Arrival in Salvador, Brazil

Salvador, Brazil - (31/01/05)

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!! We've arrived! We've crossed the big pond!

Yup, we‘re here in Salvador after a great run down from Ascension Island and have arrived just in time for Carnival which sounds as though it´s going to be really something! This place is hectic already - the music, drums, costumes, people, people and people!!! Amazing!

Calypso really performed well on the crossing, it was 5 days from St Helena to Ascension Island then another 12 over to Salvador (we ran out of wind for 3 whole days) but have no complaints at all. We have a few little items to attend to but nothing untoward or serious. Right now we´re just chilling out (wrong! it´s bloody HOT!) and enjoying things here on terra firma.

The cruising lifestyle is GREAT!!! Right up our alley - we can thoroughly recommend it.

Upon arriving, the first boat we saw was 'Sunshine' our fellow Governor's Cup participants, Debbie and Wayne. It's amazing that we travelled right across the Atlantic and met up with people we know! They've been here for a month now and meeting up with them has proven to be very fortuitous as they've been able to show us the 'ropes' which makes things so much easier when in a foreign country.

It took us forever to clear customs here as the red tape is to be experienced but we got through it finally. We’ve been warned that this is a sign of things to come in the future, in fact, the smaller the island, the larger the paperwork hassles. All part of the experience!

Carnival has proven to be a very noisy but colourful affair. How they all don't suffer from severe hearing problems is beyond me. We've watched parade after parade and have learned how much this all means to the Brazilians. They put so much effort into the costumes even for the littlest of their children and they really know how to enjoy themselves.

The ‘Blurb’ on the city reads: “Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia, was the first major port and the capital of colonial Brazil for almost two centuries. The city lies between green tropical hills and broad beaches along the bay of Todos os Santos. It was built on two levels with administration buildings and residences constructed on the hills; forts, docks, and warehouses on the beaches.

To this day the city is still divided into upper and lower cities. From 1500 to 1815 Salvador was the nation's busiest port. A significant portion of the sugar from the northeast and gold and diamonds from the mines in the southeast passed through Salvador. It was a golden age for the town; magnificent homes and churches resplendent in gold decoration were built. Many of the city's baroque churches, private homes, squares, and even the hand-chipped paving bricks have been preserved as part of Brazil's historic patrimony. In Salvador, more than anywhere else in the country, the African influence in the makeup of Brazilian culture is readily visible, from the spicy dishes still called by their African names (caruru, vatapa, acaraji), to the ceremonies of candombli which honor both African deities and Catholic holidays, to the capoeira schools where a unique African form of ritualistic fighting is taught. Its population is around 2,250,000 inhabitants.”

We´ll probably stay here for a few weeks then go over to the island of Itaparica across the bay - we´ve heard that the water there is really nice (it´s foul here so we won´t be filling our tanks as yet). It´s also apparently quieter with nice beaches so we may just spend a week or so there too. I

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Ascension Island

ASCENSION ISLAND (7.95°S, 14.37°W)

Our trip from St Helena to Ascension took us five days of fairly easy downwind sailing. Naturally something had to wrong. Immediately after leaving St Helena and waving goodbye to those aboard the RMS St Helena, we lost our 'George'.

Now Calypso has three means of steering. Firstly, the good old fashioned way of hand steering but, for day after day, 24 hours a day, that becomes a bit much. So, we also have 'Manuel' our non electric windvane and 'George', our electronic autohelm system. During our trip from Cape Town, Manuel' and I had a personal problem as he chose to go walkabout nearly every time I was on watch (he behaved exceedingly well for everyone else though) so I would rely on good ol' 'George' who, unfortunately, is a major drain on the battery system. Anyway, Murphy arrived on the scene and both 'George' and 'Manuel' chose to die (or at least go into a coma) at the same time. As soon as the autohelm started giving us grief, Paul connected up the windvane. Not five minutes passed before it, too, decided to go on strike.

We always knew that cruising was going to be a case of "fixing your boat in exotic locations" so I guess there was no time like the present to get started. We tied off the wheel to stay on course and proceeded to work on the various problems. One has to be a double-jointed, gymnastic leprechaun to work on a boat and this was certainly the case when it came time to work on the course computer for the autohelm. Naturally, it was located in the most inaccessible spot but perserverence reigned and we managed to fix some faulty wiring. Paul replaced a couple of lines to 'Manuel' and he, too, got back on the job. We felt quite chuffed with ourselves that we'd managed to work through the first curved ball of the trip.

We loved Ascension Island. We dropped anchor by Georgetown (the capital) in the bay on the northwest end of the island surrounded by beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear waters.

The people were outstandingly friendly and the terrain was amazing. Being a volcanic island and quite a young one at that, it was like a moonscape on the lower levels, but Green mountain, in the centre, was almost tropical - what a contrast! We were constantly surrounded by enormous green turtles, all of which were busy mating (interesting site!) and then would go up onto the beaches at night to lay their eggs. The bird life was also amazing, some birds being totally unique to Ascension.

The tiny town up in the hills is named "Two Boat" (why, we never found out) and the crossroad further down is referred to as "One Boat" and that is literally all there is there - one boat standing on its end in the middle of nowhere!

On one trip ashore, we met a local fisherman who gave us a huge piece of a fresh tuna that he was busy cutting. This ended up feeding us sushi the first night, grilled on the braai (BBQ) for 4 of us the following night and then another braai for Paul & me en route. All this was a simple gesture by one of the locals as we passed the landing jetty one morning - WOW! We lived in Simon´s Town forever and that never happened despite the tons of fish we saw being brought in. Such wonderful and warm people.

Ascension Island is a dependency of St. Helena which lies some 800 miles to the southeast with a population of about 1,250. It is as remote as St. Helena, being almost exactly in the middle of the South Atlantic, but is a smaller island (98 sq. km). The island is a British Overseas Territory which, together with St Helena and Tristan da Cunha, forms a single territorial grouping under the sovereignty of the British Crown.

It is volcanic in origin, but has superb white sand beaches (the sand is shell and coral sand). It is a rugged, dry, barren, and inhospitable island. Most of the surface of Ascension is covered by basalt lava flows and cinder cones.

Although Ascension has an airstrip it is effectively inaccessible to the casual visitor as it is a "closed" island. There are no commercial flights to Ascension; RAF flights to the Falkands stop here and USAF flights serve the US Base on the island. There are no facilities for tourists or casual visitors. The only way to briefly visit Ascension is as a passenger on the RMS St. Helena or, as we have done, via private yacht.

Life on the island appears to be very laid back and unhurried. We hiked around with two single handed chaps who were also anchored in the bay and enjoyed the crystal clear waters for snorkeling and scuba diving. We could easily have stayed on longer but we wanted to move on towards Brazil in time for the Carnival.

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St Helena

Jamestown, St. Helena - 15° 55’ 28” S – 5° 43’ 5” W

In the middle of the gloom of the early morning, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, there appeared a bleak, volcanic island, just where we were heading and lo and behold, there is was, right where it was supposed to be! We've arrived at St Helena!

Our journey since leaving South Africa certainly had a few ups and downs but the joy of seeing land after 13 days is hard to describe. Our first four days out of Cape Town could kindly be referred to as 'rough' (I could probably come up with a more apt adjective but it would, no doubt, be censored). After only a day, I was thrown across from the galley and hit my head (a big ouch) and Paul was knocked into the companionway stairs and, we think, cracked a few ribs. He was in absolute agony and unable to even turn a winch. Thankfully, he still managed his watches but had to leave all the sail trimming, etc. to Roger and me.

Roger has been an absolute star! He has taught us so much and more than pulled his weight aboard Calypso. Not sure what we would have done without him but we couldn't have asked for a better teacher on this, our maiden voyage.

We listened with great interest every morning to the positions of Governor's Cup fleet and we certainly could be proud of our standing considering we're so loaded down with supplies. It was fun to follow the race and be part of it as well. As the days wore on, the conditions got better and warmer. Our foul weather gear was shed and we could actually bask in the sunshine. For a good 90% of the trip, it was downwind sailing so we set the sails 'wing on wing' with a poled-out jenny and a gibe preventer on the main. Whenever we had to change tack slightly, it meant swopping things around, quite a mission but a great learning curve.

As we crossed the finish line, Tom Ambrose was there to greet us with a very welcome bottle of champers and some ice cold beers. I think the guys had finished the beers before we even started to drop anchor. Speaking of dropping anchor, the anchorage at Jamestown is deep, very deep. It was 23 metres deep where we had to drop the hook and that meant attaching some rode to the anchor chain in order to get enough chain down to hold our position. We've heard of many a boat which has dragged away over the horizon in the past!

Checking in created the absolute minimum of fuss so we were able to get ashore to meet those who arrived before us in plenty of time for greetings and celebrations. What we hadn't realised is that St Helena completely and absolutely dies over Christmas. NOTHING but NOTHING is open. Apart from the few activities created specifically for the racing fleet, we couldn't even find a snack bar or restaurant open to get a beer or sandwich. The island is so isolated that they don't have to follow the norms so have their own rules and regulations and take a five day Christmas break. And this, despite the fact that at the moment, we are the only tourists here who will visit for months! They are so laid back! Anyway, it is quite a place and we're having a great time with the other yachties here.

Getting ashore was amusing. There is no such thing as a dinghy dock as there is no safe place to put one. The only way to get ashore is via the little ferry which we can call out to collect us. Once it arrived at the dock, we had to grab huge monkey ropes and swing ourselves ashore. When conditions are really rough, we're told that they simply cannot get people ashore. We've been fortunate during our stay.

Problems, there are always problems on a sailboat and, unfortunately, ours is that we've sprung a diesel leak. We've lost a fair amount so will have to pay the exorbitant prices here on the island. It looks as though Paul has resolved the problem though so things should be back to normal before we leave.

St Helena is famous for the fact that it was selected as the place of detention of Napoleon. He was brought to the island in 1815 and lodged at Longwood where he died in 1821. Longwood is now a popular tourist attraction. He was initially buried on the island, however, his remains were eventually returned to France.

History shows that in 1981 the British reclassified St Helena and the other crown colonies as British Dependent Territories and the islanders lost their status as UK citizens. For the next 20 years, many could only find low-paid work with the island government and the only available employment overseas for the islanders was restricted to the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island, a period during which the island was often referred to as the “South Atlantic Alcatraz”.

This has fairly recently been reversed and the inhabitants now receive a subsidy from the British Government, one which we felt created laziness and drunkenness. The islanders appear to grow little or nothing for themselves and rely wholeheartedly on the good ship RMS St Helena to bring everything to their shores. A once flourishing dairy industry is simply 'no more'. There is even little evidence of veggie gardens and the like.

The population, once around 12,000 people made up of 50% African, 25% European and 25% Chinese, now stands at just over 4,000, most having taken up residence in the UK.

The organisers took us on several island tours including hiking over to Lot's Wife's Pools and Napoleon's Longwood residence. Where the lower slopes of the island are covered with volcanic rock with little or nothering growing on them, the upper hills are quite fertile. We hiked up the notorius steps overlooking Jamestown, all 699 of them! But what a view from the top!

We celebrated both Christmas and New Year on the island and then it was time for the boats to be lifted up onto the RMS St Helena for the return trip to Cape Town. It was also time for us to fly solo and head out to Ascension.

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