Friday, May 7, 1999 - Ilha de Fortalezza, Para, Brasil
Hello There,
This morning we met with our local contact by the name of Alfonso who was truly a pleasure to meet because of his outgoing nature. He arrived with one of the pilotes from yesterday to guide us out of Salinopolis's narrow channel and to continue on to our main destination 'Pirabas'. This bay is located about 25 miles further south east and is unfortunately also only accessible on high tide. That meant we had to leave our old anchorage on the incoming tide and run the boat the hardest it has ever been run, in order to make it into Paribas on the same tide. The only other option would have been to sit in the rolling Atlantic ocean for 12 hours waiting for the next high tide. This 25 mile run caused for a lot of excitement as well as nervousness, mainly for Trevor and Michael, who couldn't help but stare at the depth gauge, which at times read less than 2 feet under the keel.
Trevor, Monica and our local Pilot (who had a
name that neither we or he could write) in the pilothouse
This whole scenario was emphasized, by us trying to confirm our route with the pilot, who kept responding in a very local dialect of Portuguese, and there was absolutely no way I could make sense of it. The only thing we understood was "it's ok., it's ok." so we settled for the good old way of pointing arms and hands in different directions. And we simply had to trust him. It worked quite well I have to say, because we are now safely anchored in front of 'Ilha da Fortalezza'. This new spot will also demand a lot of attention. We already have out both bow anchors and the stern anchor and still need to make sure we won't drift over to one of the many surrounding sand banks. But the fun did not stop there. We now had to go ashore to pick up two gentleman from the Brazilian Federal Police, who also act as customs and immigration and were required to come on board. Both officers came from Belem just to process our papers (that is a 3-4 hour car ride). Mr. Gilmar Ou Gunha and his colleague were very hospitable and made the rest of our paper work and official clearing quite easy. They even gave us some information on the area, one of which was, that it is against Brazilian law to bring any "special" girls back to the boat. Well, no conflict of interest here....
This evening we are looking forward to go ashore, since we have been invited by Mr. Alfonso to his restaurant. We hope it will be a night filled with Samba and a few caipirinhas. A local drink made of cachaca, lime and sugar cane poured over ice. We'll let you know tomorrow how they were.
Until then, take care
Monika