22:44.84 S, 041:53.15 W

 

We anchored here at Buzios at exactly 08:00 as originally planned! This kind of precision is a fluke when under sail but was quite satisfying. Buzios seems very scenic and peaceful albeit mighty touristy but it seems to calm down in the evening. A huge cruise ship arrived just as we did and immediately started ferrying people in the usual orange bum-boats to town, but straight onto a fleet of Turkish style Gulets which are based here and thus to take a stately tour of the bay as they’d obviously done too much exercise recently and really needed more sitting down and stuffing their faces: why it must have been almost 30 minutes after breakfast by now and so high time for some drinking and serious snacking.

 

We rowed ashore to the yacht club to see if we could use its facilities for a couple of days while anchored 100m off shore but the boss man (not sure if of the office or the club, ie Commodore) was out and the staff couldn’t decide. Maybe we’ll fid out tomorrow but since the other foreign yachts – yes there are two, one Dutch and one Swedish – which arrived a day or two ago have been given access we hope and imagine that we won’t be refused. Anyway we went for a stroll into town and then spent the afternoon diving under Awelina and scraping the hull clean of a host of small barnacles which attached themselves in the week we were at Vitoria. The water here seems clean enough and clear enough and it was really a pleasure to be in. We began by trying to scrape the barnacles off with pan scrubbers but eventually resorted to two out of date credit cards; we really need an ice scraper for a car windscreen – but we are not likely to find one here!! Tomorrow will see us tackling the back end of her hull including the propellor.

 

Apart from the barnacles we liked Vitoria, although it’s more a real working town which people live in rather than touristy. We did experience a strange and noisy procession of lots, maybe a couple of 1000, of people of all ages who were wearing Brazilian football team shirts and shouting, but what about we had no idea. It looked peaceful enough despite them being escorted by mounted police (but only 3 of them) so we just pushed through it to get to the other side of the street. Only later that evening did it become clear that it was a night of political demonstrations and rioting in most other parts of Brazil; but in Vitoria they’re all are too comfortable and civilised for riots. Besides, the doughnut sellers were making a profit on the event. Not really your bitter petrol bomb crowd!

 

Our penultimate night we wandered ashore to find a night time food market right outside the yacht club. Families were out with their kids and grandma’s eating a variety of foods all cooked on the spot. We had a giant skewer of meat and a local salad whilst people watching. The Brazilians are an uncritical nation in terms of dress code – it’s refreshing to see that almost anything goes. One surprising stall was a young man painting with his fingers and a bit of sponge; we have no photos to show but he appeared to wipe and dot his hands across a white board using acrylic paints and presto; a moonlit, wooded scene appeared in 5 minutes flat. He clearly is very talented.

 

View of the town from our mooring in the outer harbour. We are not alongside but held in a cat’s cradle of lines ashore and to anchors astern.

 

 

The harbour is the property of the Iate Clube do Espirito Santo, and is very smart, especially a nice swimming pool and adjacent bar!

 

Got him! This is one of the smart little birds which seem a cross between a woodpecker and a canary. He’s called a winky-woo (at least it sounds like that) because that’s exactly what he sounds like. Apparently he will hoover up any scraps left at the pool bar, including chips.

 

The one tourist ‘must do’ thing in Vitoria (but is actually across the river in the twin town of Vila Vehla) is a visit to the monastery / Convento de Penha which can be seen overlooking the town. There is a massive pilgrimage to it during Holy Week, i.e. next week, and apparently the devout climb up the magnificent but rough cobbled path on their knees. It’s the Brazilian equivalent of Lourdes and the lame flock here. We walked up anyway.

 

While walking up we admired the eagles circling around, and only once at the top did we realise that actually they’re vultures – perhaps some of the pilgrims don’t make it!

 

A view from the top across the river towards Vitoria. The marina is just the other side of the second and much smaller road bridge.

 

After the Convento we walked back down and through the town to the beach for a swim and some lunch. It’s not that scenic a town, but clean and functional with a splendid beach. Note the paraglider in the background, there were several above the hotels there but we could not work out where they launched from.

 

Back in Vitoria the other tourist sight is the cathedral – visiting the cathedral being pretty much mandatory in Catholic countries – which is in the ‘historic quarter’. Apart from the cathedral, and that was only built about 100 years ago, it’s just lower rise and scruffier than the rest of the town, but had a splendid Saturday vegetable market of the type we were hoping for at Maragogipe and we couldn’t resist stocking up and visiting a local restaurant for authentic ‘comida por kilo’.

 

 

The cathedral is famous for its stained glass which was all the work on one man, an Italian who lived in Rio de Janeiro and made it his life’s work.

 

But the lasting impression of Vitoria is of a place civilised enough that children race dinghies. In the background is the Convento do Penha perched on its granite mound.