25 January – 23 February 2019 (Cabedelo, Brazil – Grenada, via French Guiana)

Loving the Island life....

Rob's tender sail boat

Cabedelo from the river

We had been given an intense knowledge transfer session by our buddy Rob, he had been there for, he thinks, 2 – 3 weeks and is still having fun. With spinning heads we tried to remember the pertinent info - the train only runs from Joao Pesso (the capital of the state of Paraiba – the Province we were situated in) to Cabedelo (a rather sleepy commercial port at the entrance to the Paraiba river), we are in the middle, almost impossible to get lost. Shops and a beach for swimming are around 2.5kms walk away, the river is muddy and dirty and you don’t want to be putting any body parts in it if possible, also, we are in Jacare Village, Jacare means alligator and Rob swears he saw one in the river, well either an alligator, or a turtle, he’s not sure…

The silo's of Cabedelo

Pregnant daughter
and famous caiparinha's

There are “Noseeum’s” (No-see-um’s – literally – bugs that bite but are so minute you cannot see them, the bite is itchy at first, then forms a blister, then a scab), they are apparently immune to just about every insect repellent, Rob says he slaps tabard on while the shower water is still running because as soon as it is off he is eaten alive. Fortunately they seem to only be on land so the boat is safe and sunset/sunrise are their hunting times.

Fishing Village this

There is a night market just down the road that begins at 15:00 every day. The lady in the house next door does laundry cheaper than at the Marina and after dark the unassuming little gazebo outside her house becomes a kebab and caipirinha joint run by her pregnant daughter.

The Real is +/- 4 to 1 to the Rand and beer is 2Reals each in the supermarket and 4Reals each in the marina, but most things are fairly cheap and compare favourably with RSA prices.

Intriguing outboards on the fishing
boats

Gas refills can be done but are expensive – what is it with gas??? It cost us 65Reals to fill our 5kg cylinder, less than half the price of St Helena so guess we got off light. We use gas extensively while sailing, for cooking and boiling water for tea/coffee and washing dishes.

Best not to put body parts in the water -
Rob cleaning his boat

Rob also suggested we should meet the owners of the pretty little yacht behind us, everyone does, usually by dragging anchor and ending up meeting them by accident (anchor is dropped and depending on the amount of chain, type of anchor, setting procedure and bottom composition, mud or sand, etc, either the anchor sets and the yacht doesn’t move or, as is the subject for good yachting stories, you come back to a marina to find your yacht has taken itself and the offending anchor off on a trip, hopefully without damage to itself or anything else).

The first Brazilian we met was the Marina manager, Nicholas (aka Manuel – Kevin’s nick name for him). The second was the lovely lady who runs the laundry. Still have no idea what her name is, in fact we have no idea of one word she said, ever, not even in sign language. 

We do however know that she is not shy to charge to do laundry.  

The Marina building is simple, pleasant and sufficient, a small kitchen with a 7 dish menu, pizza (came recommended and was good), meat, fish, calamari, chicken, hamburger and chips, only pizza was always available, the rest on order a day in advance.

 The beers were cold and caipirinha’s flow (a Brazilian drink made from Cachaca liqueur, limes and lime juice and ice) living up to their South African nickname “kop r eina” or in English “damn sore head” which is usually a direct result from 2 or more. 

A number of wooden tables and chairs spread around, a couple of comfy chairs and a room with a lounge suite, gents and ladies bathrooms with cold water showers and I never thought I would hear myself say this, but, we were all so grateful for those cold showers!!! 3 Hammocks hanging from trees outside for afternoon siestas, or in case you cannot make it home after the caipirinhas, a wall of books to swop or read from, the laundry and a small yard out back to haul out boats if necessary, throw in wifi - perfect.

Joao Pesso City Centre

First thing on the agenda was a data sim for the router on the yacht so Anthony at Current Automation could log into our battery management system and change a setting to enable our battery to charge 100%. Best way into town, Uber, they have it and it works well. Town is Joao Pesso, it is the third oldest city in Brazil, founded in 1585 and is also known as the city where the sun rises first because it is the easternmost city in the Americas. It is often referred to as “the second greenest in the world” with more than 7 square kilometres of forest land, second only to Paris, France. In 2017 Joao Pesso received the title of “Creative City” by UNESCO. We found TIM, the local cell phone agents and by a stroke of luck someone who spoke some English and who made it clear that if we needed to recharge the data we would have to come back and see him. Purchasing what can only be described as the Brazilian equivalent to KFC for lunch was fun, these Brazilians are really animated when it comes to charades and sign language and they also believe, like Kevin, that the best way to communicate with foreigners is to speak louder and slower so conversations are deafening, take forever and still no one knows what was said. For a while Kevin took to adding an “O” to the end of his words fondly believing it made them sound Portuguese, thankfully he soon realised it wasn’t working.

Then Uber back to Intermares beach, also known as “mar dos macacos” or “sea of monkeys”. As the waves here are really strong, this is popular as a surfers beach. We bought an ice cold beer each from the mobile surfers food and drinks kiosk and settled down under the palm trees to cool down and quench our thirsts. The southern part of the beach is a turtle breeding ground and there are statues of turtles everywhere. Intermares is the closest and most varied shopping in proximity to Jacare and we walked the length of the main road to see what was available. Pharmacies are very popular, almost one on every corner, there were a choice of 3 supermarkets, one butcher and one baker. All alcohol is sold in the supermarkets, no need for bottlestores. 

Back to the Marina and after a catch up over a couple of drinks,

 we ended up doing caipirinhas and kebabs at the gazebo next door for dinner, a long day.

Dinner for 6?

There is a fresh produce market on Saturday mornings in Cabedelo, so we were on the train at 08:15, together with many locals and vendors all heading to the same market. To quote a fellow yachtie “a visit to Jacare is not complete without a ride on the local train.” There are two trains, one a battered old thing, two a slightly less battered old thing with aircon, we were lucky enough to get this one both ways, it travels along a single track which was installed to carry sugar from inland to the Port of Cabedelo. The most reassuring thing about it is the security guards, looking like they have stepped right out of the movie “Men in Black”, one in each carriage. At the same time, the most disturbing thing is the thought that they actually need all those guards.

Pastel vendor

The market is a 7 day per week affair but on Saturdays it comes alive with tons of fresh produce, all the fruit and vegetables the region has to offer and there is loads, some of it we have never seen before. On the way in we got our first taste of Pastel’s a deep fried flour and water pastry pie (not unlike Chinese bow tie pastry) with various fillings, from a street vendor. 

These guys were so much cooler in
the mud!!

We decided that he was so busy his wares must be good and we weren’t disappointed. We were fortunate not to see live meat but believe they are usually there, it was bad enough to see a huge tower of large live mud crabs for sale, stocked up on some cheese and good fresh veg for the week at really good prices, although I got royally ripped off over 2 cauliflowers 23Reals (R92 for 2), must have seen us coming and I realised my charades as well as Google translate are not of much use, either the dialect is not the same or the vendors can’t all read, but I bought a large bag of home made curry powder which has turned out to be either Paprika or Cayenne Pepper, no idea how to tell the difference.

Flooded street

Nasty offending red boat

By the time we got back to our station the wind was blowing around 20kts from an odd angle and the rain was coming down in torrents. The streets were ankle deep in water as we high tailed it back to the marina to be met by Eric and his question – weren’t you on your boat just now? It was all over in the channel. A dash across to Maxscene in the tender to find poor drenched Rob in his undies, just killing the motors having chucked fenders over the sides and reversing us off the abandoned red boat in front of us which we had just had a coming together with. We had a little too much chain out and the wind had pushed us, with quite a bit of force onto the red boat, sadly we came off worst, the lens of our starboard navigation light missing and a chunk taken out of the fibreglass that will need repairing asap. We then opted for safety, upped anchor and moved quite far away from all the anchored yachts.

Beach front Joao Pesso

Blue mosaic tiles add character

Monday saw Kevin and I back in Joao Pesso at the TIM shop once more, computer updates had put paid to the data on our sim, only this time there was no one with even a semblance of an English word so lots of slow, loud, conversation with furiously fast typing on google translate resulted in another data recharge, have to give Kevin his due, he never gives up. 

The beach full of bodies

Our reward was a really interesting 12km walk along the beach back to Intermares, with a pit stop for lunch and an ice cold beer. Along the way we passed the holiday hub, umbrellas and bronze scantily clad bodies as far as the eye could see, soaking up sea and sun. Walking past buildings, we noticed the use of imagination when it comes to coloured tiles is boundless, instead of painting surfaces to brighten them up these walls are covered in bright mosaic tiles of all shapes and with all patterns and anything goes.

Graeme and Michelle caught the train to Cabedelo and did much the same, walking back along the beach stopping for beer, a crab for lunch and coconut (lost in translation, they actually asked for a coke) – a standard drink here, green coconuts are chilled then handed to you with the top cut off and a straw inserted to drink the genuine coconut water contents. 

Sunset at Jacare beach is a real tourist affair. Every day for around 30 years, saxophonist Jurandy do Sax has been coming down to the river, climbing into a canoe and, standing, is rowed around between the boats, to the delight of tourists and locals alike, whilst playing Rafels Bolero on his saxophone. We heard it every night and whilst it’s not for everyone, I never tired of it, it just seemed so romantic and surreal. 

Thankfully only croc we saw

At the same time the Jacare night market takes place on the banks of the river, from 15:00 to late and how lovely to find a market that has none of the usual Chinese or plastic goods, this is all genuine hand made local fare, from clothes to jewellery to trinkets to food. 

Painting clothes

Waffle house

Interesting to watch a man painting clothes while you wait, each garment unique and the waffle house was my favourite with its beautiful garden. 

Dinner at the Tree Tops restaurant afterward was a most reasonable affair and the décor was hilarious.

While on anchor we had a little visitor swim over from the mangroves behind, a little juvenile iguana, apparently popular as pets because they are such beautiful colours, but not easy to find food for. Life on anchor at Jacare Marina was interesting, most days at 16:00 the big “booze cruisers” would come past, full of party revellers, music blaring and dancing to the shouts of Oppah. There was one that, every night, got a private sax and violin rendition as Jurandy and a violinist would perform on board before he alighted into his canoe for the sunset ritual. 

Also Jacare is the home of the toys of the “nouveau riche”, power boats of all shapes and sizes that, mainly on weekends, zoom around carrying scantily clad nubile young girls and guys, playing loud music and drinking. The only really irritating thing was they were never very considerate with their wake and we would often have to catch things as we rolled around.

When in Rome…. Well here in Brazil Pichana is big (pronounced pee-con-ya) this cut of meat is the “Rump cap”. We had been introduced to it by our friend Craig a couple of years ago and loved it. Traditionally it is rolled in rock salt and grilled on coal or gas and Kevin did just that, it was delicious.

Provisioning took a full day again (we discovered one of the supermarkets down the road offers a hefty discount on a taxi trip back to the marina if you spend over 250Reals), the next leg of our journey is scheduled to take around 25 days from Cabedelo to Grenada and while we will make a brief 1 – 2 day rest stop in French Guiana, we are not sure what if anything we can purchase there. This was followed by a farewell dinner at Marina Jacare, calamari for me and steak for the rest, the food was great and the Chilean wine most quaffable.

Last supper at Jacare

Unfortunately the next day Kevin came down with something stomach bug like with really high fever, we delayed our departure for 6 hours to make sure he was up to the trip, then the next day was my turn so it was obviously something contagious and really horrid, we took days to get back to full strength, thankfully it stopped with us.  Between that and seasickness our provisions will last longer as we were all happy with tinned soup and fruit for a couple of days.

Got Bird Pocket guide, this is a Brown
Noddy

Still unidentified....

Conditions along this leg are very different, the wind is now from the East and thus we get it beam on, no longer the gentle champagne sailing where the spinnaker flew off the front and the wind filled in from the back and the sea was fairly flat and calm. Now the spinnaker is in bed, the genoa and main are in use and well reefed, as we heard of a catamaran being dismasted by a squall in the same area as we are about to sail past, only a couple of weeks ago and we are all on avid storm watch on the radar. 

The sea is much lumpier and the slamming, which is unique and considered by some to be a downside to a catamaran, is loud and clear. We’ve had a gull and a little wagtail like bird (still didn’t get that bird book) take refuge with us on stormy nights and the best was a magnificent display by dolphins during the first couple of days when there was no wind at all.

Crossing the equator was a major achievement/event. Graeme and Michelle really put in an effort as they had been looking forward to this for ages, they made a Trident and crown for Graeme to wear during his toast of thanks, 

then Neptune got his bottle of champagne and as we were hove to, two at a time we jumped into that beautiful, warm, blue water for a swim, Graeme and Michelle in the nick.

Crossing from Brazilian to French waters

After 12 days it was a most pleasant respite to arrive at Iles du Salut, a group of 3 Islands approximately 9Nm off the coast of French Guiana, originally named the Triangle Islands, then the Salvation Islands. 

During the colonisation of Guiana in 1763 – 1764 the Kourou expedition to settle the territory of Guiana was poorly prepared and many colonists died from disease and difficult living conditions. While waiting to be repatriated to France the survivors gathered together on the Islands, hence their name the Salvation Islands. Then in May 1854 when penal colonies were closed at the ports on the French mainland, several forced labour colonies were set up abroad, the most notorious being in Guiana. The Islands were for criminals of France. 

The main part of the penal colony was a labour camp along the border with Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) and included the three Islands, Ile du Diable (Devils Island), Ile Royale (the largest) and Ile Saint Joseph (known as the silent Island because of the solitary confinement cells) and was controversial as it had a reputation for harshness and brutality. Prisoner-on-prisoner violence was common, sanitary systems were limited and tropical diseases were rife.

In 1854 France passed a new law of forced residency. It required convicts to stay in French Guiana after completion of sentence for a time equal to their sentence time. If the original sentence exceeded 8 years, they were forced to stay as residents for the remainder of their lives and were provided land to settle on.

Devils Island from Ile Royale -
the cable car from here was the only
access

Devil’s Island became one of the most infamous prison systems in history, a number of escapes from which have been turned into novels, one escapee Henri Charriere wrote the famous Papillon which was later made into a movie.

 

Mark arrived...

Thankfully what we found bore very little resemblance to these troubled times. We anchored in the bay just off Ile Royale, the very muddy waters, apparently from rivers on the mainland, teeming with turtles, fish and eagle rays. We arrived right behind one of the boats from a breakaway group of 7 of the Oyster Rally, they are on the last leg of their 2.5 year circumnavigation. Just after we dropped anchor, in skidded a junk rigged mono hull, flying the South African flag and registered in Saldanha Bay. Within 30 mins of dropping anchor, the very capable single-handed sailor Mark had secured his yacht, dropped his tender boat and rowed over to say hi. He left South Africa to do a circumnavigation in 3 years, 3.5 years later he hasn’t left the Brazilian coast yet and is loving it, guess that’s what cruising is all about. He stayed for dinner, think our biltong (yes we still have some left), fish, salad and cold beers were more appealing than his staple cream crackers and coffee, hard life being a single handed sailor.

Us & the Oysters

And Mark left....

Iguana

Next morning we had the full contingent of Oyster yachts, Mark had had enough of being rocked around from 4am as the tide streamed in through the channel formed by Ile Royale and Ile St Joseph had us bouncing around like we were at sea, and decided to head for Kourou main land French Guiana and we went to do some Island exploration. The museum depicts Ile Royale as being a barren, desolate island populated by the prison and buildings and some crops. 

Agouti

Capuchin Monkey

Thankfully nature does indeed take back as we found a beautiful lush green island, an abundance of palms, mango trees, tropical plants and flowers growing over and through the ruins of the islands unhappy past and some interesting fauna. A little animal that looks like a cross between a squirrel and a Dassie, apparently called an Agouti, beautiful Iguana’s and Capuchin monkeys that look like old men.

There is a hotel with various types of accommodation, from dorm rooms to chalets, all are restored buildings from many years ago. The creepiest had to be the rooms at the entrance to the building housing the prison cells. 

Dank smelling, dingy, very little, dark, one cot rooms, instant claustrophobia! We found the restaurant and treated ourselves to cold beer and baguettes, not cheap but worth the experience.

The next day we took the opportunity to get 

some maintenance done, replace spreader light bulbs, seal a leaking portlight, attempt to find the issue with a manual bilge pump – still needs to be resolved, then a dip in the water with scrubbing brushes to get rid of the last of the growth and stains from the Paraiba river. After a wizz past Ile St Joseph we realised there was no disembarking there with our own tender boat, so back to Ile Royale and beer and baguettes for the road, we even bought a couple to freeze for the next leg of our journey.

Lots of supervision

This is why we don't sail on a mono hull
the last Oyster boat leaving the Islands

Bright and early Monday morning we left the anchorage with the last of the Oyster boats and we were heading to Barbados, humming that silly song and tasting that pizza we had promised ourselves. The thing about cruising is that we need to be flexible and open to change at any time, we do after all travel with our entire house, including the kitchen sink. Well after 1 day and night of getting thumped and bashed around by a really horrid sea state, high wind and very large swells from the side and weather predictions for it to worsen by Thursday/Friday, we took a decision to turn left and head for Grenada. The swells and wind are from a better angle on this course, making it a more comfortable trip.

We arrived in Prickly Bay, Grenada on Saturday 23 February to be met with an ice cold bottle of South African Chardonnay and cheery congratulations by friends we made in Saldanha, Karen and Graham on their yacht Red Herring II….