Starblazer - 23/02/2016 – Three weeks in Brazil!

Where has the time gone? Why no blogs? What have we seen and done? These
are all valid questions; I hope my answers aren’t too boring!

We arrived on the Tuesday exactly one week before Carnival, except that
Carnival runs for 5 nights, officially preceded by several days of practice
and loud music almost all night long for the whole week. Street
preparations were already well advanced with row upon row of chemical
toilets lining the streets and statues and vulnerable buildings boarded up,
especially in the Cidada Alta or Upper Town also referred to as the
Pelhourino. Salvador’s Carnival is divided into three circuits with the
groups performing on different circuits on different nights, the circuit in
the Pelourino being the shortest and most compact and the one in Barra, the
seaside area about 5 km away, being the longest and noisiest! The
performers do not wear fantastic costumes as one sees in Rio, Notting Hill
or Sint Maarten, rather they rely on their music and dancing like we saw on
Martinique. The ‘noisy’ feature of the Barra processions was the abundance
of ‘Blocos’, huge lorry and trailer combos where the inside of the trailer
is almost all amplifier and speakers with room for up to 100 people
including live bands and singers on the top floor. A UK local radio station
used to claim for one of its shows that: “If the music is too loud you are
too old!” On that count we are too old for a procession made up of Blocos.
We spent a few hours there but the procession was just starting and all the
walking groups would slot into their allotted places further along the route
once all the Blocos and their attendant dancers etc. were moving in the
right direction. It was so crowded I didn’t fancy our chances of making our
way to the main procession route so we had dinner and took a taxi back to
the boat. On the last day of Carnival we went up to the Pelhourino, the
queue for the Laverda lift snaked around several blocks so we tried to walk
around to where the coach picked us up when we went on a walking tour of the
Pelourino. (It would have been useful to take a map!) Eventually we caught
a taxi and the driver did his best, dropping us off as close as possible.
Though it was mid-afternoon and Carnival starts at 1900 we wandered around
the streets, busy but not packed with people, finding a number of walking
groups loudly drumming their way around, the strong beat fortified by the
bass band!

Of course, during Carnival, many trades are not working including banks with
cash machines, some restaurants, many shops and businesses such as sail
makers, though some supermarkets were open. We had removed both genoas and
sent them to the sailmaker for repairs and or renewal of the sacrificial
strips. The quote was quite high but Eduardo assured us that one could just
be repaired and patched to keep as a spare, the better sail needed complete
UV sacrificial replacement fabric. One potential stumbling block was that
we needed about £800 in cash to pay for the work. Normally that wouldn’t be
a problem but the local bank we had been using would only allow a withdrawal
of less than £100 per time and only worked with one of our bankcards! John
found another bank which would allow us to withdraw £160 at a time and both
cards worked. More about the sails later.

We had thought about spending the second weekend sailing around the islands
in the Baia de Todos Santos (Bay of All Saints) but we were slow to get
moving on Saturday, then common sense prevailed and boat jobs took
precedence. The opening window in the windscreen had fallen out again,
basically the metal hinge is very stiff (aluminium to stainless corrosion)
and the glass will not stay stuck to it for more than a couple of openings
and closings. We had to remove the sprayhood (dodger US) so that John could
attach clamps to hold the glass while the epoxy was setting. The sprayhood
had even more splits since I’d done a quick repair job in South Africa so it
was time to ‘bite the bullet’ and attack a job I really didn’t want to do!
Day 1 unpick all the seams on the old one, lay the pieces out on the fabric,
draw around them. It might not seem a lot but it took quite a few hours.
Day 2 cut out the fabric, start by sewing the front window section together
then offer up the window piece which didn’t fit! In the end I cut off about
a total of 1.5 cm and, with a bit of care, it fitted together. Day 3 the
top section has a number of facings and a sleeve for the pole so these were
added then the two main sections connected and the sleeve for the forward
pole added. Zips were inserted and the bolt rope along the bottom edge was
sewed in. Day 4 was really only about an hour’s work, sewing some strips of
binding on to neaten the aft edge then came the moment of truth, installing
the completed unit. It fitted perfectly and saved us over £500!

The sails had been promised for Wednesday, allowing us to leave on Thursday
so our clearance documents were processed by the agent, Ramon, for a
Thursday departure. Fortunately we then have 72 hours to leave the area.
Late Wednesday afternoon John finally got a message that the sails would be
delivered Thursday. About mid-morning John finally spoke to Eduardo who
said they would be with us between 4.00 and 6.00, they arrived at 7.00, far
too late to do anything with them. Early Friday we had a very heavy shower,
followed by intermittent showers throughout the morning. The first job was
to trim and fit the replacement mainsail batten while there was no wind. In
the next dryish period we hoisted up the genoa until the foil on the
forestay pulled out of its fixing….a problem which was ‘sorted’ by the
riggers in Cape Town or ‘not’ as it turned out. We pulled the genoa back
down while John worked out how to fix the problem. We finally had the sail
up and rolled away by 1330, not stunning timing given that we had started
work just after 0700!

In the meantime Luis on Allegro asked for help with his windlass motor,
initially just the loan of a multimeter. John went to help, found a broken
connection which needed a control box to be opened, except that the screws
were impossible to move. Eventually he brought the box back to Starblazer
to repair then reinstalled it for Luis. Earlier in the week John had
finally found the reason Wayward Wind’s engine wouldn’t start, Marcello’s
men had found a very damaged wire but replacing it hadn’t solved the
starting problem. As he had suggested, right at the beginning, there was a
very loose connection. He also found the cause of their oil apparently
leaking around the air intake, a cracked rubber hose. It has certainly been
a week of boat repairs.

We finally cast off on Saturday morning, 48 hours later than we wished.

Joyce