15:00
8/1/08
Shortly after the midday
entry the wind dropped to 5 knots so we hoisted the iron mainsail.
Paulo has sent some info on
Florianopolis:
“Florianopolis
(translation
City of Flower - Flor) is the capital of
the
state of Santa Catarina. It is a big island with lots of beachs, many
of
them considered excellent for surfing. As in Rio you have the barbacue
restaurants
(churrascarias) in Florianopolis you have the Shrimp places,
where you pay
a fixed price and is served all these dishes. This city was
founded by the
Azoreans, and they still have this different accent.
It is not as beautiful
as Angra. (Ihla Grande)”
The last bit makes me feel a little
better about not stopping.
16:00
Sailing again. Wind ESE force 4. This wind direction is not supposed to
be on the menu.
We pass
Porto
Alegre which is 50 miles inland as the crow flies but more like 140
miles up through a lake to get there. I wonder how many visitors they get by
sea.
I sent an e-mail to the Yacht Club in
Punta del Este asking if they would have a berth for us for a few days from
Thursday.
This is the reply I got, in it’s entirity:
“Ok what you need”
I’ll take that as a yes.
3:30 AM 9/1/08
I arose for my watch to discover the computer
had been down for several hours, i.e. the dongle for the navigation program and
the wireless USB device etc. weren’t working. A USB hub appeared be functioning
but when I took it out of the system and reorganised all the USB connections,
and restarted the computer several times I gradually got everything back, all
except a GPRS Modem which we never use anyway. I hope it was just the Hub and not
something more sinister on the computer mother board. Sorry, I know that’s too technical for
some of you, and you know who you are.
Wind has gone back to NE and we’re
poled out again and back on course. We’re passing
Rio
Grande which is the entrance to
the body of water containing Porto
Alegre many miles to the
North.
Nik cooked the Wahoo for last night’s
dinner and while there was no curry or chile there certainly was a Brazilian
level of salt.
North Brazil that is. We’re Wahooed
out for the time being.
12
Noon
Beautiful cloudless skies. Wind carries on
NNE Force 5. Still Poled out
and maintaining 7 plus knots. 24
Hour Run 174 miles, 3 ½ hours under engine. 189 miles to go so we’ll definitely be
in Punta del Este tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. I read in a recent yachting magazine
about the invention of a new marine clock whose major feature apart from time,
is it shows in large letters the day of the week. You’d be surprised how
difficult it is to remember the day of the week after a few days at
sea.
The
internet conncetion I normally use is playing up in this location so I won’t be
able to include any more photos, until Punta del Este where I hope we get a decent shore
