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American Spirit II - Day 419; Heidi, Joel's Youngest Daughter, Joins Us in Fortaleza, Brazil & We Learn a Very Expensive Dinner Lesson; Sunday, March 1, 2015



One year ago today:



"Day 57: Last Provisioning Day & Last Day in Galapagos; Saturday, March 1, 2014. Last day on terra firma before starting the longest leg of the Rally from the Galapagos Islands to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. The South Pacific."



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Joel got up early today, 5:40 AM, to pick up Heidi at the airport. Heidi was flying in from Miami, Florida via Bogata, Columbia. One of the most dangerous cities in the world? She had a two hour layover there. I got up at 5:51 AM, after setting my alarm the night before for 5:35 AM. However, my alarm didn't go off this morning because the alarm was set to go off only on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Who knew?! Joel left at 6:00 AM for the taxi ride to the airport. As soon as he left, it was clean up time on the boat. I water/bleach sprayed all the galley surfaces; the entire head, sink and shower area; put stuff away; put new pillow cases on Heidi's and Joel's pillows; got rid of the garbage; put out Heidi's American Spirit II cap and new Brazilian looking porcelain coffee cup; organized Jeanine's stuff to be put in the hidden hold; put wine and liquor bottles in the wine storage area and the storage area in the starboard, aft lazarette; collected all the grocery bags that I'd used to buy groceries yesterday and put them in their proper storage place; and then wiped down the cockpit table. I was finished cleaning and organizing by 8:00 AM.



At 8:03 AM a heavy rain shower hit us. It seems like we get rain every morning. Then it clears up somewhat by late morning.



Heidi and Joel got to the boat, in the rain, at 8:15 AM. The first order of business when they got on the boat was...you guessed it. Coffee. Apparently Heidi likes coffee as much as her dad does. Go figure.



After coffee, I cooked breakfast: eggs, potato, chilled pineapple slices and brown bread. I was a little nervous cooking breakfast as Heidi and her husband Bernie own a popular restaurant in St. Petersburg called CD Roma's. Would she like my cooking? I was beside myself worrying if my breakfast for her would be satisfactory. If you believe that, you don't know me. It started to rain heavily after breakfast.



Heidi had a suitcase full of stuff that we'd ordered or asked her to bring. Such as: a wooden flag staff and flag to replace the ones on our transom; Folgers coffee; Crystal Light; black pepper; corn on the cob end stickers; Roach Proof; coffee creamer; sandals for Joel; two replacement latches for our cockpit lockers; two bilge pump float switches; a bunch of stuff for Jeanine; and a new American Express Card and Visa Debit Card for me. When Heidi left St. Pete she had put 4 Folgers coffees in her suitcase. When she arrived one was missing. But she had an extra item in her luggage that wasn't her's, one black sock. Our guess is that security opened her bag to check it, along with other bags on the same table, and that when they put her stuff back in, they put one of the coffee's into a different bag and put the sock, my mistake, into hers. So an honest mistake, not really a theft. Why steal one of our 4 coffee's instead of all four? She also had some stuff leak in her bag, but because everything was in its own ziplock type bag disaster was avoided. One of the items that leaked was one of my 6 Crystal Light containers. And that stuff is nasty when it leaks. If it leaks on your cloths, they're ruined. She also brought one plastic bottle of Captain Morgan. What a Princess! Joel's favorite rum; and we were short of it and couldn't find any more in Brazil. Crisis averted.



At around 10:00 AM we headed to the pool. I brought my navigation computer with me so that I could send and receive emails and do Windows updates, which I hadn't done in many, many months. Since we had pretty good Wifi at the pool, I thought I'd give it a try. Success. But the Wifi wasn't working for my Kindle, as I couldn't connect to the hotel site to download a book I wanted to buy.



Chicka-lu and Festina Lente arrived at the marina at 1:15 PM, with Chicka-lu med-moor docking first. That brought the total number of boats in Fortaleza to 6: American Spirit II; Civetta II; Avocet; Boingo Alive; Chika-lu; and Festina Lente. The other 12 boats in the Rally are heading to Grenada without stopping in Fortaleza.



We left the pool and were back on the boat at 4:00 PM. While Heidi unloaded and put away her personal items in her V-Bert cabin, Joel and I unloaded the hidden storage area and the port cockpit lazarette. We had to get out an extra set of foul weather gear for Jeanine on Civetta II, as Heidi was going to wear Darlene's foul weather gear on American Spirit II. We also had to get some hose clamps out of storage; some filters and a fan belt to change the engine oil;a drinking container for Heidi; and we had to put Heidi's suitcases away, along with two bags of Jeanine's stuff.



At 6:30 PM Chicka-lu joined us in the hotel lobby and we took 2 taxi's to the Churrascaria Boi Negro Brazilian Restaurant. Besides Joel, Heidi and myself; we were joined by 5 from the Chika-lu crew, including Hubert, Wolf, Frank, Peter and a 5th crew member who was new and whose name I didn't know. On the way to the restaurant we passed by two outdoor Catholic church services going on, with hundreds of people in attendance. The Churrascaria Boi Negro restaurant is unique in that at your table each of us has a circular piece of cardboard that is green on one side and red on the other. One side, the green one, says 'Sim, Por Favor,' which means 'Yes, Please.' The red side says 'Nao, Obrigado,' which means 'No, thanks.' Restaurant workers walked around with big cuts of different beef, pork, lamb, sausage, etc. on a skewer, and if you have the green side up they stop by and offer you a cut of meat. If you have the red side face up, they don't stop by and offer you any meat. The restaurant also had a gigantic salad bar; and a sea food section with an emphasis on shrimp cooked in different ways. For dessert they wheeled a large cart by the table and served you as many desserts as you wanted; and finally a liquor cart came by so you could have yourself an after dinner drink. We split the bill for dinner, but doing this created great confusion when it came to paying the bill, since none of us spoke Portuguese and no one in the restaurant spoke English. Welcome to Brazil.



The bill for dinner was over 1,800 Real; $635 or $79 apiece. Wow! However, 1,000 of the 1,800 Real cost was for wine. The Germans love to not only drink wine, they drink good and very expensive wine. Because Joel had 2 glasses of their wine (Heidi and I had none), we were obligated to split the dinner evenly, including the wine cost. If we hadn't had any wine, then I would have offered to pay 3/8ths of 800 Real, or 300 Real ($105), for the food cost only. A BIG difference. Drink and learn!



The restaurant had large angled windows facing a beach and the ocean, with hundreds of tents set up by vendors selling souvenirs, clothing, etc. The streets were jammed with people, even though it was Sunday night. Joel and Heidi went for a short walk into the large, tented area. I remained behind holding onto Heidi's purse, which had her passport in it (Oops - my mistake for not collecting it when she got to the boat and putting it into the boat's safe); and I had my Kindle, I Phone, and the 2 new credit cards Heidi brought for me from the US, and a camera in my over the shoulder small bag. So to not get mugged or robbed, I stayed behind. As the Chika-lu group decided to stay on the beach walking around to the hundreds of tents for an extended period; and I believe they were going 'bar hopping' on the way back to the marina; we decided to get a taxi and head back to the marina, arriving there at 10:15 PM. On the way to the restaurant our taxi driver drove us along the beach and main boulevards. On the way back to our marina this taxi driver drove us thru the back streets of Fortaleza, where at some point I wondered if he wasn't taking us to a 'rip off' place. Once back at the boat Joel and Heidi went to bed fairly quickly, while I stayed up typing this log.



One interesting fact on driving in Brazil is that there are two red lights horizontally next to each other at each stop lighted intersection; but there is only one green light and one yellow light.



Brian Fox


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