CHASING... 2 - Where is the wind?

November 30

After motoring all night, a sudden silence wakes me up. I fall asleep again only to be woken up by a voice asking for my passport; hiding under my pillow, the document is duly and sleepily handed to that voice, and I fall asleep again, to wake later to a bright display of sunlight coming through the porthole. A round display of greenery is what I can see as I look out.

We are in Ilhabela, an island off the city of Sao Sebastiao, where we have come to get the clearance out of the country.

Ilhabela, a small resort town, is at the bottom of some high hills, covered in a variety of shades of green, where palm and other trees offer some protection from the sun to the houses scattered in the hillsides. The effect is awkward: tropical trees in a landscape that resembles that of New Zealand, or Northern Spain, and a temperature that is neither tropical nor continental.

A Yacht Club looks after a number of small yachts anchored off the little pier. Looking at the little boatyard and yacht club workers one can trace the yachts that have recently been this way: Andromeda, Fair Lady, C'Est La Vie III and other T-shirts are worn by the staff. We shall leave no memories here as we will leave Ilhabela Yacht Club with no Shenandoah T-shirts left behind.

While Serge deals with the Brazilian authorities, the girls go shopping for fruits and vegetables to the little local supermarket. A man – or is it a woman? a teenager? or maybe an eunuch?, we cannot decide really what that is – deals most efficiently with the seemingly very complicated logistics of delivering all the supplies to the Yacht Club.

Underway again after lunch, we proceed through the straight between the island and the mainland; a lovely breeze keeps blowing, right on the nose, but as we clear the island and motor into the open ocean again, the breeze dies. So, we carry on motoring, hoping for some wind to show up before landing in Punta del Este.

After dinner and shower, I go up on deck to a bright moonlit night, with a few stars showing in the dark blue sky. Looking for the Southern Cross, I am unable to find it; not risen yet, apparently. A very nasty smell of dead fish keeps us company until the end of my watch . Later on, the next watch will see the corpse of a large sperm whale, rotting away floating in the water, about 15 meters from the boat.

During the night, very rough seas build up, and for a few hours we have a very bumpy and jerky ride. I wake up feeling like a daiquiri, and very close to serious seasickness: I never liked motoring in rough seas on a sailing boat! Does anyone? (Years before that - or was it years later? - I refused to go from Monaco to Mallorca on board Alejandra because the skipper refused systematically to hoist the sails, regardless of the weather: "too much work", he used to say. On that occasion, not hoisting the sails meant definitely trouble for that beautiful sailing submarine, so I took a plane). Finally the sea calms down, my guts as well, and I go back to sleep.

December 1

In the morning, quiet seas again and still not a drop of wind. Chris has spotted some morning dolphins and a very large oil spill, around one mile long.

Dead whales, probably hurt by some large ship, or maybe poisoned by swallowing much garbage along with their standard plankton diet, oil spills, brown water instead of blue or green, plastics floating... What a pleasure to go sailing in some waters those days! Is there any bit of ocean that is safe from the polluters?

At night, the moon is almost full, but still many stars can be seen. We can distinguish the lights of Florianopolis and Santa Catarina Island as we motor along; Anne Marie leads a dance on deck, with the music full blast to cover the noise of the engines (which by the way are not very noisy).

day 6

Sails up at last! Yes! A slight breeze allows us to hoist two gollys and a spinnaker. Waking up in silence, with only the sound of the hull breaking into the water, what a pleasure!. Until 9h30 that is, when Shenandoah is advancing at the pace of a snail. Sails down, motor on again. Boring! So I decide to bake some brownies for tea.

...And so it goes for two more days. In the morning of Friday December 4^th the sails went up for one and a half hour in the morning, the duration of the light morning breeze, but we had to finish as we started: motoring; landed in Punta del Este at 16h00.

The water, since we left Rio has always been of a dark brownish colour, but here, in Punta it is of a very thick brown, not very tempting to go swimming, in fact, not very tempting at all, period. A colony of seals has taken up residence inside the yacht harbour, maybe a dozen of them, scavengers feeding on the fish bones and heads thrown at them by the local fishmongers, who work right at the pier. They are the local tourist attraction, until Shenandoah docks at the end of the main jetty, that is.

The authorities here are quite friendly, and it only takes two and a half hours to clear in, and to do so, Serge needs an interpreter, me - who else?. A race to Buenos Aires is scheduled for 18h00 and the racing skippers are clearing out at the same time we try to clear in. By the time the starting gun goes, the spectators of the race are all watching Shenandoah, with all the crew shamying and tidying the deck, some of us answering the questions from the people on the quay. For a whole week, we will be watched and questioned by many Uruguayans and Argentineans that have come to see us. To most of them, we are the largest yacht or vessel of any kind besides the Buenos Aires ferries they have ever seen. They do not know that soon there will be another beautiful classic yacht at the same pier: we have heard that Kentra, the Fife gaff rigged ketch, has arrived in Salvador de Bahia and that she is coming down this way. Serge announces that she should be in Punta del Este on the 18th, a week after we leave.

Punta del Este used to be the first stop in the Whitbread race and is a good place for the crew to take a break and go partying. There are pubs and restaurants open till early morning hours and the place is safe, unlike Rio. Soon, Sébastien, Chris and Nicolas are surrounded by girls: after all, they are good looking and they have an exotic air here, with their French accent, British in Chris case, and European looks.

Shopping and provisioning is relatively easy thanks to the help of the local French restaurateur Jean Paul, the owner of "La Bourgogne", the top restaurant in the area, and some of the staff of the Hotel Conrad. I buy some fresh fish from the seller at the beginning of the quay, where the seals are waiting for their due. Two of them are having a fight, or so it seems to me since they keep trying to bite each other's jaw, never actually succeeding. Meanwhile, the rest of the seals, oblivious to their colleagues fight, carry on catching the fish and other foods thrown at them by the watchers and passers-by.

After a week of shopping, eating out, surfing and partying, the owner arrives with a guest and we set sail – literally, this time – bound to Buenos Aires. We were due to leave on Saturday afternoon, but we are delayed because the third guest we expect does not arrive until late in the evening, at dinner time. Shenandoah leaves the port of Punta del Este during the night, all sails up, to find very rough weather at the entrance of Rio de la Plata, but at least we are sailing on a wide reach towards the channel.

tbc/

From the galley of Shenandoah - A South American trip

Many years ago, in the winter 98-99, I took a trip to South America working aboard a beautiful and very old three-masted schooner. Some friends of mine asked if I could write something to print in a classic boat magazine they were publishing at that time, and so I did. But owner and captain of the boat would not let me send my writings arguing that they were preparing a book about Shenandoah, which was going to celebrate her centenary in 2002. Understandably, I was very disappointed, but I did comply.

Now, ten years have passed, and neither the owner of the boat nor the captain at that time have asked me to see my writings, or told me anything about their book, whether it has been published or not. My log has been missing all those years, half sunk under the digital waters, sailing from one computer to the next, almost unnoticed to me, until a few days ago I undertook a rescue and salvage operation, did a bit of a restoring job at the fileyard and refloated my log. The salvage operation has been almost miraculous. My logs, and my computers, have travelled with me, with boats sinking under my feet - well, almost, Shiralee sank barely 12 hours after I left her to go on sick leave - computers being stolen under my nose, and old programs and apps vanishing in the fog of the new technologies.

One usually writes for one's own pleasure, at least that's what I do, but the diary of the South American trip, good, bad or worse, was written to be read by others. And so, here it goes, a little at a time, because it's quite long, and because I do not want to bore the very few readers, if any, who might decide to have a look at it. And so, here is my South American trip.

It comes almost as it was written then, with a little updating and some corrections, but not many.

November 26

Seen from the plane portholes, Rio looked like a Christmas tree, street lights flashing all over the city. It was late at night and I could not see the bay, just its shape, and tried to guess where the Corcovado and the Sugar Loaf might be. After landing and what seemed to me a very long taxi ride, we arrived to the Iate Club de Rio de Janeiro, where the Shenandoah tender picked us up – Anne Marie had been waiting for me at the airport – to take us on board. There she was, a 96 years old beauty floating and shining in the darkness, anchored in between Corcovado, Sugar Loaf Hill and the city. It was very late, and I was very tired, but I did take a few minutes to have a look around the interior that I had not seen before. Although not the original 1902, the woodwork remains very classic, with a very interesting Asian touch, whatever that means – the words are not mine. I went to bed exhausted and jet lagged after fifteen hours travelling, with an excellent first impression, and very happy that I had been offered the position as chef on board and that I had accepted it. The prospect of the forthcoming cruise – Brazil, Argentina and Patagonia, Tierra de Fuego, and then across the Horn to Chilean Patagonia and the Northern Chile Islands, to continue afterwards to New Zealand and stay there until the America's Cup – was also very appealing.

November 27

Waking up in the morning on board a boat whose crew is totally unknown is a weird experience: as I walked in the galley, still sleepy, looking for a coffee, three unknown Filipino faces smiled at me "good morning". I find very difficult trying to be polite and meet new people before morning coffee, but at that moment, and knowing very well that first impressions are important, I made an effort, smiled back and introduced myself. I was still trying to have a coffee, and other crew members appeared, "Hello, I am Rosa!" Lost in the pantry, looking for cereal, milk and the other breakfast bits, and fighting my morning pre-coffee bad mood and my natural shyness, it was some kind of miracle that I appeared pleasant (or so I'd like to think) and smiling to my new crew mates.

Next came the captain, Serge, whom I had met in Cannes, during the Régates Royales, and his wife Anne Marie, who had come to meet me last night at the airport: "bonjour!" That was easy, I had managed to finish coffee and have some breakfast, I was almost my normal self again.

Shenandoah's welcome to their new chef, I, was very warm and pleasant. The day went by as a first day on a new boat usually does, and it finished with some of the crew in a Japanese restaurant, in nearby Ipanema beach, in front of an enormous sushi boat and in the company of an extremely good looking, very attractive, sexy and desirable tall and suntanned young Brazilian surfer and mountaineer, a distant cousin of the young stewardess.

FROM THE GALLEY OF SHENANDOAH - A SOUTH AMERICAN TRIP

November 28

Underway at midmorning, my hopes of a nice sail in the South Atlantic meet with disappointment. Not a drop of wind in sight, and the swell is high and Shenandoah is heavily rolling, although not for long. After lunch, the swell goes down a little and we arrive early in the evening, still with some daylight, to Ilha Grande. We anchor in a little bay where a couple of huts serve food and drinks on the beach. Some of the crew goes ashore before dinner and end up playing ping-pong on the beach.

November 29

Chris, Nicolas, Sébastien, Romy, Salvo and Félix go ashore at 7 am for surf and swim. The rest of the crew follows later. From the beach, we walk a path that crosses a small forest, ending at the other side of the hill, on a magnificent white beach, in the ocean side of the island. The walk is superb, but the parrots we saw last evening are nowhere to be seen now. I wonder if they show only at dusk? We spot some red ants and keep well away from them, some little birds do some singing in the trees, a lizard runs away from us, and at the beach, crabs crawl around sideways, as they usually do.

Some of the boys are still surfing, though with some difficulties: the waves are short and break very quickly, leaving little time to ride them. Soon, some local Sunday tourists arrive to the beach as well, stereos, volley balls and kids in hand. Time to go!

The place is a protected area, with signs that ask people not to litter, kill or take animals or plants home. The water is cold! One would think that at this latitude, at mid-spring and approaching summer and with the tropical looks of the place, the water would be warmer, but it is not. Serge reckons it must be around 20º or 22º only. Still very pleasant, though.

By mid morning we leave Ilha Grande without a drop of wind in sight, a recurrent situation in the days to come, and we motor to Paraty, a tourist resort on development, where we arrive early inthe evening, still with daylight.

The crew goes visiting ashore, where some of us stay for dinner. We leave Paraty after dinner, still no wind, still no clear skies. Since I landed in Rio, the weather has been cloudy, little sun has shown, rain has fallen and I have not yet managed to see the Southern Cross, nor any other Southern hemisphere stars for that matter. Be patient, Rosa!

tbc/