S/Y RAPTOR: November 2014

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Lençóis, Bahia, Brazil

We anchored in Lençóis, another small fishing village (S 01.20.631 W 44.53.703) in 2m of water at low tide on 15th November 2014. Our last stop in Brazil.

Beautiful anchorage with the white sand dunes in the background.

Soft white sand

Can you spot Raptor?

Walking back to our dinghy

Raptor at high tide

Local houses

Simple houses in lovely sand dunes

We've got a little garden growing on our hulls

Kids on Raptor at lowtide

Seriously low tide! My favorite way to clean the hulls

Mini homemade fishing boats - So detailed with fishing nets and all

The kids and guys off to get water supply

Awesome dunes

Footprints in the sand

We took the opportunity to clean our hulls at low tide and some local kids came by to help.

We also managed to get some fresh water from a well 400m away. It was definitely hard work for the guys.

We departed Lencois for French Guyana (~650 nm away) on 23rd November. We enjoyed our week's stay in Lencois very much. Finally off to a new country after 5 months in Brazil.

Luís Correia, Piauí, Brazil

We anchored in Luís Correia, Piauí, Brazil on 11th November 2014. Just 68 nautical miles away from Jericoacoa, we should've known that the anchorage here (S 02.51.013 W 41.38.785) was also blowy and rolly, although slightly better than before (Jericoacoara). Not much fun on a rolly anchorage.

Two days later, we departed for Lencois.

Jericoacoara, Ceará, Brazil

We arrived in Jericoacoara (also known as 'Jeri'), a small fishing village in Ceará, Brazil, about 300 km northwest of Fortaleza on the 9th November 2014.

It was a 339 nautical mile passage from Galinhos. Unfortunately due to strong winds (25 kts) and poor anchorage (S 02.37.698 W 40.32.141), we departed Jeri for Luís Correia 2 days later.

Galinhos, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

We departed Cabedelo, Paraíba after clearing out on 1st November 2014. Unfortunately our plan to visit Fernando De Noronha; the beautiful archipelago of 21 islands & islets located off the Brazilian coast was cancelled because when we cleared out, according to Customs, Raptor had overstayed her visa! 💔

We've always been very diligent about our visas, so this really caught us by surprise. We blame it of course on the language barrier, afterall "nós não falamos portugues". No doubt Customs must've informed us about this at some point? But when, where, how? We'll never know..

Broken hearted, we headed off to Galinhos.. another small town in north Brazil.

It was a rough passage. 60 nautical miles northeast of Galinhos we had winds blowing at 17-20 kts. At the entrance, we had 30 kts of wind and had to put the engine up to 1900 RPM.

Rough, but we made it! Anchored off Galinhos (S 05.05.830 W 36.16.379) on 3rd November. Lots of donkeys in this village.