To quote a fellow ARC boat – “we left Cape Town over a month ago- have sailed over 3500 miles and we are still not there yet!” This is a really big ocean. We decided to “go rogue” since leaving St Helena. Instead of going to Salvador, Brazil with the rest of the fleet,  we opted to go north via Ascension Island and head toward the beautiful archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. We are not alone 3 other boats have joined us on this course.

Approaching Ascension Island

Ascension Island was a very interesting place – there are no permanent residents aside from donkeys) and no commercial air travel.

Permanent Residents

The only people who live there are contractors and their families or US Space Force or British RAF. We were given a very warm welcome by the people we met. We hitched a ride from the pier to the “Volcano Club” on the Space Force base in a van with some young Air Force guys who were there for a couple of days. When we asked one of them what he did in the Air Force. “I control the hose that deploys from the air tanker for mid-air refueling. My mom won’t even let me operate the washing machine at home and the Air Force has me doing this.” Due to the fact that everyone on the island has “clearance”, including us, we were welcomed on the base and were grateful for the extremely well-priced food and drinks. 

Getting ashore was complicated

We met the Sea Rescue Captain who had been doing training drills when we arrived. After dinner, his daughter, a conservation expert, accompanied us to the beach where we witnessed two female turtles coming ashore under the moonlight to lay their eggs.

The next day we could see multiple turtle tracks on the beach from our boat.  We were repeatedly warned not to go swimming due to the extremely aggressive Galapagos sharks (similar to bull sharks) found in great numbers around the island. There were also a lot of toe-nibbling trigger fish surrounding our boat (like piranhas).

Trigger fish surrounding our boat

Our time there was short but followed the usual pattern of “immigration and customs” taking most of the first day. Fuel and provisioning (the little that was available to civilians) on the second day and of course the all important fixing of urgent broken things on the boat. We were concerned that our mast was moving side-to-side too much due to a broken spar that attaches the mast to the deck collar. My yoga mat has been repurposed as mast chocks and is doing a remarkably good job.

Many different uses for a yoga mat and duct tape

Since departing Ascension Island we have been heading due west on a course of 280 degrees. The wind is coming from the east almost directly behind us. We are sailing wing-on-wing with the mainsail and foresail out on opposite sides to get as much of the wind to push us along. This is an 1100nm journey from Ascension to Fernando and so far the wind has been steady and the sails have stayed full. We have been averaging about 145 miles per day so far with 240 miles to go. 

We are very excited to get to Fernando de Noronha. Apparently, this archipelago has the most beautiful beaches in Brazil, it is 225 miles off the coast and is renowned for its undeveloped beaches, diving and snorkeling. It also has an airport and immigration office so this is where we will check into the country.  In 2001 it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site and aside from a reportedly very rolly anchorage and exorbitant nightly fees it sounds lovely.

Old business….. the birds return every night to torment us. We can hear them before we can see them. Last night they found we couldn’t get to them if they sat on our solar panels on top of our dodger. They are very creepy and create a huge mess.