Our Brazilian adventure has now come to an end after more than three months in this fabulous country. We are now in the marina Piriápolis in Uruguay preparing for the next adventure, Patagonia.   

First a small summery of our impressions and experiences in Brazil. The summery is of course reflecting the time of the year we spend there and the places we visited.
Brazil is full of surprises and nice experiences. First we have to report about a perfect sailing area, where it is possible to sail the whole year. No hurricane season, only two rainy months around April. The temperature, both in the air and in the water are ok all the way south of Rio. Further south it's a little bit chilly in the winter. Some part of the coast and especially the estuary of some of the rivers are quite shallow, which of course limits the accessibility for yachts with great draught.        
There are lots of anchorages along the coast and in the rivers. Marinas are few, but the private yacht clubs welcome visitors everywhere, sometimes for free and others with, compared to Europe, very reasonable fees all the way down to Rio, where we suddenly experience prices comparable with the Med.  You can cover most of the coast line day-touring, but due to the shortage of daylight, only 12 hours, we often anchored in total darkness. With radar, GPS-plotter there is seldom any difficulties. But you have to have a bottom without a lot of weed to get a good grip. In Brazil we have not found weed on any places, and we have succeed to get a good holding at the first attempt every time with our 23kg Delta anchor.     

The people - Nice and helpful. If you are used to the very efficient souvenirs salesmen and restaurant guys in the Med and Caribbean, you be surprised to find that you can walk around without anybody approaching you with more or less aggressive suggestions. You can actually look at a menu, and they are waiting for your approach.

Private yacht-clubs - Nearly all of them welcome visitors to a very reasonable fee. This means that you can do "marina -jumping" very cheap and don't have to stay on anchor even with a slim budget. Taking about anchoring, close to the bigger cities we where advised not to solo-anchor in small bays. We followed that advice and visited the well-guarded marinas/yacht-clubs under these circumstances most of the time. We nor saw or heard about any incidence during our time in Brazil, but this is a big country with a lot of poor people. This together with drugs in the big cities makes it foolish to actually provide an opportunity by anchoring an expensive yacht in front of their eyes. The rich people don't move around without taking precautions. They travel by car, cab or bus between the different reserves. We didn't bother much about this. We moved around as normal by walking or by bike. We didn't visit any doubtful bar or walked around in the Favelas after dark, but that's what we try to avoid even in Europe!  

Cheep - We have already talked about the minor harbour-fees. There is no money involved in clearing in- and out of the country. Eating out is very cheep, especially if you use places where the local people eat. Stocking up is cheep as long as it concern things produced in Brazil, imported items comes together with some sort of import fee and are for this reason expensive. Gas is very cheep and diesel comparable with tax-free in Europe. (Watch out for water and dirt that sometimes occurs, always by filtered marine diesel)
Water is easy to find and the quality is most of the time excellent. But you have to watch out for the two different hoses in some marinas, one for washing yachts and one for drinking!       

Formalities - Much can be sad about this item, one good thing; it is free of charge! That's the ending of the good things about formalities. Brazil like most South American states has no separate rules for yachts. The rules are very rigid and the local authorities apply them very "local". This is sometimes confusing and is one of the reason lots of yachts choose to skip the formalities. (The penalty is very cheep, specially compared with all those days we spend trying to get in contact with the different authorities in every harbour.)         

Wildlife - varies of course widely from south to north. The seabirds where few around Salvador and down to Abrohlos, where we noticed many new spices. Further south the numerous increased together with the falling temperature of the water.    
Dolphins are everywhere, Whales concentrated around Abrohlos down to Vitoria.
Penguins and Lobos in the south.
Almost no mosquitoes!

So far the Brazilian Summery, now back to the log and Vitoria, where we ended in the last letter.
We left Vitoria for Búzios, just north of Rio, on September 1. We moored at the yacht-club one and a half day later. The weather was not very good, rain and a lot of wind, so we stayed "indoor" at the buoy. The next morning we took the dinghy ashore and paid a surprisingly expensive harbour fee, three time what we where used to up north. Evidently the nearness to Rio has this bad effect. The village was totally a holiday- resort, very Europeish, not like anything in the north.
We left after a long walk and some shopping.

We just tacked against the wind around the peninsula and found a nice well protected bay on the southeast side, where we stayed four days on anchor waiting for the wind to  be favourable for continuing to Rio.
We had one day with rain but the other days we could walk around among the hills and on the beach, admiring the heavy waves from the south.
Everything's comes to an end, the wind changed and we set of for Rio, trying to get there the next morning.
The wind increased and we raced through the night towards Rio, arriving tree o'clock in the morning just as the wind died. Full moon and the light from the city illuminating the silhouette of the Sugarloaf and the Corcovado made this approach to one that we will remember for ever!! 
We spend two days sightseeing around Rio before sailing over the bight to Niteroi, cheaper, more tranquil and a better photo distance to Rio. 

We spend three days at Charitas Yacht club and we paid 20€, compare that with 30€ for one night in Rio!
The northerly wind was here again and we set off for Ilha Grande and the fabulous archipelago 70 nm south of Rio. 
Once again we manage to arrive in the dark, this time due to lack of wind. Radar and electronic chart together with GPS and almost no wind makes it almost as safe as in clear daylight. As a routine we always check the accuracy of the chart by using the radar for measurement as soon as we reach a new area, which increase the reliability of the charts. 

Enseada do Abráo became our first anchorage, one of many well protected bays we used during our week in this wonderful surrounding. The local people argue that it is possible to anchor a whole year without using the same place two times!

Thanks to the off-season we where almost always alone in the anchorage, except for one night when we had chosen a bay which obviously was popular among the fishermen when the wind was to strong. We anchored alone, but before midnight we had more than 30 fishing boats around us. When we woke next morning, nearly everyone was gone.     
The archipelago is crowded with yachts from Rio and Sao Paulo during January and February and should probably be avoided, if not your goal is to anchor close to a bunch of super motor yachts with their diesel alternator running 24 hours a day. We prefer a secluded bay, where we can enjoy the nature without any disturbances.
We ended the week with two nights, waiting for the northerly, at Ilha da Cotia, north of Parati-Mirim.  
18 of September we left Ilha Grande for Santos. We anchored at Ilha Porcos, the former Prison island for one night, and reached Santos two o'clock in the night. The yacht club offered two nights free and then 40€ per night! We did all our laundry and all our formalities checking out from Brazil, our 90 days visa had only two days left. We left Santos after two days (of course) official bound for Uruguay.
South of Santos we spent four days in Paranagua, once again waiting for the south wind to be northerly.  Two of the days we anchored in the river in the centre of the old town, just outside the harbour office.
We where even allowed to moor the dinghy at the pontoon for the harbours working boats, guarded 24 hours a day.
A nice old town, where it had been much easier to check out than it was in the big Santos with giant distance between the different officials. But 90 days are 90 days, not 95 which had been the case if we had waited to Paranagua.

We anchored twice after we left Paranagua, in  Porto Belo and just south of Florianopolis, before we left Brazil and sailed 550 nm in four days to Piriapolis, Uruguay. The trip had almost every weather condition, almost no wind to gale force. Arriving Rio de la Plata, the fog was total. The wind died and the visibility was almost nil. In the middle of the third night we heard a remarkable sound. It was full moon and the waves where garnished with phosphorescence. This light together with the magnificent sound, which we later understood was singing whales, is one of many nature experiences which make sailing the right way of living for us.
Of course we then arrived in the middle of the night. The Prefecture (a mix between Coast Guard and harbour Officials) took our lines and our Zarpe from Santos and wished us welcome to Uruguay. "Have a good night sleep and the rest of the paperwork tomorrow". The pilot book where very specific about all the difficulties with formalities in Uruguay. We where very pleased to find out the difference between the pilot and Brazil! 
We bicycled to the airport and the emigration to get our passport stamped, and then the formalities were done.

Here in Piriapolis a lot of sailors and their yachts are waiting for the south, Patagonia or even Antarctica. Piriapolis is the only place in the south with a heavy (70 ton) Travel lift, one reason for many sailors to choose this harbour.
We had almost had no contact with other sailors since three weeks in Rio, so we had a lot to catch up, both social arrangements and technical discussions. Through friends in Sweden we had got a mail contact with an American yacht which already have done Patagonia,  Nine of Cups with Marcie and David and there cat Jelly. After almost a year of mail- corresponding we felt that we already knew them.
Here in Piriapolis we finally met them "alive". We had many things to talk about, not to mention their experiences from the very south.
In the harbour were even two yachts from Sweden, felt a little bit odd to use our native language when speaking to another yacht!

The harbour fee in low season is very reasonable, 8€ a day and the Travel lift is less than half Europe price. The Village is from the beginning a resort for wealthy Argentines, but over the years it has became a complete Village with almost every service you can need.

We will now stay here some weeks and prepare our Lindisfarne for the south. One major thing is to change the leaking fresh water pump in the main engine, quite a challenge because of all the different part, including the camshaft belt, we have to dismantle to get to the pump.      

We are planning to go to Mar del Plata, Argentina, in the end of October and wait there for the right weather condition for Mar del Plata - Ushuaia.

10 october 2006
Annika & Björn
S/Y Lindisfarne

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