Sailing along the Uruguayan and Brazilian coast – SUN
After a dark night,
this morning started grey. BUT the sun burned its way through and in the
afternoon we sailed with a beautiful south to south west breeze, under a bright
blue sky! Sailing was amazing. With even the maintopsail set we cruised along
nicely with a view on the beaches of Uruguay. The day was spend quietly,
resting, cooking, cleaning and making lists for arrival in Florianapolis.
Shopping list contains Sunglasses, Diving gear, internet and phone connection
and flipflops… not bad!
This night we passed over the border of
Uruguay into Brazilian waters. We have about 400 miles left to our next stop,
Florianapolis and hopefully we will get there in the weekend. They are expecting
some stronger wind and we hope to be at anchor when it comes.
Our time
spend in Uruguay was very unexpected, circumstances brought us to Colonia de
Sacremento in stead of Buenos Aires, but actually we were glad it did! Colonia
is a very sweet and easy going town. Refreshing and perfect for us to ease back
into society! We were at anchor most of the time and had a few days with thunder
storms, but also days of bright sunshine and temperatures that got above 35
degrees. What a difference from laying at anchor in Port Stanley on the Falkland
Islands. Al of a sudden people speak Spanish, they look suntanned, walk around
in shorts and flipflops and you are actually very happy to get a beer served at
0 degrees Celsius. Instead of ordering a “Kopstoot” (a shot of strong alcohol)
with your beer, you order half a liter of water with your beer!
New
Years eve we went out for dinner with those who were still on board (Gareth,
Emily, Jan, Jan, Gijs, Loes, Sam and Jet) and we were back on board just in time
to see the fire works in town. We blasted a few old rescue flares and some real
fireworks into the air, drank sparkling wine and home made Mojito’s by Emily!
Although our crew mates of the last 60 days were slowly scattered all over the
world, we thought of them and our families at home as we stood on the aft deck
of the Tecla in our shorts or dress and on our flipflops. We drank a glass of
sparkling on a very special year, a year none of us will soon forget. A year in
which we wrote a special chapter in the history of the Tecla.
After that
real life kicked in a bit. Our last crew members left the ship to go explore
Uruguay and Argentina and Jan flew home. We went alongside one of the dredging
boats on a pontoon to take in some water and spend the night there. We quickly
made new friends with a nice family on a yacht in the harbour and had dinner
together. They were an Argentinian Family on holiday with their yacht and would
leave for Buenos Aires the next morning. We drank a local drink on their boat
and had dinner on board the Tecla, with a desert of Sweet pumpkin (originated in
the mountains of Argentina) and cream and a sip of matte (THE thing to drink in
Argentina and Uruguay). We stayed under anchor one more night and left the next
day. And here we are, almost halfway to our next port of call.
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