Logged 242 Nautical Miles, 3 8.75 Hours
737.25 Hours Sailing, 1.5 Hours Motoring
February 22 - March 7
Fernando De Noronah to Cabedelo
Cabedelo, Brazil is situated approximately 100 nautical miles south of Natal where the Rio Paraiba enters the sea. It is on the eastern bank of the northern Paraiba River estuary.
We traveled the 1 ½ days, 242 nautical mile trip from Fernando to Cabedelo mostly by ourselves. With 15 knots of wind at 110 degrees was a smooth, fast sail. A Brazilian coast guard plane buzzed us mid-morning then called on WHF 16 for information on our last and next ports as well as how many on board. It is always comforting to know coastal waters are being patrolled. Reefs were put in the sails to slow us down for a morning arrival. Our timing was perfect, after motoring through the Paraiba River we arrived at Jacre Marina at slack tide. With assistance from the marina, we tied stern to the dock and two bow lines were tied to two moorings lines in the water. Smoke and Roses was the first WARC boat to arrive and the manager Nicholas, along with the marina staff, were on top of things, they knew when to expect boats to arrive as they were following the World ARC fleet on the yellow brick tracker. The Jacre Marina facilities were nice with a large lounge, dinning and internet area. The floating dock pontoons had security gates. That first day with Nicholas’s help arranging things, we filled our jerry cans with diesel, had a sail repairman pick up our gennaker, and then walked into town for some fresh produce and an ATM. For a fee Nicholas will handle our customs clearances on Monday, along with the other boats that arrive over the weekend.
Brazil has the second largest manufacturing sector in the Americas. Industries range from textiles, shoes, chemicals, cement, lumber, iron ore, tin steel, aircraft, motor vehicles, other machinery and equipment. The agriculture sector is comprised of coffee, soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, citrus and beef. Yet there is extreme poverty, in part attributed to the country’s economic inequality and Brazil is struggling after emerging from the worst recession on record. These are not its biggest issues; Brazil has serious problems with crime. With roughly 23.8 homicides per 100,000 residents, muggings, robberies, kidnappings and gang violence are common. Police brutality and corruption are widespread. With that said we were not about to rent a vehicle to go exploring as we have in many places. Uber was our main mode of transportation and very reasonable. Other than our two nights in the nearby city of Recife for carnival, we didn’t have much planned for our 12 day visit in Cabedelo. Dan got the gennaker block and halyard fixed. He borrowed an endoscope from Aurora Polaris to get a look inside the mast. With help from Helen, Martin, and Matt, he was up the mast several times and determined the halyard had rubbed on bolts inside the mast, just unlucky placement of the halyard. The block had a new bushing put in it.
One afternoon we went dinghy cruising around Stuart Island on the Pariba and Tiriri Rivers. The shallow estuary; surrounded with mangroves was similar to the Charlotte Harbor estuary at our home in Florida. There was lots of fisherman on the rivers. A short walk down a dirt road from the marina was a small riverfront park with a sunset celebration each night. There was a saxophone player on a boat on the river and a vendor area with local crafts. Across the street were shops, bars and restaurants. Walking past the Jungle Bar, some Mad Monkeys were throwing ice at Dan from the balcony so we stopped and joined them for a drink. Joao Pessoa is the capitol city of Paraiba and just a 20 minute uber ride from Cabedelo. A group of us went there for carnival one evening, there were marching bands, colorful dancing ladies, clowns, giant blowups of political figures as well as street vendors selling food, trinkets and strong drinks. A huge semi-trailer with a dance and band platform on top played extremely loud samba music with people following alongside and behind dancing. It was a fun time with lots of people drinking and dancing in the streets.
Then came the big carnival in Recife, it is influenced mainly by Indian and African tribes who were brought into Brazil through the slave trade. Over 1.5 million people join in the 6 day carnival, two most celebrated parts are the dawn of the rooster which symbolizes the start of the Recife carnival and the Night of the Silent Drums is a tribute to all the African slaves who lost their lives. We had been cautioned several times about safety in Brazil, especially at carnival. Do not wear watches or jewelry, do not carry camera or phones, do not wear flip flops, and do not bring lots of money. During the night before carnival I became suddenly violently ill, throwing up and diarrhea, by morning I could not even keep water down. I should not have gone, I was not thinking clear and had the idea I could rest in the hotel. I had arranged two private buses to transport 21 of us for the two hour ride to Recife. Our historic hotel was in need of maintenance and the beds were terrible. In my haste I booked a room without air conditioning. It didn’t matter to me that first day as I slept while the others took an uber to nearby Olinda. The next morning I was able to eat a small breakfast and went with the group for the Dawn of the Rooster Parade within walking distance. Things were just getting started and the streets were not too crowded yet when a four of guys working together stole Dan’s four sided gold chain necklace. One guy ripped the necklace off and ran while another guy tried to hold Dan back. That guy has several lumps on his head where Dan punched him, then chased him down and punched him some more, but the guy with the necklace got away. The necklace was a gift from me when we started dating 18 years ago and he never takes it off so he didn’t even think about it. If he had thought about it he would not have worn it. Dan was furious and felt violated. Several of the big, loud parade vehicles started coming down the street. It was getting very hot and after a couple hours Pia was ready to go, so was I. Six of us tried to stay together as we fought our way back through the very dense crowd. It was shoulder to shoulder with bodies rubbing against each other. Our carnival experience has not been good. Other people were pickpocketed and had things stolen from them as well. That evening we had a nice dinner with “Aurora Polaris” at a Brazilian steak house while others went to carnival in the waterfront area. We walked to the waterfront area the next morning. This historic city center, Recife Antigo, was beautiful with its restored old buildings and colored facades. In the heart of the old city was an outdoor concert area. Numerous workers were washing the streets and cleaning up from the night before, getting ready to do it all over again.
One of our last days in Cabedelo we walked the long crescent shaped beach on the ocean side of Cabedelo. It was good to so some walking; I miss the hiking we’ve done in most places. Next we stocked up with produce for the last long leg on the Atlantic Ocean of over 2,000 nautical miles. When getting ready to depart on a long leg, I often feel like I need one more day to prepare. Not this time, I was more than ready to leave Brazil. It could be because I still was not feeling great as much of the food and drink did not agree with me, or as we were the closest to shore boat on the pontoon and they played the same loud music on shore night and day which became irritating, or because at low tide the muddy sea bed was exposed and smelled bad, or because the no seeums were relentless and even screens did not keep them out, or because the heat made sleeping difficult, the shore power was not adequate to run air conditioning and most nights we chose not to run the generator, or because the bad experience at carnival. Galen (World ARC representative) returned with our clearance papers and passports just in time for us to leave at slack tide and shortly before sunset. We look forward to visiting Devil’s Island and getting back to the Caribbean.
Agnes Long