Part 4- Brazil

Coen watching the Mink whale

The sail from Ascension to Brazil was lovely. It was great having the autopilot working , but it packed up after only 3 days. There was definitely something wrong with it. It was back to handsteering but we quickly got into the rythm of it again. The wind was mostly from behind and we used the spinaka a lot, probably too much, as one night the halyard snapped and the sail got dragged under the boat until we rescued it. It was torn so I stiched it up with good old dental floss but we were nervous to try use it again.

We were accompanied by a mink whale for a few days, who swam playfully inbetween the hulls, showing off with giant splashes, we also were graced with prescence of agile little spinner dolphins.

The last night of the 12 day journey, we saw the glow of the huge metropolitan Salvador, it took about 20 hours after first seeing the city lights, to be moored in Termino Nautica. We were exhausted and keen to get a full nights' sleep. But the night was the worst of my life.

At about 3am I woke up and heard voices on the deck, thinking they were offiials asking Coen for money for the mooring, I went back to sleep. A while later I woke up to someone jumping into my cabin, he was in his 20s ,wearing only boardshorts and had a huge knife in his hand. A PIRATE! I screeched, trying to wake up the boys (who were already tied up in their cabins). The Brazilian closed my window and my hatch as I continued to scream and then shoved the long knife at my throat, forcing me into silence. He ransacked my cabin, throwing all my belongings on the floor, putting my netbook , cellphone and some clothes in a bag. He was very surprised and disappointed I didnt have any gold jewellry or money, he laughed at my bangles made of string and shells. He took an interest in the pictures of South Africa I had stuck on my wall. His accomplice came into my cabin and he looked a lot scarier!!! He was definitely on drugs and was very rough with me, annoyed at my lack of possesions, I wanted my old pirate back. Pirate2 tyed me up with one of our sail ropes ( I thought he was going to rape me or tye me to the anchor and throw me overboard), when I screeched in pain , Pirate 1 loosened the knots a bit , smiled at me, stuck the knife in my face one last time and disappeared like a thief in the night.

I was in tears when Coen and Richard came to untie me. I was so traumatised from the experience and would jump at the smallest noises for weeks after. We walked around the yacht and saw that they had taken labtops, the TV, speakers, the Ipod, the GoPro, wetsuits, headtorches, sailing gloves and US$20000 ( the whole year's spending money). We stayed awake until daybreak  then launched the dinghy and spent the whole day going from office to office trying to sign in and then report the incident to the tourist police. Salvador was absalutely hideous, huge high rise buildings, people trying to sell you crap at every corner, dead dogs and prostitutes scattered on the streets. This was a huge change from the peace and quiet of the Atlantic.

Fire hooping in Itaparika

We slept one more night in Salvador, but alongside. The robbery was huge news and we had instant fame in the yachting community, the security guard sat right outside our yacht to help us feel safe and the marina apologised profusely for the incident. The next day we had a leisurely 30mile sail to the island of Itaparika.

Skating with Gean

Itaparika was lovely, it was quiet and there so many yachties there. We met a rasta, Gean , who took us skateboarding in the town square. We met a yacht who had a very lively crew of young South Africans. I did a fire show for our new friends which made for a great evening of drinking and telling sailing stories. After a week we decided to head to a more lively town called 'Morro de Sau Paulo'.

Morro holds some of my dearest memories. The town doesnt have any cars, the only vechiles are 2 police motorbikes and all the supplies are delivered to shops by donkies. There is a fun little point break which me and Richard surfed almost everyday. The town is a hub for tourists so there were more english speaking people, although our Portuguese was improving rapidly.

Fish and beer with Gilson and Raul

Doing Poi in Max and Christinas garden

One day a man swam up to the yacht ( which was anchored about 600m from the shore), his name was Max and invited us to his home that evening for a meal. He turned into a dear friend and Rich and I befriended his two teenage children, Fabio and Sofia. Max always offered for us to shower and do washing at his house as well as sleep there after parties, it was our home on land. His beautiful wife , Christinha,  was very sweet and me and her taught each other our native tongues. Fabio was such a great host and would always buy us pizza at his mothers pizzaria. We stayed in Morro for 2 months, we just couldn't bring ourselves to leave. The locals treated us like travellers and not tourists, we often got invited to people's homes for traditional meals. I got a free canoe tour from our friend , Raul and had free access to SUPs. The men in Brazil are extremely forward and all seem obssessed with me and my different features. I had marriage proposals and wolf whistles every time I walked around on my own. Our craziest friend was Gilsonio. He was hilarious, he loved food and women and was always planning a party. The food was always delicous in Morro, Gilsonio treated us to Moceca ( a seafood dish) and he also took me to a non commercial little pub in the jungle where we only got one option, fried fish and beer! The fruit juice was only servede freshly squeezed, my favourite was 'laranja com limao' (orange with lime). A fond memory is of me and Rich waking up in the middle of the night at Max's house, both with unquenchable thirsts. We ran down to the closest bar ( Me in a night gown I had found in the room), and ordered a fresh orange juice while drunk men and women drank beer and cocktails, we slept peacefully . :)

Richard was however very sick for a week or two during our stay there. I remember taking a ferry to Valentia ( the nearest town witha hospital), to get Richards blood tests. It was very ditry and I was the only barefoot person besides a hobo. The nurses spoke very fast and we didnt understand a thing, upon presenting Richards Italian passport, they rushed to find the Italian doctor, who was highly annoyed when he found neither of us could speak Italian. We finaly received the blood tests and everything looked fine, thank Goodness.

During rough weather, we would moor Grazia in Gamboa. Gamboa was not as touristy as it was on the river, there were these huge pink cliffs there were therapeutic clay was in abundance. More than once me and Rich rubbed ourselves in the mud and waited for it to dry before rubbing it off, leaving our skin soft and smooth. We also went for a really fun hobie catting lesson with an German man who owned the mooring we were on.

We left Morro briefly to sail to Salvador to pick up Richards' friend , Daniel, from the airport. We stayed in a safer, fancier marina but I was still very nervous at night. We saw some of Salvadors better side when we took a taxi to the beach and mall while Coen did some repairs on the yacht.

It was back to Morro for a few more days of surfing and partying with our friends. We could finaly start doing school again as Daniel brought a labtop up from South Africa, so it was time to work hard to get all of tasks completed.

Christina and I

We planned a day sail to Barra Grande, we invited Max and Christinha to join us and they gladly accepted. The day sail was going well, Max loved being at the wheel, so we decided to have some fun. We put some lines down inbetween the hulls and would jump off and grab onto them while the boat was undersail. You would have to angle your body to get to the side and then pull yourself up. The first time I tried this it went smoothly , but the second time we had increased the speed by a few knots and I didnt have the body strength to get back on, I was getting weaker and started to panic, there were fishing lines behind me. Eventually, a very annoyed Coen lowered the boarding ramp so I get on, by which time my bikini was around my ankles from the strong force of the water.

We had supper in Barra Grande that night at a nice seafood restaurant. The next morning Max and Christinha took a bus back to Morro and we explored Barra Grande. It was breath-takingly beautiful. There was a white sandy beach that went on for kilometres, framed by tall cocnut trees and rolling waves. The place had very few people and only saw one other surfer. The  locals were friendly and a young boy offered us a ride on his bicycle. The waves were small and mellow, just my type of wave , and there were dozens of breaks along the beach.
I was chuffed when a young English couple asked me to help them translate when looking for accomadtion, I later invited them to the yacht for lunch where I made them bread, we drank beer and had a diving contest off the bow .
The anchorage was huge so we decided to try skurfing in Barra Grande, this made for lots of fun. I enjoyed driving the dinghy with its 15horsepower engine, just as much as I liked surfing behind it with the longboard.

It was time to move on again. After a quick stop in Morro, where we said our goodbyes to our lovely friends, it was back to Salvador to sign out and see the police. The Police had found the pirates who we had given detailed descriptions of. They were in jail but unfortunately, the police only recovered a watch and a wetsuit from them, it looked like we would never see our stuff again. I was just glad the criminals were in jail, in a way I was even glad we had lost all our gizmos and gadgets, I had completely lost my idenfication waith posssessions. Without TV and cellphones, me and Rich had grown really close and I knew him better than anyone.

Bye Salvador!

It was a bitter-sweet moment leaving the coast of Brazil. What a diverse place! I had never imagined myself going there, and now it was such a special place to me. Adeus Brazil! It was time for Fernando de Noronha.