At anchor next to a submarine

Eventually, the forecast came through with a prediction of good conditions for our next hop, from Vitória to Cabo Frio (Cold Cape). This was a 175nm trip which would normally take about 1.5-day, however, the date of the forecast being April 1^st, we should have known better.

We started out the passage with some nice, downwind goose-winging along a coastline of blue mountains but eventually our cheerful tailwind dropped out completely and, with a north setting current picking up, we were forced to crawl south on the engine, making 4kts or (much) less against the current.

It wasn’t all frustration though, as we were joined by dolphins and a variety of seabirds – storm petrels, petrels and shearwaters. Frederieke got very excited when she saw her first-ever Albatross, an Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross (Thalassarche chlororhynchos). David, who missed it, got to feel a bit jealous, not realizing that further south these sombre birds would be our almost constant companions.

Finally, not 1.5 but almost two days later, we crept into our anchorage near Arraial do Cabo, off Praia do Forno. It was 0400 in the morning and very dark but there in the middle of the bay was the discernible outline of a moored submarine! We’d never done this before but, tiredness made us bold, we went ahead and set our anchor in front of the submarine and crashed into bed – certainly one for the history books.

Party time

The next morning, we were woken up by the arrival of a flotilla of tourist boats playing loud music – we had forgotten that it was Easter weekend and the Brazilians, who are always ready for a good time, were certainly ready for a good time.

What was a lovely quiet anchorage during the evening and morning, every day between 11.00 and 16.00, turned into a total mayhem of colourful wooden boats laden with raucous happy Brazilian tourists, loud music, dancing and noise.

At 16.00, though, the boats would depart and by 1630 we had the whole bay to ourselves again. With so much partying going on, even the submarine disappeared during daylight hours.

Aside from the dubious water quality, the bay was so busy that we did not dare going for a swim or a snorkel, for fear of being run over by boats big and small speeding through the anchorage. This was quite the disappointment as many people had recommended the area for snorkeling and diving.

In the end, the only swimming we did here was around Yuma to clean off the thick layer of calcareous growth of tube worms that had formed on her hull since our arrival in Brazil two months earlier.

Trying to find a walk

Keen to stretch our legs and get away from the party-boats, we found some walking trails on a walking app and, deciding to see if they existed in the real world, rowed in to the beach to go in search of them. From the beach we walked up the steep hill along a dirt track only to find ourselves in what looked like a rather dilapidated suburb on the outskirts of Arraial do Cabo.

Not sure how to find the start of our walking track in amongst the maze of houses, we asked some locals for directions in our sad Portuñol. Alerted by one of her kids of our predicament, and thinking we were thirsty, one friendly lady disappeared into her small house to return with water and two glasses! Unfortunately, she couldn’t help with directions.

Soon enough, we were joined by more curious people with one of them, an Argentinian immigrant, Maria, who of course spoke Spanish. This made our life easier, at least for David who speaks some Spanish.

Narcos and Policia

From Maria we learned that our planned walk through the forest while it was very pretty was probably not the best idea, as a few days before Narcos and the Policia Militar had had a shoot-out along the trail with one fatality. Oops! However, the general feeling of the group was that we’d be fine and besides, tourists were generally left alone as they brought money into the region. Maria, who liked to spend time on the trails, decided that she’d show us the way.

And so we off we went. Maria led the way out of the favela, up to the ridgeline track and then through low scrubby trees to a spectacular look-out. Here we sat looking out over the bay and Yuma and Maria told us about how much better life was in Araial do Cabo than in Mendoza where she came from in Argentina.

Then, having explained how to find another track that would take us back down to the beach she took her leave. We then wandered along slowly back to the beach, birding. Happily, we had no encounters with Narcos nor with Policia Militar but disappointingly we saw no birds either.

Steering problems

On the passage from Vitória to Cabo Frio, a slightly concerning clicking sound in the steering had popped up. We had first noticed this sound during our Atlantic crossing but couldn’t locate it. It had then disappeared and so we had not investigated it further. Now it was back again, it seemed to be coming from the top of the pedestal, and seemed to be getting louder and louder – not good!

Before continuing on, we decided to pull the top section of steering pedestal apart to see if we could find the problem and, hopefully, fix it. However, this ended up being a day spent learning more about how our steering system fits together rather than fixing the problem. Steering dismantled, nothing found, and we put it all back together to deal with when we arrived at our next stop.

Off to Rio de Janeiro

On the afternoon of our 5th day in the noisy bay of Forno the weather forecast looked good for our next passage and so, we lifted anchor and set sail south for the 78nm hop to Rio de Janeiro.