Songster

Our stay in Vitoria was short but very useful. We did some well needed groceries, fuelled up (which was our main concern since there was no fuel dock in Peninsula de Maraú and we had done over 60h of engine to get to Vitoria), and we caught up with our friend Renato. Renato is a sailor that we met in Curacao when he was sailing around the world. He has just completed his circumnavigation and it was amazing that this time we could visit him at his hometown while we are sailing around the world :) We left Vitoria just before sunset. The destination? We aren’t sure yet. It could be Búzios or it could be Rio de Janeiro. The sailing and the forecast will tell. We just have to arrive somewhere within 48h, and be safely anchored before a cold front arrives. At first, we were sailing downwind with 5kts of wind, making 3kts of boat speed and wobbling around at the waves. That’s ok, with this speed we can cover the 170miles to Búzios in time. But the captain doesn’t like to go so slow. Coastal sailing can be challenging because the wind not always blows according to the forecast: there’s always some influence from the land. We were in an almost no wind zone 5nm away from the coast. We changed strategy and went 30nm off the coast and voilà! We found wind! The new avg boat speed was 7,5kts with 12kts of wind. Waaahooo! We likely also found a nice current to take us along. So the fist night was great, fast and smooth. At last, we were sailing again :) The perfect sailing conditions lasted for about 15h and then we were in a no wind zone again. So, the second day and night was under engine. By the moment we turned on the engine we have decided that we were going straight into Rio, as we have made an incredible good progress up to that moment. This whole trip we were sailing in quite shallow waters. We were about 30nm away from the coast and the depth was around 30m, with a sandy bottom. It was a bit crazy to be sailing offshore with light green ocean. It was only missing the dolphins. Instead of dolphins, we saw many oil rigs, platforms, tankers, towing boats, helicopters, cargos… it was busier than Gibraltar strait!!! We sailed along the Brazilian oil field. Although it sounds stressful, it was actually very easy. No fishing activity there, no buoys to worry about, and everything and everyone were on AIS. I wish it was always like that 😁 The third and last day was still under engine, as there was absolutely no wind. Approaching Rio made the time slowdown.. we were tired and we knew this was our last long stretch sailing alone with Christopher for a while, so it felt like we were never arriving. We just wanted to sleep and rest. The sea was so flat, that had that honey creamy appearance, and that was the moment that I spotted a whale 😍 I think 80% of the times that I saw whales, the sea was like that. Is that a coincidence or it is a condition? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Arriving in Rio, the wind picked up and we entered Baía de Guanabara sailing with Genoa and Mizzen, making 7,5kts boat speed and heeling under the Christ! What a moment! After 2 months of anchoring, river and off-grid living, it is time to go back to civilisation! Rio de Janeiro, we are ready for you! 🍻

Sadly, we only stayed one night in Abrolhos and we left. Abrolhos was amazing. It was far the best of what we have seen sailing in Brazil. Caribbean like waters, in both color and temperatures, rich Sea life (green turtles everywhere, all kind of fishes, corals..), and it is beautiful! We only left so quickly because we are kind of in a schedule.. my mother in law arrives in Rio in 9 days, which is 400miles from here. It should be fine, but there is a cold front coming, that might get us stuck somewhere on the way. On top of it, Jurriaan normally works online during weekdays, so we try to sail as much as possible during weekends. And there we were, leaving Abrolhos and heading Rio de Janeiro. The was absolutely no wind. The sea was flat and creamy. Our only alternative was to use the engine, but that implicates an issue. We haven’t really been able to buy diesel in Maraú, and we have used the engine for 30h from there to Abrolhos. We still have enough fuel to use the engine for more 30h, but we don’t want to run low and risk getting dirt or air into our lines. Our conclusion was to stop on the next big harbour after Abrolhos, and that is Vitória. We hoisted the 150% Genoa plus the main sail, and are doing avg of 7kts boat speed with the engine at 1800rpm. If we knew we would have such a trip, we would have left Abrolhos a little bit earlier. This whole trip was marked by the fact that we were running and rushing to get to Vitória before sunset. We really don’t like arriving somewhere new without daylight. Christopher was very sweet, as usual. We put the harness on him and went to the bawl of the boat. He was standing there, feeling the wind on his face, smiling and making whiiiiiiiiiii noises. This was the cutest moment ever ❤️ The Night Shift was good, lots of falling stars. The moon set was also beautiful. The second day was a long waiting for the arrival. There was absolutely no wind, the sea was like a honey, and we were annoyed by that engine noise. It was also very hot, but we don’t complain about the heat. We love hot weather. We set the little pool for Christopher at the cockpit and we played with water for most of the time. I think that was the highlight of the day! When we were almost approaching Vitoria, we saw a dead sea-turtle floating by. So so sad. We even turned around and took pictures of her, so the preservation entity can use for their statistics (the use AI to identify the turtles they monitor). We arrived in Vitória by the last daylight. Phiew! That was our two concerns for this frustrating zerowind-motoring trip, that we would have enough diesel to get here and that we would arrive before dark. We made it 😃 yeeee! Tomorrow we will by some fruits and veggies, fuel up Songster, and keep on our trip south. We would loooove to stay here for a couple of days, but we cannot miss the window to go to Rio. Will go and get a well deserved full night of sleep now 😃

After one month in Peninsula do Maraú, we finally resumed our trip sailing south along the Brazilian coast! The next stop was Abrolhos, a small archipelago on the south of Bahia. It wasn’t the very best weather window, but we just had to leave, we were looking forward to be sailing again. To be honest, we have had so much rain the last days we were in the Peninsula, that our moral was down, everything was wet and there was no fun anymore. So, the southern wind stopped blowing and we saw an opportunity to go away! The sailing part quite didn’t happened, as we had so little wind that 30h of the whole trip was sailing under engine, buuuuut, we were very happy to leave the raining Maraú 😅 The first day of the trip was good. We had a killer sunset, just like those we were used to see in Curaçao. We missed those many colours in the sky, and the salmon color at the sea. First time that our little man got to see this kind of sunset too. The second day was a bit of a hell of a ride. I can’t recall we had such a 💩 trip with Songster. We were about 20nm from the shore, navigating at about 1000m depth, when we reached the ‘Royal Charlotte Bank’ , a very long sand bank that comes from the continent, and the depth is about 20 to 40m. This transition of 1000m to 20m gives a lot of short and irregular waves. For the first time in years, I got seasick! And together with that horrible nausea, I had a strong headache. I wanted to sleep, but Christopher was feeling great and ready to play! Jurri, who always gets seasick, was feeling horribly also. So we had to manage the boat and Chris 😅 what a day! We had some rain and beautiful rainbows, making the day a little better :) Luckily the sand back was not so big and about 6h of navigating in this area, we were out of the bank, back to 1000m of depth and back to regular waves. Instantly, I was feeling 100% again! Yeeeey! That evening was nice, jurri was sleeping with Christopher and I did a long Night Shift, under a starry night, with warm temperature. That Night Shift I also wrote all my SailTies logs that were pending from since we arrived in Brazil! It was a very productive shift. At the early morning of the third day we could already see Abrolhos. The navigation around the islands is very precise, as they have pinnacle corals that surface the water. So we need to make sure we follow the recomendes route to get there. We had a nice downwind sailing to the islands, and upon approach, we called the national park on vhf 16 to announce our arrival. They instructed us to get a mooring buoy and they came with their dinghy to welcome us! What a paradise! We are moored in and inhabited archipelago with cristal clear waters, and with beautiful views around us! It will be sad to leave the islands so soon, but we have to go to shore and find some shelter before a cold front hits us. So, 24h after our arrival, it’s time to set sails again 😃

With the mission accomplished of going into a waterfall with Songster, we were ready to leave the Peninsula and keep sailing the Brazilian Coast. But we had to wait for weather window. For that, we sailed back to our favorite place in the peninsula: in front of Chez Petit. Chez Petit is a restaurant and boutique hotel, and they have a pier where they receive sailors. We can fill our water tanks and use the electricity without costs.. So we spend there a week, having sunset cocktails and playing with Christopher the whole day long. They also had good internet connection there, so Jurri could get some work done too! The right weather window finally came, and it was time to leave! After almost one month in the peninsula, we were already feeling locals and loving our Bahia life!

This was probably the craziest thing we did with Songster until today! We sailed into a Waterfall!!!! Tremembé waterfall is located at Maraú river and it is famous for boats going inside the waterfall. We were not that bold, so we just anchored in front of it - we saw many pictures of sailboats with their bawl inside the waterfall!!! To get there it was not very easy. First we had to sail from Goió island to Maraú, and I forgot to record the trip with SailTies, as there was too much excitement going on. Then we slept in Maraú, to go there next day at the right moment. We had to wait for the right moon, so the high tide is fuller, and we had to go there with high tide going up. We did the homework correctly and we left at the right moment to the waterfall. The last part of the way, when we got into a small canal of the river, was certainly the most nervous part.. we didn’t have it on our charts, we just had a track from Navionics that someone sent to us. We followed the track seen our depth meter beep from the 0.0 alarm many times, but we never got aground!! A few minutes later and voilà! The waterfall!

Songster was fixed and we were ready to go sailing and testing our new steering cables and chain! We had a nice overnight sailing to our next destination: Peninsula de Maraú. It was almost full moon so we had a very bright night. It was the first time we were sailing only as family since long time ago. Last time we didn’t have any friend sailing with us in Cape Verde, sailing from the island of Sal to Santiago. And before that, was in October 2022, sailing from Marrocos to Canaries. I love our dynamics onboard, but I think Christopher demands much more energy from us now than he was doing months ago. He keeps on developing very fast, so we have to keep on sailing in order not to miss the rhythm of sailing with a toddler 🙃 We had a calm and uneventful trip, and before we knew, we were arriving into paradise! The entrance of the bay was a bit tricky, as there’s a big sand bank. So we calculated to enter in the full tide, so there was no current also. We went directly to Goió Island, where we took a mooring buoy. We stayed one night onboard of Songster and the next day we left to meet my best friends in Taipu de Fora. We rented a house there and we left Songster for a week!

Yes, that is correct, we went sailing without the steering wheel! It was not by option, of course. It all started a few days earlier, when we left the marina to watch the opening of the carnaval by boat. On our way back, manoeuvring inside the marina, our steering cable broke. We were very lucky because it happens when we were already placed in front of our box, at the moment that Jurri put on the backward gear to enter the box. There was no wind, no swell, and there was a staff waiting at the dock to get our lines, with his dinghy. He then jumped on his dinghy, started pulling us into the box, and our neighbours from both sides were at home, so they also went on deck to get some of our ropes and help pulling us in. Luckily we didn’t touch any of them, and they were both brand new Oysters, that were part of the Oyster World Rally. It was quite difficult to get someone to come onboard and help us out during carnival. Finally, we got a good option to get Songster fixed in Aratu, a few miles up inside the bay. At first I thought it was crazy to go out of the safety of the marina without the steering wheel. But jurri assured me that we wouldn’t have any problem, as our autopilot has its own cables, and also has a remote control, so he could steer the boat from the control, as if he was playing videogame 😅😅 My brother was visiting with his family, and they must have thought we are crazy ahaha but they joined the adventure, so I guess they trusted us. We asked for the marina staff to manoeuvre us inside the marina, then we used the control until we were out of the marina. The wind was great and day was beautiful, so he opened the 150% Genoa and sailed downwind to Aratu. Upon our arrival in Aratu, we contacted the marina and they also came with their dinghy to manoeuvre us and moor us safely. Time to get our hands dirty and fix the cables! What really happened is that the chain that connects the two cables broke, so we had to replace the chain. But after an inspection on the cables, we saw that they were both of them about to break, so as a preventive maintenance, we decided to change everything. And we also bought spares of everything. Next time we can fix it ourselves, but I hope it won’t be anytime soon 😜

Just realised I haven’t published this trip from the end of January. This is because we haven’t have one moment of rest since we arrived in Brazil! For the trip from Recife to Salvador we had our friend Carolina onboard. Carol is a childhood friend from Camila, who lives now in Fortaleza and happened to be on vacation visiting her dad in Recife. We were very excited to have her sailing with us, as this was a very unexpected encounter! This trip was marked by two major events.. First is that we caught a barracuda! This was the first time ever that we caught a fish without having a friend onboard that was keen on fishing.. it means it was the first time that we actually had to make the fish tired, bring it onboard, kill it, clean it, cut it. I’m afraid to say this was also the last time we caught a fish onboard without having friends keen on fishing with us hahahaha First of all, we could see the teeth of the barracuda and we had no courage to bring it onboard. Imagine if it goes crazy out of control and bites us? Then, came the killing part.. it is really too dramatic. We were hitting the head of the fish with a hammer and it didn’t seemed to be dying.. in the end, it was almost a Tarantino movie, with blood everywhere. The cleaning and cutting part was the least traumatic part.. Carol and I did it 💪🏽💪🏽 The second event was Christopher getting sick. Two days prior our departure from Recife, there was a children bday party at the yacht club where we were staying, and Chris ended up joining the party and playing with some other kids. Of course this was going to happen, but I’m not used to have him playing with other babies.. Two days later he was sick!! He started with some high fever, what would naturally make me stressed, but thanks god Carol was sailing with us! Carol is a doctor and she examined Chris.. by the end of the day he had a red inflamed throat, running nose and a little fever still. We learned the lesson, not to let him play with random kids two days before sailing offshore 🙃 Despires the sickness, he was still a very happy boy and he was playing the entire time! Happy baby, happy parents! Regarding the sailing, again we had ideal sailing conditions.. beam reaching wind, 10 to 12 kts, sunny days and starry clear nights. We are in love with the sailing here in Brazil! And Carol feel I love with sailing now! Specially with the big pod of dolphins that welcomed us the morning we arrived in Salvador! We were a bit worried because we didn’t have any confirmation of a marina to put Songster and we had to catch a flight to visit my parents a few days later. But it all went fine and we found a place in Bahia Marina! Time to explore the land of the best street Carnival of Brazil!

Noronha was a fairly tale. At our anchorage there were hundreds of wild dolphins that would come swimming around Songster every morning. It was a bit surreal. And the island was very beautiful, epic sceneries with warm tropical weather. Very interesting. But it is expensive. Veeeery expensive. Just to be there 4 days we payed around 350€ in fees for the boat and 3 people. The restaurants were as expensive as if we were in the city centre of Amsterdam eating in an ultimate touristic restaurant.. that might sound not so bad, but in a Brazilian perspective, this is unbelievably expensive. Anyway, after 4 days in which Chris relearned how to walk and we stretched our legs out, it was time to leave again! Let’s go to the continent and officially finish this Atlantic crossing! I think this trip had a different mood than the crossing. We felt very comfortable and relaxed, we were far from the coast, but we were no longer in international waters - if we needed help, we could have gotten it easily. Also, if needed, we could have used the engine to arrive somewhere anytime. With that in mind, we were all somehow more relaxed :) The trip itself was wonderful. Very quick. We first thought we would need to slowdown not to arrive in the middle of the night, and we ended up arriving at 14h30 in the afternoon! We were a bit worried about the entrance to the marina, as it is not really marked on our chart map. So, we sent an email to our dear friend Mari, from SV Barba Negra, asking her to contact the marina, to check if they come with the dinghy to guide us in the canal, specially if we arrive during the night. Mari replied back saying that it wouldn’t be a problem, however, we should enter the canal only with high tide. And high tide would be from midday to 18h. In that moment, still at the beginning of the second day, we had to choose to either slowdown and arrive on the next high tide, on Monday morning, or to hurry up a little bit in order to make it before 18h of Sunday. No need to say what option the Flying Dutchman chose ahhaha. We hoisted the mizzen staysail, which is like a spinnaker for the mizzen mast, but it is smaller and with a different cut, perfect for beam reach sailing. We also trimmed the sails very precisely. And tcharan: we got 1.0 to 1.5kts of boat speed extra! With the new sail configuration we could relax, we were definitely making it on time. The sea suddenly became very flat also. So we were in what we call ‘champagne sailing’ conditions 🥂 We also had dolphins visiting us! Dozens of them, the spotted Atlantic dolphin, they were very big and they were so happy, jumping out of the water, spinning, swimming in front and along Songster <3 Not to say everything was perfect, the big challenge on this trip is the water. Our generator has a leak in the injection pump. This has been going on since we were in the trip from Tenerife to Cape Verde, and we haven’t been able to fix it. It is ok, we can use the generator still but the more we use the generator more this leak can escalate to other issues. So we tried not to use it much, what means we were saving as much water as we could, in order not to run the watermaker all the time. We still took shower everyday, don’t worry people :P Lastly, our arrival in Recife was really special. Our friends Lucia and Mauro from SV Prix are from Recife and they were there to welcome us! As soon as I got internet signal I could see their messages giving us all the instructions to arrive in the canal. In this moment I must have stopped recording this track, somehow, so it sadly ends in the sea in front of Recife. Mauro came together with the guys from the marina on their dinghy, and he boarded Songster. So nice nice to see a familiar face when arriving in continental Brazil! We entered the marina with high tide, moored Songster and went to the bar at the marina to order caipirinhas and coconut water :) We are in Brazil!

‘How was the crossing? How was it with Chris?’ These are the most asked questions we got since we arrived in Brazil. And I think they are one of them most difficult questions to answer.. from how do I start? The crossing was great, we have loads of highlights and unforgettable memories that we made, we didn’t have any problem, nothing broke down, nobody got sick or hurt, we didn’t have any problems with water supply, energy supply, food supply… and we went faster than expected, at least two days faster than we predicted. It was just perfect. And Chris, he is a natural. He navigates in the rocking boat as if he was in a normal house. He eats like a baby, he plays like a baby, he sleeps like a baby.. everything normal, but his house can move from A to B 😃 I don’t even think he noticed that something was happening. He certainly missed going on land and exploring his brand new walking skills, but we managed to improvise and walked him everyday on the deck, with him wearing his toddler harness and lifeline ❤️ a real little sailor 😁 For this trip we had our friend from Curaçao, Harry, joining us. Harry had never really sailed before, but he grew up in Curaçao, at the water, on motor boats, fishing every weekend. Harry was walking in the boat as if he was at home, and was very happy to have this opportunity of crossing the Atlantic. His goal was to fish, he wanted to fish big Atlantic fishes. We were so happy about it and very supportive for him to achieve his goal ahahhaha. Highlights of this trip: -it was fast! We did more than 1300nm in 10 days. For our 39foot heavy old lady, this is pretty fast - we tend to estimate our trip length by using an average boat speed of 4,5kts. We rarely saw the meter marking less than 6.0kts this trip, and for the last 30h, we didn’t even see it getting less than 7,0kts. That’s very fast, my friends. And all without losing any comfort. It was a great trip. -doldrums. We navigated on one of the most unstable zones of the world. We only had two or three big squall that we didn’t manage to go around. All of the other - many - we could track them on our radar and change the course to go in front or behind them. It was impressive also to see how fast they build up and how fast they dissipate. -my birthday! I celebrated my 35th birthday in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That was really special. And I got a skateboard from Jurri. It was one of the happiest days of my life ahahah. -fishing! We got 3 huge Mahi Mahi. 2 of them came on my birthday. We also had one Wahoo, but we released it back as it was more on the small side and it was going to be a lot of work for not so much food, so we decided to give a second chance for the fish and released it back to the ocean. We also lost 3 lures. So big fishes were messing with us. -Message in a Bottle! We sent a message in a bottle when we celebrated the halfway trip. I hope it really arrives somewhere and someone contact us. -equator crossing initiation. Maybe my favourite highlight. I was the only Shellback on board, so I had the pleasure to welcome the three polliwogs into this selective group of people that already crossed the equator line by boat. I dressed up as king Neptune, let them scrub the deck, made them eat a slimy overnight oats without using cutlery, made a quiz with a couple of questions and for every wrong answer, I marked their face with a permanent lipstick. Ahahahha so much fun. The ceremony ended with them jumping in the water (there was no wind and we were just floating around - and of course they had a life line and were well secured). Last but not least, we had a good shot of rum for King Neptune, including a shot for him that we threw in the ocean. -fresh bread. Captain Kloek opened the Atlantic Ocean Bakery and we had fresh bread almost everyday. Nhaminhaminhami. -upon arrival in Brazil, i hoisted the Brazilian courtesy flag. What a moment to remember, hoisting the flag of my home country after an ocean passage. Mama, I’m home 🤩 We happily anchored the boat at Baía de Santo Antônio, surrounded by dolphins, just before sunset, in a fairly tale like scenery. Just wow.