Hurray. When I wake up I know I am finally better – but I continue to take the antibiotics, just in case.
Mike and Steve switch the genoas over as we will mainly be getting wind from the starboard side and therefore need the larger genoa on the port side. It’s almost impossible to do without taking them right off and lying them down in a nice clean line before feeding them back up the track in the furler and I watch for a while as the genoas get in a real tangle before eventually going over to help.
Photo: Mike, Steve and a heap of sails
Mike feeds the edges into the groove, Steve smoothes them out so that they feed smoothly and I winch the things up, inch by inch. It’s ages since I have had to winch sails as everything is now brought back to the electric winch at the cockpit, and it’s hard. Luckily Judith and Joe arrive to chat so I can stop just at the point where it gets really hard for me to turn the winch. I obviously haven’t got all my strength back yet!
Around noon we go into town with the crews from Chessie and Crazy Horse and have a wander around before having lunch. As it is Sunday there is hardly anyone around and wonder whether they have all gone to church although as we round a corner and find ourselves in the town square, there seems to be a bit of drinking going on, so maybe not!
Photo: Itaparica town
We wander around for about an hour but don’t find anything in the town that looks better than where we when we started off so we go back to the marina. Quite a few people, my husband included, want pizza, which I think is disgusting to order in a foreign country as I always want to try local things (getting on my hobby horse here – but it is my only one!) but pizza isn’t available at lunchtime – ha! It’s quite difficult ordering as none of us speaks a word of Portuguese but we all seem to get what we want and everyone is happy, especially Mike whose meal of meat, ham, tomato and potato covered in melted cheese could have fed a family of four! I share a shrimp muqueca with Rosemary. It’s absolutely chock full of shrimp and is delicious.
Photo: Shrimp muqueca for two – half gone!
Photo: Bill, Rosemary, me, Johanne, Steve, Mike, Jochem and Jutta
After lunch we go back to the boat by way of Wild Tigris who has now arrived in the bay. We chat to Casey and assure him that it is not the presence of his boat which is making us leave the bay, although the appearance of another monohull certainly lowers the tone of the neighbourhood!!
It’s a rough ride over to Salvador. We head straight into the wind and as the bay is wide open to the sea, the waves spray over the boat. Having eaten a lot at lunchtime, we all wonder whether lunch will stay down but it does.
There are lots of people around when we arrive to take the lines which Steve and I throw out from the stern. I get my rubber gloves and go down the bag of washing to find Mike’s skankiest tee-shirt to wear to deal with the first of the two lazy lines as they are so disgusting. My hands may be protected but as I walk along the side of the boat they spray gunk all over the place so Steve and I clean up afterwards – he hosing it all down with water and me scrubbing the stubborn bits off. Mike deals with the second lazy line but I get off the boat and pick it up for him with the boat hook.
Photo: Armed with a boat hook and definitely dangerous!
Photo: Yuk – you don’t want to touch those lines!!
Annie and Jim come over to say hello and compliment me on Mike’s rather fetching oil covered tee-shirt. I manage to keep the gloop from the lazy lines to a minimum which I definitely would have failed to do if I had been wearing something less revolting to start off with. I introduce them to my two little groupies, Johanne and Steve.
No one is hungry after the huge lunchtime meal so we just snack and read and do computer stuff for the evening. I am so behind with the blog that I just do notes to remind me what we have done over the last few days. I can’t bear to do it while Johanne and Steve are here as being ill has already cost me so much time in their company.
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