Our time in Brazil is coming to an end. We are in the Jacaré Marina Village located in the town of Cabedelo, on the river of Paraiba in the northeast part of Brazil. It has been raining constantly and the mud and disease-ridden mosquitoes are lurking everywhere. They have both dengue and zika here.

Horses and sailboats at the marina

We have had more than our fair-share of caipirinhas, the delicious Brazilian cocktail. The city of Joáo Pessoa is close by  and offers our new favorite place to go, an air-conditioned mall. 

We have been able to provision at the Carrefour supermarket. We are fueled up and ready to leave tomorrow. 

Brazil has been challenging with the heat and the heat and the heat. There are many things that we on Matilda would do differently if we were to sail around the world again, which we are not! The most important would be to put in a transformer where we could convert whatever the local voltage is to be able to make our air-conditioning work. Why did the skipper not do this? (The cobblers children have no shoes). Fortunately we have a very quiet generator which we have been running a lot in this marina to run the air conditioners. 

Every evening Jurandy plays Ravel’s “Bolero” to celebrate the sunset

The checkout process takes 3 days with separate procedures from Immigration, Port Captain, local police and Customs. Hopefully we will be ready to leave at 0700 tomorrow when the river current is favorable and the fleet will start the final leg of the circumnavigation back to the Caribbean!

It is a 2000 mile journey with a possible stop at Devil’s Island in French Guyana. 

The ARC has an excellent understanding of the requirements of the fleet for celebration and a farewell party with Brazilian bbq, caipirinhas and a band provided the perfect sendoff last night. Evidentally the captain and second mate were overserved.

Matilda has also acquired a new crew member. Second mate and generally lovely man Alex Johnston. AJ has flown in and is joining us all the way to Grenada. Alex is a long-time friend of Matt’s from San Marino High School days and also a USCG licensed captain. He was welcomed heartily to the fleet last night and he is going to try his hand at fishing which is a new thing for Matilda.