Jacare Cabedelo

I don't think we could have landed in a better spot in Brazil to leave the boat in terms of safety and friendly people, especially friendly people! It's great, we settled right in very quickly. It is a perfect anchorage about 5nm up the river from Cabedelo. Flat calm with a slight breeze and good holding and apparently there hasn't been any minor crime towards yachts for many years so we were more than happy being out on anchor with the breeze and no mosquitoes. You read a good few horror stories of crime in Brazil but it is mainly in the big cities with drugs but here there is just a few friendly fisherman, a few tourist boats and about 50 yachts, mainly French as there is a French Marina.

Checking in was reasonably easy although it did take a couple of days as their offices close at 1pm, yes Brazil is very casual! Couldn't be nicer people though and it is definitely handy that Julie speaks Portuguese as most of the locals don't speak much English. After checking in we looked for options to leave the boat while I go back to work. We didn't come all the way to Brazil to hang out with French so looked around at the other couple of small marinas and talked to the locals what they reckoned and all said it was perfectly safe on anchor with no crime so Julie called it saying she was happy with that and put the money towards our inland travels when I get back. There is a small Brazilian yacht club that mainly has small weekend power boats, they have a nice floating jetty and we asked if we could use this for our dinghy and pay a small fee. Geez they couldn't have been nicer and more welcoming and said no problem but please join us for a BBQ! Of course and then another the next day all by the pool with a few beers and great people. They all join there for the weekends bring their own food and drinks just BBQing and hanging chatting in the pool, it's great:) The next time we saw them they had decided between themselves that it would be best for Julie that before I fly back to Australia it would be best to bring Sunflower onto their pontoon at no charge. We obviously didn't feel too comfortable with that and insisted on please paying something but they were adamant and said the only thing they would like from us is to take home good memories of Brazilians, socialise with them and enjoy ourselves and share our experiences with them, WOW! Like I say they really couldn't have been nicer people and it really is so great to meet proper brazilians and not just be hanging around other yachties all the time like we so often do. So Julie is very happy right now by the pool I'm sure;)

Some other people we know on "Imagine"were also there which was great also and we did a small trip down south to a town called Olinda which was very nice, a sort of arty hippy type place that is very old and hosts a big carnival each year. It was good fun and we mainly just ate, drank and looked around and sat on the beach was great to get of the boat for a few days.

Then back to the boat and start packing up and doing a few little jobs and just riding our bikes to the local beach for an afternoon swim and a couple of coldies, was great. Everything you need is in walking distance, beach, 3 supermarkets and the rest of the basics so it's a pretty easy place to be.

Yes we like Brazil!

And now I am back working in Aus bit arriving back on Sunflower 25th of May:)