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American Spirit II - Day 405; A Work Day in Slavador Before We Depart for Recife in Brazil; Sunday, February 15, 2015



One year ago today:

"Day 43; Janet Fox Arrives!; Saturday, February 15, 2014. Up early. Another sea lion on the boat transom. He jumped off once he heard me afoot. Left for the airport at 9:00 AM to meet Janet's plane from mainland Ecuador. She had been traveling since 3:30 PM the day before and had spent Thursday night in the airport in Guayahill (a city on the coast. I know the spelling is wrong). In texting Janet, she indicated that she was in queuing hell, and didn't know if she'd get done in time to make the flight. If you've never stood in lines in South American airports, you haven't lived! Her plane touched down close to on time, and then Janet was back in a que again. In order to make sure that Janet didn't miss me at the airport exit, I held a sign that said 'Janet Fox.' When in Rome... And I use the term 'airport exit' loosely. Its a set of double doors where people flood out like the sluice gate in a dam."

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Up at 7:00 AM. Breakfast at 8:30 AM. Eggs, potato, chilled pear halves and brown bread.

At 9:00 AM Jeanine and I; along with Civetta II crew Vlado, Jack and Lupo, head to a grocery store to finish provisioning our boats. We look for and get a cab with 3 rows of seats; and agree on a one way price (50 Real or $17.64). Try this when no one speaks the same language. The first grocery store we go to is closed, even though Vlado says that its web site says its open today. Maybe it opens later in the day. The 2nd grocery store is also closed; but the third is open. The grocery store is the size of a Wal-mart grocery store, and just like it with other non-grocery items for sale, also.

Shopping is good and Jeanine and I are able to find most of the items we need, including micro wave popcorn. However, the meat selection is poor, so I only buy a little. But they have coke and coke zero in cans, which is good. The store doesn't sell coke light or diet coke. Nada. The canned fruit selection is sparse. I'm able to stock up on canned pineapple (I hope Joel and Jeanine like pineapple, because they'll be eating a lot of it), but there are no cans of pears, mandarin oranges or peaches. Bummer. So besides pineapple I buy large cans of 'Ciruelas en almibar,' (Plums in Syrup); and 'Em Calda,' (Goiaba). I have no idea what that is. Some sort of pink looking fruit. When in Rome... In order to find the BBQ sauce we need, Jeanine asks a store clerk where the 'ketchup' is. Voila. The BBQ sauce is right next to it in shelf. Good idea Jeanine! We fill two large shopping carts in an hour and 15 minutes. We told the taxi cab driver to pick us up at 11:00 AM, so we're in a hurry. On the way back to the boat we stop at MacDonald's and everyone gets a hamburger and French fries, even our taxi driver (we bought for him). Jack and I, since we went in the store, get an apple pie, also. In the restaurant Jack and I can't explain what we want, so an enterprising manager gets a laminated menu that actually has what we want in English under the Portuguese. Again, no one in Salvador speaks English. Vlado, Captain of Civetta II, doesn't speak Portuguese but besides his native Slovakian language he speaks Italian and German, so he communicates somewhat with our taxi driver using those languages. Impressive. The taxi driver doesn't speak German or Italian, but according to Vlado there are enough words similar in those languages to Portuguese that he can get his messages across.

We're back at the boat at 12:10 PM, and crew from Polaris help us carry our grocery bags to our boat. Besides groceries, we have 10 cases of beer, coke and coke zero. I'm actually stocking up the boat for the entire trip to Grenada, which we won't reach until March 17th; a month from now. The grocery bags we use are like the green ones you can buy in Publix in Florida. Except ours have store names on them from all over the world.

Once back at the boat I spend the next couple of hours emptying the refrigerator and cleaning it as 'something' has escaped in the bottom of it, making a mess. Then I put all the groceries away, getting most of the items stored in places under the main cabin seats, in the bilge and in an aft cockpit locker. As the cook its something I have to do so that I know where everything is when I'm trying to prepare a meal.

After that, I type one log, some emails and order some parts and supplies for the boat on the internet, which is a challenge as it doesn't always work. Jeanine cooked some brownies, that turned out rather good. (By 11:00 PM they are all gone). And Joel cuts 3 feet off the whisker pole and got it working again. It won't be as long, obviously, as what we had; but it will be more sturdy than the tri-reacher pole. But with the shorter pole we probably won't be able to put the jib all the way out like we used to. Maybe 120% instead of 140%. Besides working on the whisker pole he finished working and re-assembling the hydro generator. Contributing parts for this 'fix' were Ghost and Nexus. Thank you Tim and Russ.

Finally, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM I reconcile the boat's expenses from last November 16 - 3 months worth. Every time someone buys something (groceries, meals, fuel, propane, marina costs, etc.), I collect the receipts and write the person's name on it. Except for repairs and spare parts, which I pay for exclusively, everything else purchased on the boat is split 3 ways; four ways if we have 4 people on the boat. Including in this 'expense sharing' is freeze dried dinners and satellite phone usage to send and receive logs and emails. When I'm finally done, I owe Joel money; and Jeanine owes Joel and me money.

While Joel and I are 'staying home' tonight, Jeanine goes out with the crew of Adela; Peter, Amelia, Terra and Edward; and Sigi from Merlyn of Poole, I think. She returns back at 12:15 AM after visiting the upper city again.

Joel goes to bed at 10:30 PM and I follow at 11:15 PM. We have a busy day tomorrow as we'll be leaving for Recife, 392 miles away. It will take us 3 days to get there. We have 800 to 1,200 miles to go until we get to our last port in Brazil, Fortaleza; before we head to Grenada, 1,700 miles to the northwest on March 5th. How many miles we travel to Fortaleza depends on whether we take a detour to an archipelago called Fernando de Noronha, 300 miles northeast of Recife.

Brian Fox

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