  but i chickened out.
shouldnt have, but i was worried that the wind would change
and i would have to go from one side of the island to the other
in the dark and be unable to see the reefs all around.

we did stop at several little harbors along the way back north to
salvador.  some were not touristy and had tiny restaurants with a single
dish (it was some yummy shellfish stew thing) and some were totally
touristy.  at one, we arrived just at dusk and anchored near the
local yacht club.  we rowed ashore and someone offered to hide our
oars for us and take us to the trail to town.  its good we had
a guide because the trail was very hairy, over the beach and up
a cliff and thru a persons yard and finally you hit a path to town.
we explored the town but knew we couldnt get back by the route we
came so we got a water taxi to take us to the dinghy.  and our
oars were right where the guy had hidden them.  one of our other
stops said in the guide book that you had to enter between a cut in
the reefs and showed a handy dandy map with no scale or way points
on it.  it was pretty scary.  we went in at mid tide so the rocks of
the reef were visible on one side but not the other side.  at low
tide the anchorage was quite protected, but at high tide a swell
came in over the reefs.  a rolly, slightly worrisome night.  we
anchored so far out that we didnt go ashore. the tidal current and
our dinghy's rowing abilities made it too far.

brazil's best known author is jorge amato who wrote gabriella, clove
and cinnimon that takes place in ilheus during the cocoa times.
we had all just read it and it was neat stopping there and seeing
the bar that played a prominent role in the story.

we finally arrived back in salvador in time for our next visitor,
the girls mom, candace. she came with engine parts (radiator cap
for the diesel, valve cover for the outboard) and loads of yummy
snacks.

our next sail was to recife about 400 miles north of salvador.
recife means reef, so we had to be sure to arrive in good daylight.
the wind was very light and we motored most of the way, making
only about 3 knots because the current was strongly against us.
we were starting to worry that we wouldnt have enough feul and
that we would have to stop along the way for feul.  just as that
was becoming quite probable, the wind picked up and we decided
to continue on to recife.  a quick calculation showed that we
were now going too fast instead of too slow and would arrive
at about 3-4am. it gets light at 5:30 and reliably light so you
can see reefs and buoys at more like 7:00. so we hove to and
drifted a few hours in the middle of the night so as to arrive
in good light.  we went to the marina at the end of the harbor
and i did my worst parking job ever.  we talked to the marina
on the radio and asked if we had to use an anchor off our stern
to hold us off the wall.  they said yes, so we got it all ready
but had never done it before, so werent too confident.  then we
got to the actual marina down a channel marked with sticks and
the marinero on a dinghy said not to use the anchor, showed us
the spot to park, and said to get the mooring buoy on the left
side of the parking place.  the wind was from the right side so
would blow us toward the mooring.  hannah hooked it with the
boat hook but couldnt really hold it, i had the boat stopped
but there was already a little boat tied to the mooring.  turns out
we had misunderstood the portuguese on the radio and with the
marinero and we were not supposed to anchor or to get the mooring
but rather to tie up to the boat on the upwind side of the spot.
meanwhile the mooring is now tangled in our rudder, we are sort
of parked, but have no lines holding us except the tangled 
mooring line.  the marinero ties the little boat to us, ties
us to the upwind boat, empties his pockets, and jumps in the
water - he forgot his back pocket and throws his soaking wet
wallet into his dinghy.  he dives on the mooring and gets it 
free, and after about an hour of messing around, we are parked,
the boat on the mooring is back where he belongs and we offer
the marinero a beer.  its maybe 8am, but he chugs the beer as
though it was half a glass of water.  then has another.  by
that time he isnt mad at us anymore for not following his
instructions.  not sure what our problem was with our understanding
what they wanted us to do. my nieces are pretty good with
portuguese now, but maybe the people from the northeast of
brazil have an accent or something.

i did the paperwork with my marginal portuguese (<100 words, no verbs)
in the dinghy.  each time you enter or leave a state in brazil you
have to go to the federal police and the port captain to get the
boat checked in/out of that state. the motor ran and seemed ok,
but very noisy.

our final sail before leaving the boat to come home for a month
was to jacare, a river with quite a current.  we anchored opposite
the boatyard where we would get a mooring for the trip home in a
few days. we launched alice, the dinghy, and the engine worked,
but after a day it had burned a hole in the plastic housing that
is around the engine.  that exhaust manifold must be important.
not sure if i have ruined the engine but it wont run at more
than idling speed and that for less than a minute.  rowing an
inflatable is hard so getting our stuff off the boat became
a bit challenging.  my nieces were taking a years worth of
accumulation and i was taking everything that was broken and
needed to be fixed.  the dinghy only holds 4 people and with
all our stuff it took 3 trips.  fortunately two of them were
at slack tide.

i am home in colorado till july 8 when i go back to the boat,
have visitors from hungary for 2 weeks, and then get ready to
leave brazil and sail to trinidad/tobago.  i need crew,
experienced preferred leaving july 24-28 from either natal
(if the hungarians get seasick) or forteleza (if they dont).
will probably stop in french guiana.  its about 2000 miles,
wind and current will be with us so it should be a fast passage.
i have one person, need one or two more.

please email or call if you are interested.

hugs.

-evi
evi@cs.colorado.edu
1-303-443-9832 early morning or evenings till midnight