Finally going south
Dawnbreaker
Lars Alfredson
Thu 20 Jan 2011 13:14
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Porto de Galhinas
Pos 08:30.767S 035:00.103W
Wednesday 19/1 At 18:00 GMT Dawnbreaker left Cabanga
at high tide to anchor at Recife harbour to wait for our local
expert
"torpedo" to
join the crew on our adventure. The remaning fleet of three sailboats,
Grey Pearl, Yazbo and
Timshell joined
us at anchor.
Graciously Yazbo invited us for aperitif time, with french tonic, Gordon's gin and Pastis. Around 23:00
GMT Thomas was volunteered to pick-up torpedinho at the Cabanga Yacht
Club.
Torpedinho
After dealing
with last minute family issues all were on board the dinghy on our way to meet
the fleet.
About 30
minutes into the ride we hit a fishing net that got tangled on the outboard
propeller
- some
superpower is making it very hard for us to leave Recife on this journey (wait
it will make more
sense during
the following blogs.)
At 2 GMT of Thursday we took sail to Suape - again to deliver Torpedo's dinghy. Nice sailing on
genoa 1 under an easterly 18 knots, we arrived at harbour around 5:30
GMT.
The remaining
fleet not to be seen until 8:00 GMT.
Thursday 20/1 Leaving to Porto de Galinhas  "Dawnpedia" ... Porto de Galinhas means Port of Chickens; during the 18th century, when the traffic of slaves was forbidden, "chicken" was the code used to refer to the
slaves.
"There are new chickens in town" was the way to say that a ship loaded
with slaves had arrived.
Until a few years ago, Porto de Galinhas was an anonymous small village of fishermen; today, it's a famous small village of fishermen. Many of the locals
still make a living out of the catches
they get from the sea, the coconuts which abound in the palm tree
plantations, the small commerce businesses.
Around the 1990s, some Brazilian celebrities (TV stars, sportsmen, politicians) discovered this place; from the social/gossip sections, Porto de Galinhas moved to the tourism
section of major newspapers and magazines.
Being close (around 60 km) to Recife, it was easy for travel operators
to include a one-day trip to Porto;
soon, the beauties of the place were widespread, and today Porto de
Galinhas is one of the most important
tourist destination in Brazil.
The village is still small. No more than a couple of streets, laid out in a maze-like grid. Every house which was barely large enough was turned into a hostel. There are several
restaurants, shops (mostly beach wear),
car rentals, agencies operating tours to the neighbourhoods.
The beach front is fully taken by hotels, with (few) restaurants in between. Recently, some large groups have invested in luxurious hotels.
The beach line is 18 km long, all with white, fine grained, clean sand. There is a chain of reefs lining all along the coast. During the lower tide, the water trapped by the reefs forms
several natural pools;
tourists can swim, dive and feed the fishes.
Set sail sharp at 9:00 GMT after wakeup horn to the dislike of the fleet. In 15 min Dawnbreaker was on its way and bothFrench boats struggled to get ready an follow. Little wind
today so we motored to get there in time for
the next high tide. A harbour with very bad reputation for
sailboats turned to be the easiest of all accesses we encountered so
far.
Le Port due Poulet is a nice crowded beach where you can spend a pleasant day snorkelling and having caipirinha on the beach while nibbling on seafood snacks offered right on the spot by
beach vendors.
Thomas of course as our liaison and public relations expert to the natives, immediately traded T-shirts on the beach with some scuba-diving instructors. To his luck he spotted the only XXXL
T-shirt at the beach ...... kkkkkk,
 
Different types of
boats
Lunchtime
Thomas bargaining for a T-shirt
As Galinhas is not a comfortable anchorage to spend the night we left to Carneiros in the afternoon .... As most probably you readers are also feed up with this GMT crap we now
drooping this reference
and moving to G&T time (Gin and Tonic). The fleet his having a
hard time to keep at our pace so we lost
all of the after Galinhas and sailed south by ourselves into unchartered
waters of Lamb's Land under the authority
of the King of Sweden, the patience of Captain Lars, piloting of skipper
Torpedo and with no working Garmin GPS on board.
We have picked up a new invisible pet on this trip, "Ms Piggy" she will star several funny passages over the next month on board. She keeps us on our toes and away of trouble
.....
Tonton, chief editor at hand
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