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American Spirit II - Day 400; Secured Carnival Balcony Reservation at the Othon Pallace Hotel; Mast Light Fixed; & Hydro Generator Badly Damaged by Dock; Tuesday, February 10, 2015



One year ago today:

"Day 38; Joel Saves Big Bird!; Monday, February 10, 2014. Not mentioned on the day's previous log because I sent it in early, was at 5:15 PM Sunday a large white bird, with black and white wings,a long neck and orange beak; along with a 3 - 4 foot wingspan, made a pass over our 2 fishing lines and his left wing got caught in one of the lines. Not the hook, just the line. He went down like a Nazi ME 109 during the Battle of Britain in the English Channel. Splash! As Joel Heyne donned 2 fishing type gloves, I reeled him in. He just sat in the water trying to swim under water and get away. We stopped the boat and turned the motor off. After what seemed like forever of reeling him in, the bird made it to our transom and looked up at Joel, who pounced with lightning speed, grabbing the bird's long beak with his left hand. He never knew what grabbed him. If you've ever seen a puppy dog look up at you, that is what this bird looked like looking at Joel. The bird flapped his wings a little, but stopped as Joel unwound the 40 pound fishing line from around and off of the bird's left wing. This delicate procedure took about 2 minutes. Once done, the bird took off and flew 2 feet off of the water, not gaining altitude until he was 75 feet from the boat, then he soared up and flew a few circles around the boat. On his final pass, he dipped his left wing and raised his right wing, in a kind of bird salute, straightened out and accelerated; and then he was gone."

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Today marks the 400th day of our circumnavigation. We had departed the Tampa Bay area on January 4, 2014. Seems like yesterday. No it doesn't. Seems like 13 months ago.

Up at 6:40 AM. Breakfast at 7:30 AM consisted of eggs; potato; chilled pineapple slices; and brown bread...for Joel and me. Jeanine had oat meal and tea.

At 9:00 AM Joel and I are waiting for Marcelo to arrive at his dock side office so we can show him the broken whisker pole. He arrives at 9:50 AM. Island time. He comes to the boat and he says he can fix the pole the way we want it; that the charge to do so would be 1800 Real or $600; and that he would have it back to us by Friday. I tell him the exchange rate for 1800 Brazilian Real is $477, but that I'd give him $500 for the repair. He agrees and Joel and I deliver the pole to his dockside office. I also ask him if he can fix our flag pole, and he says yes; for 100 Real. I agree and give it to him. We also order an outlet, which we will use to splice into one of our electrical lines so we can run the air conditioning. Lastly, I ask Marcel if he has a plank for us to use to get on and off out boat. He says he does, and will have it by tomorrow. While Joel and I are dealing with there issues Jeanine is off buying SIM cards for our phones.


Charlie from Celebrate then shows up at our boat with some beer and a bottle of Brandy, saying that we had won the January 17 'rhyme' contest and that these were our rewards. If you remember, Joel had written the rhyme, which he did in 5 minutes; and which was quite good. The rhyme was:

An Ode to the South Atlantic Ocean:

Davie Jones has nothing on me,
Because we are where we should be,
Sailing over the ocean,
With a nice gentle motion.

As we continue to sail,
There is no need to bale,
As we've missed that giant sperm whale.

While other boats make the mad dash,
American Spirit II is content to watch another green flash.

At 10:30 AM Joel and I walk to the Bahia Tours 'Balcony' office; to inquire about buying 6 tickets for the Friday night Carnival for a balcony at the Othon Palace Hotel. The tickets are $212 apiece for the men; and $174 for Jeanine. Besides us, I was shopping for 3 tickets for the crew of Civetta II. The transaction had to be cash only. If we buy the tickets, I'm told the tickets will be available for pick-up tomorrow after 11:00 AM. Since Russ and Laurie are looking into getting a hotel room with a balcony and view of the carnival parade, we commit to buy the tickets yet until we see what they found out.

We then go to 2 banks so I can use an ATM. Both attempts are declined. To enter the bank you have to go thru a turnstile glass door. One of them won't let me in because I have too much metal on me. So I slip my camera thru a small glass door, and voila, I can now enter. Very high security. I've never seen a security door like this before. One inside the bank there are about 10 ATM's lined up along a wall, with people occupying most of them. Amazing.

For lunch Joel and I go to the same restaurant we went to last night for dinner.

Back at the boat, I pull Joel up the mast using the electric cabin top winch so he can fix the deck light that has been ripped out of its mounting. He does so. Then I noticed that the hydro generator has been seriously damaged by the dock. Apparently, when the tide dropped, the bow mooring lines had less tension on them, and the boat drifted back to the dock by a couple of feet. The hydro got crushed between our transom and the dock. A critical piece of plastic broke; and the top bracket had a bolt seared off. The propeller was also scraped up a lot. I went to talk to Tim from Ghost, who also has a hydro generator, and he had the piece that was broken. So we borrowed his and will return it to him once I order a new one. The bolt we have a spare for. To fix the bolt, we'll have to empty the port cockpit locker and the hidden storage space, for Joel to access and replace the bolt. The propeller we'll use sand paper on to smooth away the bad scratches and gouges in the plastic. I'll have to order another propeller also as I'm not convinced the damaged one will work properly.

I talk to Russ and Laurie from Nexus about what they found out about the hotel room to watch Carnival from, and they found a room with a poor view. So we're back to getting the balcony tickets ourselves.

At 5:20 PM I go back to the Bahia Tours office and pay for 6 tickets, a total of $1,234. 00. I'm told to come back tomorrow to pick up the tickets and T-Shirts. In order to get into the balcony, we have to produce the tickets but we must also be wearing a mustard colored sleeveless T-Shirt. One size fits all, and they're too small for us. Oh well.

In my absence Joel pays for the 2 propane tanks that we had filled. The cost for both of them is 152 Real or $57. About what we've paid elsewhere in the world. He also received the 10 foot plank from Marcel and had it installed. So now we don't have to jump from the dock to the transom to get onto the boat. We just walk on a plank that has lines going to our spare mainsail halyard at the top of the mast.


I return from Bahia Tours at 6:50 PM; and then we proceed to Civetta II for a Hungarian Goulash dinner; cooked by crewman Frank. Since Civetta II is too far from the dock for Jeanine to get on the boat, Vlado turns on the engine and puts the boat in reverse so its closer to the dock. She gets on, followed by me and then Joel. After dinner we drink wine in the cockpit, then back to our boat by 8:50 PM.

Joel is in bed by 9:10 PM; followed by Jeanine at 9:45 PM and myself at 10:15 AM.

It rains heavily during the night, so the hatches have to be closed.

Brian Fox


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