Yacht Village From Mast

Saturday 22 June 2019

With visions of sugerplums dancing in our heads, didn't expect GRIB (Grievous Retaliation for Ingenuous Belief) forecast, which had indicated only slight deterioration, to be so horribly wrong. Wind picked up to remain above twenty up to nearly thirty in squalls and toward the end veered so far around we were taking green water over the bow on close reach with genoa and motor to lay entry channel. Sea became choppy, going as high as 3 meters. Last ten hours was constant adjustments to wind angle, genoa reefing/trim and motor RPM to keep motion to minimum, constant pressure on masthead and speed in a reasonable range. Scarier in retrospect than at the time, surprised to still have a standing rig. Didn't take video during the worst parts, but did get some earlier that shows mast doing the hula. All in all a very long nine days.

Sunday

Arrived Friday night after dark (we somehow do this inordinately often) and what with having the boom poking straight out to port, no visible easy dockage and wind still whipping along, anchored off Yacht Village for the night in reassuringly heavy mud to allow invasion of the liquor locker. Now on end of dock awaiting move to regular slip as deck has been tidied except for running backstays, which remain in place, trimmed smartly.

Checked in with marina, we'll clear into Brazil Tuesday as a religious holiday extends through Monday. Apparently Brazilians lionize very virtuous people who have been canonized by the church with extremely loud music until the wee hours, lots of alcohol and exploding fireworks. Relatedly our neighbor celebrated his afternoon nap with either high volume soprano opera or a recording of someone in considerable pain. It's an auditory extravaganza. Immigration officials will be given the impression that we just arrived and nobody apparently cares if you're sufficiently sincere. Online visas, which cost us 40 US apiece, have just become unnecessary. Suspect we won't get our money back.

A big chunk of today was spent removing dead intermediate shrouds and climbing around on rig examining and taking photos of all the bits and pieces from head to toe. Fortunately our bosun's chair doesn't give a wedgy as do some. Nothing appears amiss, but a professional rigger will give it a more critical eye. Not only that, but since Jan was reorganizing midship bunk and windlass solenoid is at the bottom of that pile, replaced work-around fix with new unit. As usual, not as easy as it should have been. Now feeling awfully productive. Top level of Mazlo's hierarchy is within grasp.

Monday

Move to new dock was accomplished with no drama except we now debark by climbing over bow anchors and we're further away from wifi server - no internet on boat. Service ashore, however, is good and free and email with Sailmail is always available through Iridium. Write soon and often.

After shift Jan made bacon and eggs with her famous home-baked bread, fig jam and coffee. Excellent. Her bacon was a little flaccid, but no one on crew mentioned it knowing how fragile female egos are. I've heard that many people have a problem with that occasionally, so it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Jack & Jan