Noronha to Recife - Hello Brazil!

Cami De Conto

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!