We made landfall on the north end of Florianopolis (Floripa to the locals) after a casual morning sail. This one was courtesy of the ladies, with Gina and Travie doing most of the driving. With a building southerly breeze, we were glad to arrive in the shelter of a nice bay where the annex of the Iate Clube do Santa Catarina (ICSC) can be found. Raf radioed in with his most eloquent portugues and a man came out on a ruber ducky to show us to a vacant mooring.
We were all shuttled to the club house ready for cold drinks and hot showers, but not before checking in at the recepcião. Imagine our shock when the lady told us it would cost R$ 300 (three hundred dollars brazillian!) to moor there for the night. Apparently it would have cost a tenth of that to stay at the main club, and not the annex. It does not compute. So we asked if we could leave the boat moored for the afternoon while we nipped to the shop for lunch.
The truth is that we went to the shop for lunch, but also to stock the boat up for the next two days that we were now going to spend at anchor in another bay. We each did our own lunches that could only be called a binge. Dave and Raf shared a dozen hot dogs smothered in barbecue sauce, Gina polished a litre of yogi-sip and a slab of chocolate, and I ate a pear the size of my head and half a cake. But it was good! The looks from the old couples walking past us on the beach were priceless.
We took the taxi boat back out to Ciao Bella and made wake around the corner to another bay on the north of the island. Anchoring was a dream because the whole bay is 7m deep and sandy. No worries of dragging anchor, no other boats making waves and far enough from the shore to be peaceful. When we dropped anchor, we stoked up the braai (stoked being the operative word!). We had bought three MASSIVE cuts of pork, which we had to braai separately because the braai would only fit one at a time. Each one had a fat stuk of cracking along the side. We had this on rolls for dinner (another serious binge), and for the first time on the trip, we had left overs.
During the night the rain began. It didn't stop until the next afternoon. I had a late night skype call with dad about the engine water pump. I had the engine box open and my head stuck inside with a kop-torch speaking out loud and doing a GREAT job of waking the others while I was at it. By the time I woke up at 10 am it was still raining. And it was showing no signs of wanting to stop.
Refusing to see a day go to waste, we all took it in turns to dive the bottom of the boat with scrapers. It was pretty fouled. I reckon a couple months more and we could have started an oyster farm. Floripa is littered with oyster farms, we would have fit right in. We almost got the whole underside done today. Who would have thought that spending a day scratching your bottom could be so productive?
In the later afternoon we dug out all of the food that was hidden all over the boat to get an idea of what we needed for the impending sail to Uruguay. It wasn't much. We had a lot of food stashed away, including 5 bottles of olive oil and a kilogram of oregano courtesy of Ric D. We sorted it all into 6 days worth of food, double bagged it and labelled it. Boom! Food for the passage south - sorted. This incessant rain was turning out to be good for productivity and team building.
At sunset the rain had faded to a light drizzle. Another braai was thus in order. Our fresh meat was done, but we had some fresh mielies, cheese-and-onion stuffed peppers, and some varsgebakte Karoo roostebrood courtesy of Dave.
Die lewe is nou weer lekker.
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