Hello from Natal!

What better place to spend Christmas than in a place where the very name means ‘Christmas’? That wasn’t the plan, of course; the plan was to spend it in Salvador de Bahia, 650 miles further south. But a plan is only a best guess at what might happen, and it didn’t. So here we are in Natal as a result of a newer and much more successful plan.

It’s been quite a year. Or at least, quite a second half – it’s hard to believe that we were living in Barcelona up until May. At least we’ve done some sailing – Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verde, Brazil. Of course, Spain, Morocco and Gib were really back-tracking on the last few years – nothing new to report there. The real trip started from Gibraltar, with a five-day passage westwards to the Madeira archipelago.

Madeira is beautiful. We’d love to go back there and spend more time exploring – very green, very lush, very hilly. Porto Santo, an island to the north-east of Madeira, was actually where we had sailed to; smaller and more arid than Madeira, but with a magnificent beach and, more importantly, a safe and comfortable harbour. Madeira doesn’t have either of these, hence our decision to leave Puffin in Porto Santo and take the ferry to Funchal, Madeira’s capital. We spent a day exploring the town, which is a very attractive mix of modern amenities and old colonial architecture; mainly Portuguese but with a lot of English influence, due mainly to the trade in Madeira wine which seems to be dominated by British families. The market is fantastic – very colourful, with a fabulous variety of flowers, fruit & veg, meat and fish. By law, the flower sellers have to wear traditional costume, which consists of black booties, a full skirt (red with tapestry-like hoops above the hem), a red jerkin over a white blouse, and a strange little black hat with a stem growing out of the top. Which might explain why we didn't see any male flower sellers!

Flower seller, Funchal market

Boa Ventura, Madeira

The next few days were spent exploring the rest of the island by bus. We’re glad we didn’t hire a car. The roads are very steep and winding, and the bus drivers coming from the opposite direction take no prisoners. It was instructive to see the bodies of dead cars supported by or dangling from the trees on the mountainside below the roads. One could almost imagine bus drivers painting little cars under the drivers’ window to record their kills, like World War II fighter pilots. The little towns are pretty and well cared for. Everyone seems to grow food, and one of the striking impressions of the island was the way that every inch of the land is used. Even the steepest hillsides are terraced and covered in vines of some description. Nearly all of the people we met spoke excellent English, were very friendly and chatty and obviously very proud of their island.

We covered the two hundred and fifty miles to the Canary Islands in just over two days. We made landfall off Graciosa, a little island to the north of Lanzarote, the easternmost Canary island. The timing wasn’t optimal - we arrived at about midnight, just after the moon had set, and in pitch blackness. The approach was made more interesting by the knowledge that there were reefs either side of the anchorage. It doesn’t matter how good your charts are, everything looks different and more confined in the dark. There were some other yachts taking up good anchoring space, so we bisected the widest gap we could find, dropped the hook and slowly unclenched our buttocks. (Night landfalls have been a bit of a habit with us. We don’t like them, but sometimes Puffin won’t slow down enough to wait for dawn. The same thing happened approaching Porto Santo. We arrived in darkness, having taken all the sails down in an attempt to reduce speed and we were still being blown along at three knots by the following wind.)

The next morning...

When we woke up the next morning, the colour had returned to our knuckles and we looked out on a gorgeous, azure bay, edged with a crescent of white sand. There was plenty of room to swing between the same boats that only hours before had seemed just a few feet apart. In fact, Graciosa seemed to be all sand, with the occasional extinct volcanic cone adding a bit of contour. A real desert island.

We pumped up the dinghy and went ashore, and after a long walk across soft sand (i.e. knackering), found the village, a collection of white boxes separated by more sand. It seemed deserted, and the theme to ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ kept playing in the mind. The village, which was very pretty, had a couple of shops selling basic foodstuffs, as well as some restaurants, a mountain-bike hire place, and a fairly serviceable harbour containing fishing boats, some visiting yachts, and a small ferry port. Every car we saw was a four-wheel drive, the only sensible option on an island with no roads. We did see some people – the place wasn’t deserted, after all. Just very quiet.

We spent a week dividing our time between swimming, eating, drinking and doing nothing. Snorkelling was good, and we were beginning to see the more interesting varieties of fish associated with warmer waters. We also found a large piece of aluminium, which later turned out to be the keel of a boat we’d noticed chocked up on the quayside – it had obviously been ripped out by the reef. Time to swim back and check the anchor was still dug in!

One of the nicer features of the trip so far was the development of a little community of boats all doing more or less the same route. We’d met a few in Gibraltar – Don and Joy on Anita II, Moss and Theresa on Discovery II, Bill and Maggie on Belle, and Steve and Tina on Another Horizon. Steve ran a ‘net’ on the SSB radio, which he used to disseminate weather information to other ‘netties’. It kept people in touch, and we got to know quite a few boats by joining in. As we moved from port to port, we’d get to meet the faces behind the voices and build up what passes for a social life amongst cruising folk. It was also a good way of sharing information – almost everybody knew something about some place where somebody else was going – charts were swapped, recommendations and warnings given, skills donated. One by one, these yachts trickled into the anchorage off Graciosa, and the busy social whirl began again. There’s something about visiting other yachts by dinghy, and it became quite common to see seven or eight of them nuzzling the transom of a yacht while raucous laughter spilled out of the cockpit as something vague was being celebrated.

All in all, Graciosa was the perfect anchorage, but we got a forecast of a weather change that would send strong winds and swell into our bay and make it uncomfortable. So, en masse, we upped hooks and legged it round to Arrecife, on the south side of Lanzarote. A good sail in the lee of the island, with a nice, flat sea.

Arrecife (it means reef) has three ports: one for commercial boats, one for fishing boats, and the old port, which has some mooring buoys but is surrounded by reef and relatively unprotected from the south. We went into the middle one, Puerto de Naos, which turned out to be very crowded, smelly (old fish) with poor holding. It took four attempts to get the anchor dug in, and even then we weren’t confident it would hold. Our confidence wasn’t increased by all the half-sunken fishing boats and small steamers that mouldered around the edges of the port. As it turned out, the shelter was excellent, and when we walked around to the third port and saw the boats there rocking and rolling, we were glad to be where we were.

Arrecife turned out to be less tourist-oriented than we had expected. A real Spanish town, with no McDonald’s and, best of all, no signs saying ‘British Pub’, which is Spanish for ‘depressing dive’. (There is something peculiarly life-sapping about these establishments, with their keg beer, Sky Sports and promises of ‘authentic British pub grub’ with a ‘warm welcome guaranteed’.)

We hired a car for a couple of days. Lanzarote is mainly volcanic, having gained nearly half its area from eruptions in the last hundred years. We headed west towards the lava fields and Las Montañas del Fuego. Once off the main road, the landscape, which had seemed uniformly dry and dusty, changed to black and jagged. Regular readers will know that we haven’t yet been to the Moon or Mars, but we’ve seen photographs taken by robot landers, and they could have been taken here. (Conspiracy theorists might like to develop this theme more fully.) Stopping to pick up a few bits of lava, we saw rocks that had obviously been flung violently while still molten. Some were more jagged than others, reminiscent of meringue whipped to stand up in peaks; others looked like they’d been plaited like rope; some looked like chocolate mousse that had set while being poured. All of the above, only black. And everywhere, great plains of the stuff, relieved only by the conical remains of the holes, or calderas, from which it had all been thrown.

If the fancy takes you, you can hire a camel to carry you through this landscape. It was quite weird to see a camel train loping up the side of one of the calderas, but very picturesque. It was also a reminder that the island is a lot closer to Morocco than to Spain and has always been influenced by its African neighbour. There are a few camel farms on Lanzarote, and also on Fuerteventura, the next island to the west.

We came to a checkpoint that marked the entrance to the park, which we hadn’t been expecting, (thinking we were already in it) and were charged 1000pta (about £4) each to enter. This stung a bit, especially since we’d seen all we thought there was to see. The road took us through more lava fields, up into a cluster of calderas where we were waved into a car park and decanted into a coachful of Germans. We hadn’t expected this, either. The coach took off immediately and we spent just over an hour being shown the real mountains of fire, complete with tri-lingual commentary that was actually informative and interesting. Then it was back to the visitor’s centre to watch chickens being grilled over one of the hot vents, or pitchfork-loads of twigs bursting into flame as they were held over cracks in the ground. It was all very well presented and worth every penny.

The vineyards of Lanzarote

The rest of our drive took us more or less over the southern part of the island. We found that the locals use lava for mulching their vines – they cover the ground with crushed lava, and the porous quality of the rock catches the moisture which condenses from the cooler night air, channeling it to the ground. The granules then stop the ground from drying out during the day. The landscape is patterned with the bowl-shaped depressions in the ground which help this process work, and to see hundreds of these bowls, each with a solitary green vine or bush in the centre, makes for a view bordering on the surreal. The islanders also have dry-stone walling off to a ‘T’, and these border just about anything that needs an edge defined. Guess what material they use? (For a fuller version of this text, please see the forthcoming ‘Pumice – The Lava My Life’, only in hardback. Really hard.)

That evening, we met up with Don and Joy (Anita II) and told them all we’d learned about lava. Naturally they were fascinated and we arranged that they would join us the following day to explore the northern half of the island. This involved visiting a couple of volcanic caves, one of which was a series of passages and just what you’d expect, but the other had been turned into a concert hall-cum-restaurant-cum-swimming pool-cum-nature reserve for a species of blind white crab unique to the island. Truly magnificent and well worth the visit.

concert hall-cum-restaurant-cum-swimming pool-cum-nature reserve

Isla Graciosa. Our bay is on the left

By now we were in grave danger of turning into real touroids, so we decided to head for the part of the island that overlooked Graciosa, the desert isle we’d anchored off a few days before. The cliffs are very high and afford an impressive view of the whole island, which made for some great pictures for the log. Then we went back to the boat, but only after taking a detour through the lava fields to show Don and Joy the beautiful barrenness of it all. Naturally they were fascinated.

With more bad weather forecast, we decided to head for a proper marina with water and electricity and hot showers and spend a couple of days enjoying the sheer sybaritic luxury of it all. So we went to Puerto Calero, where nothing of interest happened almost continually. Which was nice. Actually, something of interest did nearly happen, but it was averted at the last minute. Can’t remember what it was.

By now, we were thinking seriously about getting to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to prepare for the rally that was to take us across the Atlantic. Unseasonably poor weather had delayed us to the point where we could no longer think about visiting Fuerteventura, the next island along, so we decided to take advantage of a weather window and go direct to Las Palmas, an easy overnight hop. And so it was.

One of the things you look out for when making a night passage is the glow in the sky, or loom, caused by the electric lights of a town or lighthouse. The loom of Las Palmas was visible from over sixty miles, which is probably why the main harbour is called Puerto de la Luz, or Port of the Light. Sixty miles is a long way for loom. Of course we went too fast and made another landfall in darkness, but at least dawn was only an hour away as we approached. There was a surprising amount of traffic in and around the entrance, and a few times we had to take evasive action to avoid being run down by commercial shipping who patently do not keep an eye out for small craft.

This was proven a few days later, when Maffick, a yacht we’d got friendly with on the way to Porto Santo, was run down by a freighter moving erratically towards Las Palmas. They were scraped down the whole length of the vessel, losing their mast, rigging and a number of deck fittings before finally being left for dead. Maffick’s skipper, Roger, called the vessel on the VHF but received no reply. Eventually, someone responded, and Roger asked them to report the incident on docking so the Port Control would at least know there was a stricken craft that could cause problems for other shipping. Yes, they replied, and no, they didn’t. Roger and Diane managed to get Maffick into port, but they were understandably shocked by the incident, and their plans for an Atlantic crossing are now shelved until further notice.

Our stay in Las Palmas whizzed by in a bit of a blur. Checking in, registering with the rally organisers, provisioning, checking equipment, shopping, making a new sail cover/sunshade ensemble, more checking and shopping, washing fruits and veggies, attending emergency nav and rigging lectures, being checked out by safety experts, more shopping and provisioning, going to rally-specific social events, and taking a whole day out for a coach trip round the island. A coach trip? A bit touristy, perhaps? Well, there was no way we were going to see anything of the island unless we did it this way. At least it was organised by the rally, for rally sailors, and so it wasn’t really a tourist thing. No, it was part of the rally. That’s the best way of thinking about it. It was a very, very busy week. In fact, it was almost a bit of an anti-climax to wake up on the Saturday morning and realise that there was nothing left to do, and that it was time to go.

Window, pre-Microsoft

We left Las Palmas for the Cape Verde islands on November 13th at 1300 hours. If that's not tempting fate, I don't know what is - at least it wasn't a Friday! Several crews from boats we’d met over the weeks since leaving Gibraltar came to the end of the breakwater and gave us a noisy send-off, which was nice. It was quite a blustery, rolly day, but as soon as we got away from the island the trade wind kicked in from the north-east and the sea settled down to a regular rhythm. For a day or two, at least. Eight boats in all, and only one boat smaller than Puffin, a 33-footer called Samuffin, crewed by Mike and Val. The largest was a maxi 80, Bols Sport, with a crew of 19, mostly Polish, and capable of warp speed. There were to have been eleven boats, but circumstances beyond etc etc...

Anyway, 850 miles to the Verdes, about a week’s passage for us, and we settled into our usual watch routine, which is actually more of an off-watch system. Whoever is off-watch is guaranteed at least four hours’ sleep, unless there’s a problem that requires another hand. If the person on watch isn’t tired, they may stay on longer. Between watches we have some ‘quality time’ together, which means that we at least see each other. The between-watch bits move things along so that if someone does two watches one night (7-11, 3-7, say) they’ll only do one the next (11-3). The chief benefit of this system is the possibility of up to 12 hours’ sleep a day, or at least 12 hours’ rest, and that’s as important as proper food and drink. Sailing two-up is really the same as sailing single-handed, but in shifts.

The days blur into each other. We tried our new cruising chute, which was actually three years old but unused, and that worked really nicely, adding a knot of speed in light airs. It’s a huge sail, coloured and shaped like a big puffin’s beak; red, yellow and blue. Shame there was no one around to take a decent photograph. 1300 hours was the radio schedule (or sked), which kept everyone in touch and collected the positions of each boat for posting on the World Cruising website (www.worldcruising.com). The netmaster’s job alternated daily between Puffin and Joker V. This punctuated the day quite well, and a less formal net was set up at 2300 for general chat. Carmen, the Irish 42-footer, was hit by a nasty squall that knocked their radar scanner almost off its mountings and shredded their foresail, which slowed them down a fair bit. Our engine alarm went off, and Louise spent three hours replacing the bit that pumps cooling water through the exhaust. There was the most amazing meteor shower that lasted over eight hours. Surprisingly. there was very little sun, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to be crossing the Tropic of Cancer wearing full oilies and fleecy stuff. It was actually cold, especially at night.

On the seventh morning we made landfall, and a forbidding sight it was, too. The Cape Verde Islands (there are ten of 'em) have had virtually no rain in three years. The only precipitation comes from the moisture deposited by the evil-looking clouds that cover the archipelago most mornings. Very Dantean it appeared, from the sea. Once round to the leeward side, the clouds had dissipated and the islands were sunny and warm. We tied up alongside the quay at Mindelo, on Sao Vicente, second island from the left as you look north. It was actually windier in the harbour than it was at sea, but at least that kept the worst of the heat off. We were third from last, thanks mainly to Samuffin being smaller, and Carmen having only one sail. We were greeted noisily by the crews who’d arrived earlier, and given (nearly) cold beers by Alegria, next to whom we tied up. We’d showered and dressed up before rounding the island, so we made a good impression and looked fresh and rested on arrival. Which, of course, we were.

Mindelo High Street

The first impression on going ashore was that of poverty. So, as it turned out, were most of the subsequent impressions, as a tour around the island revealed an infrastructure on its last legs. The islands have no natural resources to exploit and produce nothing for export. Virtually all food and goods have to be imported and are very expensive, even by European standards. Farming is at subsistence level. The republic’s main income derives from its strategic position off the African coast, which makes it an ideal re-fuelling point for passing ships, although this is on the decline. It also makes money from the sale of postage stamps, which it issues frequently. Most of the problems the islands face can be traced to the usual story of ex-colonies (in this case, of Portugal); guerrilla warfare, followed by an experiment with communism before the restoration of democracy through free elections in 1991. Tourism is seen as the way forward (although there's not much to offer but quiet beaches) and some of the islands have been 'sponsored' by different European countries. There's a huge dependency on aid.

That being said, things seem to work. Everyone was very friendly, and the nightlife was fun. In the evenings, the whole town turns out to promenade, the coffee bars buzz with gossip, and live music spills out of the bars. It is definitely more African than European and very different from anywhere else we’ve been. We had a party on the beach, to which several locals invited themselves, after which some of us went for lobster and chips, the traditional after-party nosh. The chips were the best we’ve tasted anywhere, which could explain the generally happy feel of the place. Good chips are the basis on which a thriving democracy is founded.

Cape Verde sunset. See the face in the rock?

It was also a good opportunity to get to know the other boats a little better. The daily radio sked had created something of a virtual community, but it was putting faces to the voices that really caused the group to gel. Not to mention the parties, prize-giving feast and midnight swims. We also found that a few of our pre-rally friends were in the bay – Saorsa, and Mai Ling, who we’d got to know in Gib, and Keeshond, from the weather net. Anita II sailed in a few days later.

We left on the 25^th, for Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, 1900 miles and about 18 days to the south-west. Overall impression of the Cape Verdes – cheerful, interesting, fascinating even, but perhaps not enjoyable in a ‘let’s buy a cottage and settle down here’ sense. We all had a good time, but it would probably not have been so good if we hadn’t been with the other boats. We'd like to see some of the other islands and we’ll keep an open mind until then.

A thunderhead builds...

About three days after we left the Verdes, a new hurricane spawned in the Caribbean, which hasn’t happened at this time of year for about eighty-five years. Boats sailing the traditional Las Palmas - St Lucia route were facing fifty-knot winds on the nose when statistically they should have been getting 20 knots from behind. This was all happening hundreds of miles from us, so there was no danger of hurricanes hitting us for six, but that's not to say it had no effect. Our winds were, in fact, as predicted, but the sea state was confused by a nasty cross-swell from the north-west, courtesy of the depression causing trouble for those on the St Lucia run. It made progress very difficult and uncomfortable. It also sucked a belt of weather called 'the doldrums' further north. This increased the incidence of squally winds slamming in out of nowhere, and produced some vicious thunderstorms. Now, generally, we quite like lightning, but not the stuff we were getting - it was all around us, and when you've got a great metal mast which is the tallest thing for miles around, plus an education in the physical and natural sciences and a vivid imagination, sleep don't come easy. Puffin took it all in her stride, of course. We were under minimum sail for most of this and even when the wind was manic she coped with it perfectly.

Then, suddenly, all the nasty stuff would disappear and the sun would come out. The windvane would spin aimlessly and the sails would slat around, useless. On with the engine and we’d donk it until the next weather system kicked in. It was actually easier to sleep with the engine running. When sailing, it’s quite noisy below, lots of bangs and taps and creaks and the brain always seems to home in on one of them. The sound of the engine drowns all the din and is regular enough for the brain to tune it out. This all sounds horrible, and I suppose it was, but it only went on for about four days. Then we were through it and heading for the equator like we were on rails.

Louise cooked up a special dinner, which was excellent. It was excellent mainly because it had been my turn to cook, but Louise was teasing me about all this unused fishing equipment I had on board. She made me a deal; I catch, and she cooks. So I rigged up the rod and reel (quietly cribbing from the manual), stuck a weight on, added a line which had four shiny things attached to hooks, and emerged on deck fully equipped. She was still snickering as I threw the line over the stern, but oh! Joy! The snickering turned to bile in her throat as, less than ten seconds after the line hit the water (I hadn't even paid it out) the reel went mad, the line ran, and the rod bent almost in half. Two minutes later, I reeled in not one, not two, but three! Yes missus, three beautiful yellowfin tuna, all on the same line. One for each of us plus a spare, each weighing about two pounds and which I, the great hunter, presented to a slack-jawed General Practitioner for disembowelment and preparation for the table. A truly magic moment in my life. Next day, the hooks went out; and then, nothing. Not for an hour, anyway, but then the reel started screaming and I hauled out another yellowfin, this one tipping the scales at seven pounds; a truly magnificent fish and a worthy adversary. The bugger wrecked my line, but such is the mutual respect between hunter and prey that I accepted the loss without rancour. The meat lasted for days: tuna steaks, tuna fishcakes, tuna and sweetcorn pate, tuna with pasta. It was a long time before we ate tuna again. You can have too much of a good thing.

Dinner!

Passage-making is quite difficult to describe, but try this. Imagine driving on a motorway for a long time. Imagine, say, driving from Calais to Istanbul, a distance comparable to an Atlantic crossing. Now imagine driving to Istanbul at 6mph. Now imagine driving to Istanbul at 6mph and not seeing a single vehicle apart from maybe a large truck on a distant road once or twice in the whole journey. Add to all that the fact that you can't get out of the car for the whole trip, and you're getting the idea. That's without adding that the road is moving up and down and the car tips sideways unpredictably and someone throws a bucket of water over you now and then... Mostly, if you’re lucky, it’s quite boring.

We crossed the equator at 14:33:32 GMT on the 4th December, at 28º 39’20" W. We huddled around the GPS to watch the ‘N’ change to ‘S’, then tipped a slug of vodka into the sea as an offering to old Neptune. This was fairly tame in comparison to the ceremonies enacted by some of the rest of the fleet. On Bols Sport first-time line-crossers were subjected to a humiliating ritual which involved being coated with liberal quantities of a foul gloop (a mixture of old engine oil, custard, coffee grounds and other yuk) watched over by Neptune himself (played by skipper Gordon). Joker V had a more civilised affair involving lots of drink and silly dressing up. People who haven’t crossed the equator under sail are called pollywogs; those who have, shellbacks. We are all shellbacks now.

We weren’t the last over the line. Carmen hadn’t followed the fleet south from the Verdes and was making steady progress westwards. They had repaired their foresail while in Mindelo but there had been some damage to their roller-reefing system that they hadn’t discovered until starting the leg. The theory is that they didn’t want to risk the squalls in the doldrums with dodgy furling gear and were aiming to cross the line further west where the doldrum belt is much narrower. They did make a turn southwards eventually, but must have changed their mind as they announced on the daily sked their intention to proceed to Trinidad for repairs. Hopefully, we’ll catch up with them again in Grenada.

Samuffin was also behind us by a couple of days, having had engine trouble. Mike, the skipper, had had to virtually rebuild his engine while under way in quite lumpy conditions. He also did some repair work on his sails. And he had to be very economical with his electrics, because he couldn’t charge his batteries by running the engine. All in all, not an optimal state of affairs for Samuffin. Puffin was two days behind Alegria, the last of the fast boats. We were therefore the closest to Samuffin, so if things went really pear-shaped for them, we were in the best position to help. There was no clear and present danger – Mike had got everything working again and they were romping along.

It was, however, becoming clear that neither Samuffin or Puffin were likely to arrive in Salvador before the 11^th December, after which we would be classified DNF (did not finish) for the purposes of prize-winning. This wasn’t a problem for us – we weren’t in it for the prizes. But we had, quite independently of each other, been weighing up some facts:

1. we would be late into Salvador;
   
2. the leg from Salvador to Grenada would be at least two hundred miles longer than the ocean crossing from the Verdes to Salvador;
   
3. the first six hundred miles of that leg would be against wind and current, promising an uncomfortable first five or six days;
   
4. we’d see very little of Brazil, or anywhere else en route, and it would be solid sailing if we wanted to be in Grenada for the end of the rally, which with our speed was by no means guaranteed.

On Puffin, we were also concerned about Samuffin. The whole point of sailing in a rally is to enjoy the support that comes from sailing in the company of other boats. Mike told us (in the evening sked) that he was considering not going on to Salvador, for the reasons given above. We suggested that we divert to Fernando de Noronha, an island 200 miles off the Brazilian coast, where we would wait for Samuffin to catch up and then we’d proceed from there. Noronha (pronounced nar-on-ya) had been given a glowing report by Gordon of Bols Sport, and it seemed the perfect place to stop and rest up. Mike agreed, and so we set a course for the island.

On the way to Noronha, we did some more thinking. We could get to Salvador, no problem. But we’d see an awful lot more of Brazil if we didn’t. For a start, we’d cut 1300 miles off the trip (650 miles to Salvador, then back again). That would mean we could visit Recife, Natal, Fortaleza and a few other places and still get to Grenada in time for the end-of-the-rally bash. So. We were already late for Salvador. The choice was: be late for Salvador and be late for Grenada and see nothing of the country, or be late for Salvador, on time for Grenada and see something of the country. Hmmm.

When Mike told us that he and Val had definitely made up their minds to not go to Salvador, and instead to go to Natal on the north-eastern tip of Brazil, we decided to keep them company. After all, if we wanted to see Salvador, we could always go overland. And it would be nice to do some cruising.

We made good speed towards Noronha, and it looked likely we’d be on for yet another landfall in darkness, which we definitely did not fancy as we knew there were rocks and reefs off the island. We had no chart of the island or approaches and precious little information in the pilot book. So we hove-to and relaxed for a few hours, before commencing our approach at dawn. As the sun came up, we saw the tall pillar of rock that dominates the island, and three hours later rounded the rocks, reefs and islets to the north-east of the island and dropped anchor in the little bay in their lee. And then, after thirteen days at sea, we relaxed.

Fernando de Noronha, named after its discoverer, is a protected national park, with strict rules about navigating its coastline. Yachts are permitted to visit, but anchoring is only allowed in the bay where we had anchored, and limits are imposed on the length of stay. We had heard three days was the maximum. The island is beautiful. The bay is sheltered from the ocean swell by a reef that is covered at high water, at which time some swell enters and causes boats to roll a bit. There’s little shelter from the south-easterly trade wind, however, and this caused the bit of sea between us and the shore to be a mite choppy. But after thirteen days of Atlantic rock n’ roll, it seemed rock-steady as we pumped up the Zodiac dinghy and prepared to go ashore.

'Puffin' at anchor, Fernando de Noronha

Normally, when entering a foreign port, the only person allowed ashore is the skipper until clearance has been obtained and ‘free pratique’ granted. On Puffin, the allocation of the role of ‘skipper’ is not well defined. We agreed that, with the Brazilian authorities perhaps being less accustomed to female skippers than their European counterparts, it might be best if I went to check in. On lowering the dinghy into the water, it became apparent that the strength of the wind might cause problems - I seriously doubted whether our little 2 horse-power outboard would be able to push the Zodiac into what was becoming more than a breeze. Rowing was certainly out of the question.

The books said that officials didn’t like to be approached by yachties in shorts – smart appearance was expected and service could well be refused if this was disregarded. Smart(-ish) clothes were found, wrapped up in a plastic bag along with a towel, and stuffed into a rucksack. Louise made me put on an oilskin and a lifejacket, which boosted my confidence no end. How far would I be blown to sea before she could pull up 45 metres of chain plus a 65lb anchor and come and get me? Would she be able to even see me out there? It’s amazing how easy a task is when you’re not the one doing it. Anyway, the outboard made good way against the slop, and I got drenched. Inside the oilskin and out, everything got soaked. I managed to dry out a bit on the beach, struggled into my shirt and long trousers and was instantly soaking wet again as sweat gushed from every pore. It was a lot hotter and more humid ashore than out in the bay, and I hadn’t worn long trousers and a shirt since my last visit to the UK. It was noon at 4 degrees south of the equator and the only thing missing was Noël Coward’s ‘mad dog’.

The harbour, Noronha

The little map in the pilot book showed the port police office to be a building at the end of the path from the harbour wall, but I couldn’t find it. I went into every building there until somebody pointed to what I had taken to be a car park attendant’s kiosk, it being next to square of tarmac that had cars parked on it. This was the port police office. No-one was inside, but as I walked around it, making nose-prints on the windows, a tall, gangly youth in t-shirt, camouflage pants and lace-up Doc Marten’s uncurled himself from the table of the bar opposite and loped over. This was the port police. We found out quite quickly that we had no language in common, but established that I had just arrived in a yacht and wanted to go through the formalities. He took the name of the boat and our passport details, and conveyed information to the effect that a visit to his comandante was required This would entail a two-kilometre walk up a long steep hill to the village. I was losing fluid by the litre and could in no way consider a trip of this nature without re-hydration, but he said ‘tarde, tarde’, which in Portuguese means ‘later, later’. So I said ‘obrigado’ and stripped off, much to his obvious alarm. He must have wondered what ‘tarde’ means in English.

Back at the boat, I drank a litre-and-a-half of water and had some of the lunch Louise had prepared. We decided to go up to the village when it was a bit cooler, pottered around for a few hours tidying up the boat and prepared for the first night in our own, proper bed for two weeks. Then we went ashore, this time clad only in swimming kit. We got as wet, but it was easier. We dried, put on some light shorewear, and set off up the hill. It was more like three kilometres, and wasn’t made easier by the fact that we had done virtually no strenuous leg-work in the last two weeks – there’s no room for a long walk on a thirty-six foot boat. Just over the hill was another hill. Pure joy.

We found the police compound, and it became obvious that no-one had ever tried to check into this place in living memory. It took five officers to deal with us, none of whom spoke any English or Spanish, involved lots of duplicated forms (no carbon paper) plus a ride in the back of the police Jeep (unupholstered) all over the island’s (cobbled) back streets in search of a working photocopier. Then to the airport, to pay an entry tax imposed on all visitors. This goes towards the upkeep of the national park and amounts to about ten dollars a day, which we didn’t think unreasonable. This was all handled with good humour, and for all the unnecessary paperwork, was considerably easier than trying to get into the USA (even with a visa). They dropped us off at the harbour, shook hands all round, and that was it. We were here. The thing was, we hadn’t actually cleared into Brazil – Noronha isn’t an official port of entry, so we had the whole process to look forward to again when we got to the mainland. But we’d had a free trip around the island, and a lift back, which had been an unexpected bonus. Then we returned to Puffin, showered, and had a good, long sleep on clean, fresh sheets. Heaven.

While at sea, we had seen Noronha’s loom a long way out. Which was lucky, since the lights shown on the chart as aids to navigation weren’t working. But on walking around the island the next day, we could see very little to account for the brightness of the loom. There were a couple of little villages, but these consisted of small, single-storey houses and very low-level street lighting. We can only assume that the airstrip is well-lit at night, and this is what we had seen. The villages were very pretty, with fairly simple buildings but well looked after and painted in a variety of pastel colours. Most of them had names like ‘Pousada Golphines’ or ‘Pousada da Marinha’. We found out later that ‘pousada’ means ‘guest house’, and most islanders supplemented their income by taking in guests during the season.

Nissen dorma?

The island has one hotel, consisting of some refurbished Nissen huts left by the Americans after WWII (the island served as an airbase, targeting U-boats) and a log cabin serving as a reception area and a visitors’ centre. This contains an exhibition explaining the importance of the island to the conservation of turtles, all five species of which visit the island’s beaches to lay eggs. With up to four hundred people visiting the island each day, there is a shortage of accommodation, and camping isn’t allowed. So the islanders can charge a hefty whack for B&B, and good luck to them. It’s still reasonable by European standards, but everything is about twice as expensive as on the mainland. It keeps the numbers down, which in turn preserves the peaceful feel of the place.

On the second night, just as we were preparing for bed, the VHF radio crackled into life. It was Samuffin, who had been making excellent progress and were now obviously within VHF range (about thirty miles). They had decided not to wait for dawn as we had, and were coming in at night. There was no moon, and it was very dark. This wasn’t the problem for them it would have been for us, because we were already there and could talk them in over the VHF, once visual contact had been made. About two hours later we saw a tiny light appear between two of the islets, and a quick VHF call confirmed this was Samuffin. We advised them to hold their course until we could see their light clear the outermost islet, and then once they were a safe distance past, established a safe course in by using our torch. None of the other boats in the bay were displaying anchor lights, so we used the beam to point out their positions as well as other obstacles like lobster-pot floats. Samuffin dropped anchor in clear water about fifty yards off our port bow, we all gave a little cheer, and then we went to bed.

Now if there’s one thing you really want to do on your first day at anchor after a two-week passage, it’s arrange a boat trip. So that’s what we did. Well, most of the coastline was off-limits to our boats, so it was the only way to explore. Noronha has the only community of spinning dolphins in the southern hemisphere, and they put on quite a show for us, leaping ten feet out of the water, somersaulting and spinning like tops as they flew through the air. There were dozens of them, all competing for our attention and it was terrific to watch them having fun.

The trip also took in the northern (leeward) coastline of the island, which was like something out of a Bounty advert. Beautiful bays with long, palm-fringed sandy beaches, separated by rocky outcrops and islets. .Many of the islets were home to colonies of brown boobies, anhingas, greater yellowlegs, long-tailed skuas and great frigate birds. The frigate birds were impressive, very angular in flight, like soaring pterodactyls. Our Capitano dropped anchor in one of the bays and we had a couple of hours to explore. We donned snorkelling stuff and headed for the rocks, which was alive with fish of all shapes, sizes and colours. Snorkelling towards the beach we saw several stingrays, about twelve to eighteen inches across, in water shallow enough to paddle in. As many people were, in fact, doing. The rays managed to avoid being trodden on and there were no incidents. On the way back we stopped off at a rock formation known locally as ‘the Lion’s Mouth’. The Capitano demonstrated that, by shouting at the rock, the echo would sound like the roar of a lion. It was quite convincing, until he shouted and the echo was late in returning. What was in fact causing the roar was the amplification and reflection of the sound of the incoming waves by the tall, domed canopy etched into the rock face. It was an impressive sound, whatever was causing it.

This way...

The next day, the four of us took a rented beach buggy (the vehicle of choice on Noronha) and explored the island properly. This didn’t take long since Noronha is only five miles long and a mile wide. We found the beach we had visited the day before, which was backed by tall cliffs for its entire length. We knew we couldn’t get there by car, but we’d seen some fairly steep steps from the top and so we parked up and followed the footpath. What we hadn’t realised was that to get to the steps, we first had to descend a couple of ladders set into a fissure in the rock face. This was not a beach for young families, the old or the infirm! On the way down, we saw zillions of lizards skitting about the rocks, some nervous-looking mice and some larger mammals that we couldn’t identify, but they looked very much like the hyrax we’d seen in Africa. We swam and lazed for a bit, and made friends with a Brazilian couple (after we’d seen a mouse climbing into their bag and warned them). They told us of a very good restaurant that did an all-you-can-eat four-course buffet for less than three quid a head, so we made a point of going there in the evening and it was excellent. Lots of meats and fish, tuna pancakes, lasagne, pizzas, breads, salads of all descriptions, fresh tropical fruits, flans and puddings, all followed by cheese and biscuits for those with room to spare. (We didn’t.)

We’d decided that we’d leave the island the next day for Natal, 202 miles to the south-west. We spent the morning getting Puffin ready for sea, and the afternoon relaxing before leaving in the evening. It was a perfect crossing, with a fairly flat sea and a good wind on the beam. Of course we had to heave-to for four hours to avoid arriving at night, but we had the company of a large pod of dolphins who’d been with us for the last fifteen miles or so. Usually, dolphins lose interest in boats that are not making good speed, but these seemed quite content to rest with us and they circled the boat lazily for a couple of hours while we had supper.

The next morning, we approached Natal with more than a little caution, since the only chart we had was one I’d traced from an original that was at least twenty years old – the depths were in fathoms! Also, we knew the approach was flanked by reefs, although a diver we’d met on Noronha told us that part of the reef had been blasted away and the entrance was now well buoyed. So it turned out, and we followed the buoys past long, sandy, palm-fringed beaches into the River Potengi and picked up a mooring close to the yacht club.

And that’s where we are at the time of writing. We’ll spare you the details of the different levels of bureaucracy we had to go through to clear into Brazil, but it made the experience in Noronha seem easier than getting wet in the rain. Natal is quite a nice town, currently warming up for its 400^th anniversary. Very busy and lively, although the adjective ‘sophisticated’ would be inappropriate. Hardly anyone speaks English or Spanish, so everything seems to take longer, but it’s all done with good spirits and humour. Our Portuguese is improving rapidly.

The mooring is in beautiful surroundings, with a lively beach a short dinghy-hop downriver. We have the full use of the yacht club’s facilities, which includes showers (cold, but that’s very welcome here), a laundry service, internet access, a swimming pool and an open-air restaurant. The food is good and served in American-sized portions, which means that one meal is enough for two people. And it is nice to laze by the pool and have someone bring you a cold beer before dehydration becomes too serious a problem.

Louise, Mike and Val took a long bus ride to Salvador, where they were welcomed in fine, over-the-top Brazilian style - there were fireworks, traditional costumes, baskets of fruit and gift packs containing t-shirts, baseball caps and other souvenirs. The yacht club officials were really pleased to see the last two boats come in, even if it was without the boats! Peter offered hospitality on board Joker V and seemed glad to have a crew he could go sailing with – most of his had gone walkabout. It was heartening that everyone supported our decision to stay up north. It was generally agreed that it was the most sensible course of action and that we’d probably have a better rally for it – given that it was raining virtually non-stop there, while in Natal it was glorious sunshine, who could disagree?

Travelling by bus proved to be a good way of seeing the country. The return trip took twenty-four hours and visited nearly every village, road and mud track ever used by man or goat as it wound its way north. Me? I stayed behind to look after the boats and write this. There were only three seats available on the bus anyway, so it was obviously meant to be.

The yacht club, Natal

We’ve made friends with a few of the other boats staying here. There’s Swedes, Dutch, Germans and Frenchies – you rarely meet Brazilian yachties, even in the yacht clubs. Perhaps that should read especially in the yacht clubs – membership seems to have more to do with social standing than an interest in sailing. Anyway, we’ll be spending a very European Christmas afternoon with a barbecue next to the pool, some live music and some reminiscences from World War II. It should be quite lively.

Of course, by the time you’ve got this (and read through it!) it’ll probably be New Year and we’ll have moved on; most likely to Fortaleza, 260 miles away on the north-east coast. Then to Grenada? That’s the plan, but...

Wherever you are, however you spend the holiday, we wish you all the very best for Christmas and the New Year and look forward to hearing from you very soon.

Rob and Louise

Natal, 24 December 1999

All text and images on this website ©1999-2006 Puffin Design Co. Ltd. Please do not use without permission. It's not that hard to get - just ask!