From Rio de Janeiro to Bahia

How can I put it mildly? This last month was probably the most trying month we have had so far.

We finally started moving north, leaving the easy, gentle and familiar the southern shores of Rio state and moved on, passing through Cabo Frio and Búzios which were charming but with unconfortable anchorages and messy seas. The swell seemed to come from all sorts of directions.

We ventured our first overnight passage with Brisa and in our inexperience in sailing with a kid, delivered her to Vitória in Espirito Santo state with a cold for placing her little mattress on the floor of the pod. She has since been upgraded to the couch where she has a much smaller bed because of all the cushions but she seems much happier.

We arrived in Vitória as it´s the Capital of the state where most of my family is from. It´s quite weird, I walk around the neighbourhood and see streets with my surname Calmon (my mother´s surname). Then I go up the mountains where the other half of my family is from (Dalcolmo) and find that pretty much 2/3 of the town is somehow related to me. It´s strangely familiar eventhough I never lived in these area of the country.

However what brought me back this time was to finally introduce my husband to my grandmother Agatha. At 89, I had cheekily asked her to “hold on” until I arrived with Russ so I could introduce him and get her blessings. And so it was... She met Russ on her hospital bed, had a “chat” to him on which he held her hands and tried with his best Portuguese to be our lovely Russell to her. She smiled and trully enjoyed the moment to the best of her capabilities. A week later she passed on. It was good to have the closure of seeing it full circle and being there for my whanau. They needed me as much as I needed them.

With that we moved on up the coast, waiting for the brunt of the first day of a southerly front to pass and then made our move north. It was, to say the least, unpleasant. The swell came from all directions, but the wind was good and Moonwalker plodded along with Russ trying to hold our speed to around 7 knots as the waters where literally infested with humpback whales as these are the months they come from Antartica to raise their youth and make them plump for their trip south. Very much like in Vava´u in Tonga.

Brisa didn´t take the first 24 hours very well and got very seasick. It was disheartening and made for the unfailable question to burn in our minds: “ should we carry on sailing with a sea sick child?” Just so you can get the measure of how bad it was, it was the first time I heard Russ voicing to himself “ ...so this is the end of our sailing days...”. But like the wind, thoughts and bad moments come and go, and the next day Brisa was happy as larry, watching the whales, enchated with their giant flapping fins and gracious diving tails in the air. Although it made Russ more apprehensive then ever, seeing so many whales was very soothing and made the bad moments seem a distant past.

As the winds were dying we decided to spend a night in an arquipelago off the coast called “ Abrolhos” (“open your eyes”) where there were as many birds as there were goats ashore... it is a national park so it was beyond me why they were there until I saw that the Navy symbol on the island was a goat. The water was not clear because of the swell so not much of a diving experience.

Next day we carried on to St André, in Bahia state where we finally found a flat anchorage for the first time since we left Rio de Janeiro. So we are letting the Bahia waters, Axé music and cold beers soothe our minds and souls and help with Brisa´s and Russ´ teeth!!! Brisa has 4 molars coming all at once for the last week and Russ took a wisdom tooth out and it´s not healing very well so we will take our time here and enjoy the historical sites around. Historical because this area was the first landing of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the Portuguese navigator credited with “finding” Brazil.