Friday, 25th February 2011 (Election Day in Ireland)
06.00hrs We woke up to all the people cheering and playing ashore. Boy! their day starts early here when its nice and cool, and again, all the fishermen are busy on the river doing their thing.
Today, we leave Salvador and head NNE to Recife, a total distance from where we are now of approx 400 miles. We lifted the RIB up onto the derricks and strap it down tightly. We had a light breakfast and stored all movable objects before hauling the anchor about 09.00hrs. The 3 other boats had already left.
The river was flat calm with little or no wind, so we motored off down the 10 miles of green tree lined hills on both sides of the river to Bahia Bay. Ohhh! It is so peaceful and beautiful (like a much bigger version of East Ferry). From there we had another 25 miles or more to coast before we set a proper course NNE.
Murphys Law, the wind kept following us around and was still on the nose when we got to the open sea. This will definitely be a slow 400 miles. At this stage, we drew up with Voyageur and Tzigane, so we will have their company for the trip, with Tucanon just a short distance behind.
We passed along all the beaches, the highrise apartment blocks and hotels. It all looked like a sandy Manhattan. We passed a huge Turtle just a few meters off our portside. He was the biggest by far that we have seen at sea anywhere.
By 17.00hrs, the wind had increased to 16 knots or more from the NE, so we had a slight angle to that breeze and we opened up our mainsail and kept motorsailing, but still only managing 5 to 5.5 knots over ground, of course we had a 1.6 knot current against us, and this will last the entire journey, just to make sure we don't get there too quickly. We remained about 7 miles offshore and traveled parallel to the coast.
We had and early dinner, "Bangers and Mash" with a difference, the sausages were cooked with wedges of onions and apples, and the residue juice was used to make gravy. Meanwhile, the mashed and creamed potatoes had garlic and mustard whipped into them along with plenty of salt, pepper, and butter. So all in all, very tasty.
By 6pm it was almost dark, and there were plenty of fishing boats around, however we could see most of them on Radar and take whatever avoiding action needed, there was plenty of lightning away to the west, so we enjoyed watching it, knowing it was so far from the boat. We got into the watches early, 3 hours on and 3 hours off, and it worked well.
The 1/4 moon came up around 00.30hrs and was welcome as always, throw a little light on the sea. at least now we will be able to see the unlit fishing boats.
If anyone has any news on the elections, please send us an email.
That's all for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )