At around 250 miles, this was a short last leg, about 36 hours. Leaving at sunset on Friday would get us in around sunrise on Sunday. We had a good 13knot breeze on the beam so holding our course was easy but we had to take care to keep the speed down to around 6 knots to avoid arriving in the dark. I think Zeke got bored and giving in to his inner speed demon added the big screecher to the main and let her rip for a while. It was a sparkling day and who wouldn't want to tear through the open ocean for a last hurrah?
At my 3:00am watch we were 20 miles off the coast, the moon was setting, the lights of the city loomed over the horizon and there was shipping to play cat & mouse with. At 6:00am the sun was up and there was a large looking city of high rises arrayed along the horizon, I wasn't expecting that.
The marina is a few miles up the Paraibo river, say half a mile wide, muddy, shallow, lined with mangrove swamps and not much development. The high rise city is out of sight, it was easy to feel like you were in remote Brazil. The marina is a few rickety piers set off the bank into the river and you could expect Brazil's African Queen to go rattling by. We had all the basics, water, showers (long overdue), laundry and, at last decent connectivity, the first since Cape Town.
Next stop Sao Paulo, Panama then Boston into the maw of The Dreaded Polar Vortex, and I was just getting used to the tropics.
Link to pictures for Friday, December 9th, to Cabedelo
- The Paraiba river
- The marina facilities, mercifully shady
- the locals' river boat of choice, one step removed from a dugout.
- Downriver
- The waterfront
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