Sailing Life in Brazil (Unfiltered Moments & Ocean Surprises) — Sailing Yabá 283

Rock and roll! Up we go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! That's the colour of the water. Oh, by the way, there's Liki doing her thing. Together. A bit more bent there. Beautiful. No, stay! He jumps, you fall. Stay. That way, the beach. No, not here. Call him. Go there. You can tell behind me, it is not a nice day. But then I thought, why is it not a nice day? Does rain mean, or does rain have to mean that it's not a nice day? So I'm going to decide to embrace it. I can hear the rain and the birds in the forest, the trees, the waves. I'm going to check that out and approach the beach with a different mindset. So we're going to take the stand-up paddle board with the dogs, head onto the beach and I've seen there's a little trail, there's a gap in the trees there that goes, I don't know where, but I think that's going to be beautiful. And the secret is, I like the rain, I like the noises on the trees, I like the sound, which is the noises, but I just like the vibes and also there's no one going to be on that trail or that hike because it is raining. So let's go and find that out. And I'm just looking over the camera here and I can see in the water, I feel like I should get the cast net out. There's things that are called parachi, fish I think, they're on the surface, or tainha. And you just throw the cast net over and they're very, very tasty. I just remembered as I got in here, I forgot repellent, which is probably the most important thing I should have remembered, but oh well. I'm not going back, I'm just going to have to accept it. We've got the mosquitoes, and no sea of them, which are even worse, so let's hope for the best. Their feet, their ankles, they're going to get destroyed. I don't know if you've been noticing in some of our videos, you see those long canoes that they use. They are carved out from one tree, and I always wondered what tree they would be carved out. How big does that tree have to be that has fallen to be able to carve a full canoe out of it? And now we know. So this over here, I don't know what species of tree it is, or was. It is still alive, so it is. Look at the size of that. You could easily carve a canoe even more out of it, because that thing goes all the way from back there. I don't know where over there. So this is the type of trees. The one I know that leaves a lot in the Brazilian forest, or in Florianopolis, is Garapuvo. They are very heavy, strong trees, but they have weak roots, so with small wind, they just tip over. And that's what they use to make the canoes out. How cool is that? Look how big it is. But right now, it's just a very nice archway for us to go under, to go and find out what's on the other side. Very short trail, or hike. I say trail, because in Portuguese it's trilha, but it just brought us to the beach on the other side. A few bars over here. Restaurants. All these boats here, just to get back and forwards to the mainland. That over there is the mainland. I'm not sure, I think that might be an island. Behind that is all mainland. But as today is a rainy day, everything's shut, the umbrellas are down. What is it? Sunbrellas. I think it's time for us to head back. What is super cool is a lot of these places here in Brazil, if you talk to the locals or whoever's moored here, there's often a mooring buoy with a water hose connected to it. So in this case, I'm tied to one. And there's very tasty, fresh water that comes, I believe, from the hills. Not sure, but either way, you can top up your boat without having to duck into a marina or something. This one here is super cool, because it's got a little valve so you can close and open it. Lots of them just have free flowing water going into the sea. Just turn it off, put it in another bottle, turn it on again. Another batch of water filled. Now the only thing to do, make sure this one's closed, drop it into the water, and get rid of this. And there we go. Good morning. I don't know about you, but I am stoked for today. It has been cold and rainy for the last few days, and it is going to be cold and rainy for the next few days, but look at today. It's like someone forgot to change the switch on the weather. It's going to be 32 Celsius. 32 degrees Celsius, which is 10 more than yesterday and 10 more than it is going to be tomorrow, so we are not just going to hang around and do nothing. So we're going to head out and go, I don't know, I think we're going to go and find some diving spots, maybe some fish, I don't know. We're going to have an epic time. The thing is, at noon today, the wind's going to change 180 degrees strong the other way, so we need to be careful about that. Also, this evening, a thunderstorm is predicted, which makes sense if the temperature change is going to be so high, but we're not going to let that stop us, so let's weigh this anchor, head out because we've only got a few ideas of where we can anchor and go and have fun today. They say this is the paradise of sailing, which it is, once you go far out enough, but the thing is, I think it's the paradise of anchoring with all these islands. The thing about sailing is, there are so many islands and mountains around you that you can be sailing at six knots, and two minutes later at two knots, then needing to turn the engine on, and then a few minutes later, being at six knots again, so before, like ten minutes ago, it was blowing us up that way. Now we've spun around completely, but let's see what we do today. I need the button. You need to get the white rope off first. The fanciest snubber in the world. We have a strong snubber on the chain, under the bow, which is connected to both sides, and we also have a weaker snubber, a backup snubber, just here, behind the support just in case the snubber falls off the chain, but now we are ready. I don't know if I'm ready for the summer, if this is going to be what it's going to be like. 32 degrees, and we're suffering. And this is winter. Anyway, a little taste of summer. And then, just in case, brake on. We are adrift now, but we're fine. And, just a little... Okay, let's go. Yes, hold this. We are motoring quite upwind now, until we reach the point over there, but I think we can get the mainsail, just looking at the flag, I think we can get the mainsail with some wind in it, just to pick up a half a knot or so, and then we can maybe see what we do around the corner. I don't even know how close it is, we might have to drop the sail around that corner, but let's at least try and overtake that boat over there, that's the main reason. How fast are we going? Five. Five point what? 5.0 soon. Okay. Aim for the tip of the island. Yes! How fast now? How fast now? It's a lie. It says we've dropped speed, but I don't believe it. The same revs and the sail opened. We have made it to the island, which is Ilha Comprida. Now the thing is, we need to figure out where we're going to anchor. It's not like there's anyone here on holiday, having a nice barbecue. It is a bit choppy for Paraty standards, however, for standards that we have down in the south, in Florianopolis and Peña, I think this is paradise. But I think swell is pointing from where we are, going directly to that island, so I think we'll hook around the other corner, see if we can find a nice little anchor spot and throw out a lot of chain. You can already see some chain depth. We have arrived. MPD did an amazing job of anchoring. We just chose a spot that wasn't too close because we do not know the area. It's 10 to 12 meters deep here at low tide. We've got just under 50 meters of chain out and a 50 kilo Bruce anchor with our Mantis Swivel, which of course is not going to give up on us. I don't know in what order we're going to do things and I guess the best plan is the best plan. Anyway, I don't know in what order things are we going to do today but I want to have diving involved and ideally we'll catch a fish because tonight we're going to have a barbecue with our neighbours from the previous anchorage, so it would be nice if we could get back with a couple of decent sized fish. That might be today as well. Should we go there or there? By the way, when we anchor here, we never use this snubber that's under the bow because that's really kind of a challenge to remove. We always just have a small one here just to take the tension off the windlass just in case we need to leave quickly. This one's really, really easy to remove as we're quite exposed. And of course, we're at a straight and engage reverse. I just stuck my toe so that's that face that I have right now. Engage reverse, tighten the chain and see if we're dragging. Oh, that was painful. When we're reversing like this, you don't need to look at the chain. As the chain tightens, the bow will either go to starboard or to port to exactly point in the direction of the anchor. Still doing one knot reverse, so 0.8, 0.7. You can also tell by the plotter. 0.8, so we're still reversing or we're dragging. 0.7, 0.6. Chain is still not tight. Might take a while because we've put out quite a bit of chain. There we have reached our chain limit. Give it an extra budge. Look at the horizon. Zero knots of speed. Now we're good. Engine off. A little bit windy. We were expecting this. Now we should figure out what we do. Leave the boat here, take the dinghy and go somewhere else. We had everything ready to go diving, but we're not as protected as I thought we would be here. This wind is too strong for me to be happy leaving Yabá and going for a dive. Ben was a bit upset because he would go diving if it wasn't for me being scared. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of leaving Yabá alone with this wind and going have fun. That's what we're discussing now. Because if we were protected as I thought we would be, it would be a different story. But it's a shame that we have everything ready and we won't go. We were anchored over at that island, Ilha Compida. I thought the shelter would have been enough for the wind, but as you can see, even here on our new anchorage, which is sheltered by that big hill over here, it's still quite windy, but it is as flat as anything. Still 10 meters deep. I think we're just going to jump in the dinghy with all our diving gear. Maybe a 50cm speargun. It's not even that deep. We're going to head over to those rocks over there. Yeah, super nice day still. A lot calmer here. You can see the bottom, which is good. All we need to hope for is good visibility. I can see some rocks. There's a ladder. It's incredible that the whole sea bed here is coral. Ah, I missed it. I'll get one. This many fish. Good thing we're going to take some steaks out of the barbecue. Let's get this anchor up and move on. The dive didn't really go as expected, but when we were back at our anchorage, sunset came with a big surprise. Guys, here's me doing the daily chores, getting laundry and stuff, and on the way back, I thought I saw a fin of a shark, like a black shark with white spots on. Turned the engine off, got an oar to get a bit close to look, and it was a massive ray. So, so amazing. I think MP's about to get the drone up right now. I called her, but I think it's gone. It's swimming away quickly over there. How cool is that? Right by our boat. Can I see? They're so beautiful. Whoa. Come on, in. I'm not going to go back to them. I'll leave them. My gosh. I'm happy it's a ray. I saw a black fin with white spots, and I thought it was a shark, and I'm like, I'm never cleaning the hole in this bay. So cool. Go up. All the way up. It's higher than they must. Wow, they're right by that corner. I'm not going to go back there. I'll leave them. That's cool. I saw the small one going away really fast, and I thought that was the main one. I'm like, I'm sure it was bigger. So it must have gone for a little playing, gone back to the... They're so beautiful. Which one are they, do you know? Cheetah. Eagle. In my defense, in Portuguese it is called Hayashita, which means cheetah ray, but in English it is eagle ray. I just needed to get that off my chest, but we can continue now. Do you think they're mommy and daughter? Maybe. Did you see them? Do you want to go and see them, rowing? You couldn't really see much because of the reflection. It's way better on the drone as well. I couldn't believe I found them. Was it because I pointed? I was pointing, and I... When you pointed, I started going up and looking down, and I was like, this is going to be impossible, and then I found a shade, and then I zoomed in, well, I dropped the drone and I could see it. In the bay, nothing like... There. Which schooner? One of those schooners there. There. No. I'm going to take these guys to the beach. Going to go for a walk? Walkie. Walkie. Yeah. Life aboard isn't always about catching fish or perfect plans. Sometimes it's just about chasing vibes, salty hair, happy dogs, and surprises that swim right up to the boat. And hey, if you haven't yet, you can stay up to date with all our adventures with just a click of a button.