St. Helena to Brazil Day 12
03 July 2011 | 8 miles off Brazilian coast
Paul J. Reid
What a long night it was closing in on the coastline of Brazil. We had to thread our way through a very large offshore oil field with lots of ship traffic and oil rigs. The seas were almost glassy and the stars overhead were lovely but the gas flares burning on the rigs around us gave a surreal atmosphere to the situation. Had two tankers pass within 1.25 nm of the yacht on my watch; Derek had four tankers surrounding him at one point, two of which passed within 1/8 mile of Safari. Thank heaven for the MARPA function of radar, which allows us to plot/follow each vessel and determine speed/bearing/time of closest approach etc. With many vehicles bearing down of you it is nice to be able to eliminate ones that don't present an immediate threat, while assessing those that do. Dawn brought grey marine layer overcast with a visiblity of a few miles at most. Mid morning had issues with starboard engine (low lube oil pressure) followed by a clogged primary fuel filter. Resolved the oil issue quickly but fought the fuel delivery problem for several hours. The primary tank was very low and we had to transfer fuel from our jerry jugs in to the primary tank, as well as change out filters/bleed air from the lines on both engines. Typical boat stuff! Cruisers have an expression: "cruising is working on your vessel in strange and exotic places"! And believe me, you do! Things are all sorted out now; we're motoring all happily (well not so happy, we'd rather be sailing-no wind!) and the marina is approximately 20 miles away. Sighted land at 1450 UTC and should be in before dark. Will do a final Landfall posting tomorrow!