It rains heavily early in the morning and as I lie in bed listening to the hammering over my head, I am pleased that my boat is being washed for me.
Mike wants to go out and explore but I drag my heels, realising what I am doing quite early on. It’s strange. I want to explore but even after all this time of going to new places I find myself nervous of being out of my depth or doing something to offend or to make me look stupid. Not being able to speak a word of this somewhat strange language doesn’t help either. I put off the evil moment until about 10 am then having admitted to Mike what I am doing and feeling very pathetic about feeling that way, I get dressed and we leave the boat.
We tie up at the ferry dock and drag the dinghy along so it won’t be in the way of traffic and walk the short distance into the village. It is like stepping back in time (except for the mode of dress). There are no cars on the island of Tinhare apart from the Land Rover which acts as the local ambulance. The main road is not paved and is a mixture of grass and sand with an occasional concrete patch acting as a pavement. There are trees down the middle offering some limited shade from the sun. And people smile at you and say “bom dia” which is so different to Salvador where you had to work really hard for a smile and rarely got one back.
Having walked the entire length of the village and then back along the beach, we decide to take the dinghy to the resort town of Morro de Sao Paulo. It only takes about 10 minutes but the sea is strange, with the riptides and whirlpools that we went over when we arrived yesterday except that they are a little more disconcerting when you go over them in a dinghy rather than a 20 ton boat!
As we approach the main ferry dock, one of the ferry captains shouts to us pointing back the way we have come. Obviously we can’t understand a word he says but we go over to see if being any closer makes him more intelligible. Obviously it doesn’t but he continues to gabble and another ferry captain on another boat joins in. They seem to be telling us that we can’t take our dinghy to the ferry dock and instead point to a dilapidated wooden jetty that loads of fishermen are using. Tying up there would seriously jeopardise our outboard motor’s propeller so we point back to the ferry dock and try to indicate in sign language that we would like to go there and they nod in agreement that we can – so what the hell was all that about?
We approach some concrete steps and as we arrive, a man comes running down to help take our line and give me an arm to grab on to as I alight. We notice that a lot of men here are wearing yellow tee-shirts with the word “assista” (or something similar) and lots of them are pushing wheelbarrows with luggage or produce from the ferries. When we see some with “taxi” written on the side of the wheelbarrows we twig what is going on. These are the porters/taxi drivers. They take your luggage wherever you want to go, even if it’s a mile away, up and down hills covered in sand with an odd bit of concrete thrown in every few hundred yards to act as speed bumps. These guys work hard! They are all lined up, as if in a taxi rank to greet the people getting off the ferries.
He helps us tie up and I indicate that I would like him to watch the dinghy for us and Mike slips him some money. “Si, si” he says “watch”. He obviously knows what I want him to do. We are spotted from a distance as not being on a ferry and nabbed to pay a tourist tax for entering the island. It is only small and covers us for our whole stay as long as we keep the tickets.
We walk through the town, grabbing an ice cream on the way. The town is quaint in a way with narrow sandy streets even on the main street, but it is totally geared up to the tourist. Swimwear shops are evenly spaced with Haviana shops, restaurants, bars and tee-shirt shops, everything to help a tourist spend his money. It is spectacularly clean – no cans, bottles or any other types of trash anywhere and again the people are friendly. But it could not be more different that Gamboa just up the road. The tourist industry is the only one here – and it shows.
There is even a Tahitian pearl shop and I just can’t help myself – I have to go in for a look. I get talking to the guy, who is from Rangiroa in the Tuamotus and he gets his pearls from there. The guy I bought my first beautiful pearls from at the pearl farm is a friend of his. What a small world. Luckily I am all “pearled-out” and Mike escapes with his wallet intact.
There are five beaches, all flanked by bars and restaurants. As we walk along, the tide is out and the rock pools appear. Boats are pulled up onto the beach and sticks marks the channels back out to sea for when the tide comes in again and they can move.
We decide to have lunch out and wander back through town looking for somewhere to eat, settling eventually on one of the ‘pay by the kilo’ restaurants. There are quite a few of these around. You literally pick up a plate, help yourself from a local food buffet and pop it on the scales. I end up with a huge chicken breast and lots of shrimp moqueca. Yummy.
I actually manage to get Mike to buy a pair of Havianas as his deck shoes are looking a bit sorry for themselves but have to last a little longer. With full bellies we plod back to the dock, relieved to find our dinghy still in place, and motor back to Gamboa. As we approach the bay we can see that Crazy Horse is just putting their anchor down and we go over to say hello. Rosemary invites us for a drink tonight. Apparently Ocean Jasper are on their way in with Chessie following hard on their heels.
We have a little nap then get ourselves ready to to over to Crazy Horse around 6 pm. As we leave the boat, the sunset is magnificent and Ocean Jasper are getting their dinghy down, having just arrived.
We have a lovely time on Crazy Horse. As usual, Matt and Rosemary have prepared a whole load of hors d’oeuvre and Bill pours his usual stiff measures. Chessie arrives after dark and after a couple of attempts to anchor (not easy in the dark with all the plastic bottle floats around) and come straight over. After introducing Rosemary to the delights of Amarula, I switch to wine, then water, although Matt slips me another glass of wine and forces me to drink it. That will be the one which gives me the hangover then!
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