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Aretha - 03 34 South 34 58 West - Sailing Fernando de Noronha



0145 am. It’s a sensible time to be asleep. Apart from when you’re not. Being short handed (just Nichola and me) means we are single handing 12 hours a day each. Fortunately on this stretch of water Nichola is in good form and the seas are relatively calm (relative being the operable word).

We left the anchorage in the tiny island of Fernando de Noronha yesterday morning for the 365 mile passage to Fortaleza in Northern Brazil. We have the wind on our beam and are making fast progress at some 9 knots to Fortaleza. It’s a murky night outside with lots of squalls and lightening around Aretha. We’ve taken the precautions of putting the iPad, VHF, spare GPS and spare EPIRB in a metal box and put this inside our microwave. This is our makeshift Faraday cage to prevent these essential bits of kit being frazzled if we get a direct lightning hit (like our friends on Garlix did on the East coast of S Africa). An EPIRB btw is emergency kit which when activated sends out a signal to let rescuers know where to find you.

There is a reasonable amount of shipping tonight - tankers and cargo ships heading South and East towards S Africa, and North towards the States. It’s nice to see some lights out here in the gloomy light and know that its not just you out here.

We had a robust 5 day sail to Fernando - the wind largely on the nose meaning wet bouncy sailing. By day 4 Nichola had just about gathered her sea legs and there was enough time to forget how green she’d felt by the time we arrived in Fernando.

We’d had an expectation that Brazil was the land of the beautiful people. By the time we left Salvador we were questioning this a little. Now we’ve been to Fernando, we get it - they are all here - the beautiful people that is. Fernando is a totally different experience to the Brazil we’d seen so far. A small relaxed island, extremely friendly and easy to get around. We had just 4 days here and loved every moment.

I’ll paint a picture. The anchorage is on the Northern side of the island and anchoring in 18 metres of water its very rolly - the beaches just in front of us having huge surf rollers breaking on them. You dinghy ashore and land behind the breakwater. Wildlife abounds - the anchorage comes alive at 6am with huge pods of spinner dolphins (they jump and spin around in the air). The breakwater has a flock of frigate birds patrolling overhead and other diving birds which regularly plunge in the sea pulling fish out at will. At night you shine your torch on the water and the water boils with needle fish jumping. As you beach the dinghy, there are small sharks and rays around your feet on the sand.

You can hire a stand up paddle board (SUP) on the beach (we did) and there are brazilians wearing the smallest bikinis and swimwear you will ever see. Little is left to the imagination. The top of the beach has 2 or 3 shops selling the obligatory T shirts and sarongs, and has the harbour masters office where you have to clear in and pay your fees. It costs around $100 a day to stay here and checking in is an affable if time consuming process made a little easier by them serving excellent fresh coffee while you wait. Climb the hill 30 metres or so and there is a stylish restaurant with views over the bay and the stunning rock formations around the island. They serve ice cold beer, caprinhias and a range of great brazilian food. The music and ambiance is relaxed chic and you are surrounded by the beautiful people (still wearing just their swimwear). Apparently this is a very popular honeymoon destination. In fact on our penultimate night there, a wedding party was celebrating. We’d seen the wedding from afar - there is a tiny church on the headland some 1/2 mile away and the 15 or so people in the wedding party had chosen the restaurant for their wedding breakfast. Stylish, happy and relaxed indeed.

We travelled round the island and visited the famous beaches - Sueste Turtle beach is the last stop on the bus route. The entire bus route is only 7 km long and the price of a fare to go anywhere is 3 Reals. Kids go free provided they can crawl underneath the turnstile. The kids loved playing on Turtle beach and whilst most visitors were happy to stand on the shore and watch the sharks, our crazy 3 had to jump in and chase after them. Pete and Mindy from Wayward Wind were great company and Pete was brilliant at building sandcastles with Willow and charging around the beach with her.

We visited Baia de Sancho, which is world famous for its beauty. It has many types of volcanic rocks, cliffs, sand, sea, birds perched in trees all around, lots of lizards, crabs, ‘rock rats?’, chameleons and has a unique access to the beach.
It’s tricky to get to as the bus stops at the 1km long dirt road that leads up to its entrance and 2 small villages. We hitch hiked one way and when we waited for an age to get the bus back, we decided to hitch hike again back to the port.

Access to the beach is via a vertical ladder down through a rock crevice. Standing at the top you peer over the edge and can see the beach some 50 metres or so below you. Looking down the ladder on the inside, its a ladder disappearing into the darkness. Yes, your heart skips a beat. Not for the faint of heart. The reward at the bottom though is truly stunning and you can see why Brazilians rate this as the best beach in the world. The kids swam and were tumbled around in the surf and built sandcastles.

We shared some great meals, drinks and playtime with our World ARC friends - not all boats came here as it wasn’t an official stop (although it should be). A truly different Brazil experience to the intense time in Salvador and a good break from 5 days of tougher upwind sailing.

We should be in Fortaleza in 24 hours time. We’ve been warned there is some piracy there and the only safe place is inside the the marina. Definitely not a place to anchor outside. We only stop to reprovision and regroup with the fleet before the 1700 mile sail North to Grenada. More piracy to avoid there as there have been recent reports of robbery close to the Venezula and Trinidad coast. A time to stay a good distance offshore.

Best go and check the sails and for shipping, Team Aretha in Brazil, Out,




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