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Another fifty miles or so and we'd be
entering the Baia Da Ilha Grande. A note for the sailors: The
entrance is very busy with shipping and the wind acceleration as you
round the cape into the bay is very significant and doesn't really
moderate until you get around to the other side of Ilha Grande and even
there some of the anchorages in the lee of the island can be very gusty,
though this generally reduces at night. The subtext to the last paragraph is - We had far too much sail up as we entered the bay (remember we were poled out) and spent a happy half an hour trying to deal with large amounts of flapping canvas and flogging ropes. We then spent much longer than expected trying to find an anchorage where we felt comfortable and relaxed (ie empty and sheltered). All that aside, the pilots are right. Baia Da Ilha Grande is the filet mignon of cruising in Brasil. There are allegedly 360 islands, and although we think you have to count some pretty small rocks to get to that number, there are loads. And many of the anchorages are spectacularly beautiful - just like in the brochures! |
| We didn't spend too much time exploring.
We could save that for our return. Our main priorities were to
find a marina where we could confidently leave Samarang for the next six
months or so, sort out all of the paperwork associated with leaving her
and get her mothballed. We had already been recommended the marina
of Amyr Klink at Parati and had phoned ahead to make a provisional
booking. At this point it's worth a few words about Amyr Klink himself. Brasil's most famous navigator, though we confess to never having heard of him before we arrived. His CV goes something like this 1984 Rowed the Atlantic from Namibia to Salvador de Bahia (7000KM). He had planned to leave from Cape Town, but the South African government wouldn't let him because it was too dangerous. So he put his boat on a trailer and took it up to Namibia and left from there. 1989 Sailed the yacht he'd built himself (Parati) single-handed to Antarctica. Stayed for winter stuck in ice, then sailed north to Arctic before returning to Brasil in 1991. He then built the marina that we would be leaving Samarang in and also his next boat, the massive Parati 2, pictured right (and moored on the next pontoon to us in the marina). He continues to explore with a particular interest in Antarctica and his web site at http://www.amyrklink.com.br/ is really worth a visit. |
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Parati itself is a UN world heritage site. This
was where Brasilian gold was loaded to be shipped back to Portugal.
And the streets are paved with huge stones set in the ground to support
the weight of these wagons. It's now an up-market tourist
destination, but that doesn't make it any less charming to walk around. One curiosity is that a number of the main streets flood at high water springs - which can make getting back from the restaurant interesting! The story is that this was designed in by the original planners so that the streets would periodically be cleaned of accumulated waste. You can believe that if you like, but it sounds to me like the kind of thing I would have said if I was the planner responsible for screwing up the level of the streets so that they kept flooding. |
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| All that was left for us was to spend a day at the provincial capital Angra dos Reyes sorting out the paperwork. Spend a fortnight chipping rust and servicing machinery and then we would be off. We were flying to Buenos Aires from Rio de Janeiro. This would give us a second opportunity to see the sights of Rio. And did we? No - we went straight to an airport hotel and flew out without a second glance! |
