The ultimate steak house

In any city, locals are your key to a good time. Nick, our delivery skipper for Xtra-Link, knows a local girl named Adriana. So instead of just the two of them getting together, he invited all of us along for supper. The restaurant was Adriana’s suggestion and called Porçao. This is an upmarket buffet type restaurant, but its focus is meat!

 

 

The idea is pretty simple. If you want meat you flip a card next to your plate to “Sim” (Yes in green) which tells the waiters that you want more meat. Each waiter has a different piece of meat on a skewer (sometimes more pieces cooked to various degrees) and cuts it off as you desire. You are also issued a small picture of where the various piece of meat come off the animal (mostly beef), so if you’re Portuguese is non-existent you can still get what you want. Once you feel you plate is full enough, or can’t keep up with the pace of new meat, you flip your card to “Nâo” (No in red).

As Hans is a vegetarian the thought of going to a steakhouse was a bit of a problem, but their fish is good too (at least that is what I gather from Hans as he didn’t complain).

To make sure I got a bit of a balanced intake I set off to the table containing greens. There is quite a selection including sushi to choose from. I came back with cheese, sushi, tomato, some salad and (this is where I failed) salami :) At least I tried to make my mom proud.

While walking out, we saw their whiskey bar. It appears that you buy your own bottle and drink it when you feel like. It looks like Johnny Walker is quite popular here.

The collection of Johnny Walker Red & Black label, with what appears to be people’s names on them.

Initial impressions of Rio

Arriving in Rio I was very tired as we sailed through the night, so these impressions might not be totally accurate.

The yacht club in in the middle of the river mouth, just under Sugarloaf mountain. The mountains have very steep edges and are very dark. For some reason, I had this idea in my mind that Rio’s surroundings weren’t very high. Boy was I wrong. The mountains are high, with Christ the Redeemer on a mountain that looks surreal. I have no idea how they got all the cement up there.

We took a taxi to Copacabana beach as Dale and Hans wanted to sleep in a hotel after the long voyage. We took a taxi there, which was a truly scary experience! The drivers in Rio make minibus taxi’s back home look like old ladies. They drive in a very fluid manner, so they change lanes quickly and mostly without warning. Close calls with busses is the norm! If I end up getting my own transport, I’ll try not to drive in Rio. These guys are crazy :)

I was expecting the people to be more laid back (like at the yacht club), but instead they seem wound up. I understand that Latin-American people are passionate & hot tempered, and that is true here.

The sailing is incredibly well organised here. There are aircraft hangers full of Oppie’s, Laser’s, 420’s and others. And I say a bit motor yacht give way to a bunch of Oppie’s…as it should be :)

 

Nick and Phillippa, our delivery crew, have arrived. They sail an Class 40 yacht (Phesheya-Racing) in Europe and are raising funds to take part in the Global Ocean Race starting in September 2011. Great people & really hope they are able to raise the funds.

So in a nut shell, Rio is not what I was expecting. However, I think after some much needed sleep I will like it.

3-4 February: Cape to Rio, day 19. The big finish!

By now there isn’t that much to write about the day-to-day stuff as you have heard most of it. With the exception of the heat and humidity. I have never felt so uncomfortable for such a long time. The fact that we haven’t showered since our departure in Cape Town (excluding the rain squalls we went through) means that we all are feeling very tacky.

There has been some commercial ship activity today. I saw two freight ships at the same time during my morning shift. Hitting a shipping lane meant that we were getting close to shore.
Later the day we saw 5 oil drilling platforms…at once! The one was burning excess gas from the drilling process which we could see long before we could see it. We had to sail quite far around the platforms as they get agitated if you get too close.

A school of Dolphins swam with us. I tried to take photos, but they swam too fast. So I made a video :)

We saw our first piece of land! Its an island about 40nm offshore called Cabo Frio. This caused some excitement. At our current pace we should reach Rio by sunrise. We can only hope the wind plays along all the way. Since we can almost smell the finish, we decided not to sleep tonight & all push through to the finish line.

We kept our pace after the sun set, maintaining an average of 9.5kts and catching surfs up to 14kts. This was the best sailing we had the whole race. We were hoping to keep close to the coast to keep the wind, but it didn’t work out that way. Fortunately the wind was with us…well almost. At the 10mn mark (to the finish) the wind died :( We were down to 1.0-2.5kts of boat speed…with a 1.6kts current from the front. This caused us to creep the last bit in 2-3hours to the finish. By this time we were all pretty tired & nerves were a bit on edge.
We motored into the bay, where the yacht club is, at about 5am local time. We couldn’t get a nice view of everything, but what we say by the city’s lights was beautiful.
Tying up on the dock, we were welcomed by John Martin (the commodore of RCYC and main organiser of the event), Marcus (the committee’s main liaison person with the yachts, who also did lost of work with the organising) and admiral Louw (of the SA navy), with fresh Caparinia’s (a local drink: Equivalent of “Wit blitz”, sugar and lemon) on hand. Leroy and I finished our 2nd Caparinia just as the sun rose. I understood why so many people like the views of Rio.

After our long anticipated shower we headed for breakfast at the Penguin bar (on the yacht club’s premises) and cleaned the boat out. There were lots of wet stuff as the bow has a bit of a leak and the last 2 days were our wettest of the race.

Our “Groot Trek” across the Atlantic had finally come to and end. I have heard some good and bad stories of what happened on other boats, and one thing come to mind…I did this trip with some great guys! Unfortunately this is the end of my sailing with these guys for now…as my adventure is only starting.

If anyone connected to the race is reading this, I would like to thank the organising committee for all their hard work and late night to make this event possible. All the competitors for putting time and effort to make the crossing. I don’t think I will do this event soon, but then again the next one is in 4 years. I will probably change my mind by then :)

This has been an amazing experience that I am happy to have done!

The final stretch

 5mn from the finish

 

From our mooring

2 February: Cape to Rio, day 18

Shortly after nightfall last night the wind picked up to 18kts. This was very welcome considering the light winds we have been experiencing. Besides the spinnaker change due to the wind, it was a quiet sailing night.

I took the morning driving shift again. Two hours later I couldn’t keep the required heading and called Dale, but by this time the starboard steering wheel had started to fail quite badly. It has 5 spokes and only one was still attached! We took the wheel off and put the port wheel on. With 400nm to go we can’t push quite as hard as we want. Eish.

Night fell with my favourite meal of the journey, tuna & flavoured rice. We all sat around on deck enjoying the cool breeze and sunset. By the time shifts had started, it was so hot & humid down below (we couldn’t open the hatches due to water coming over the deck) that the rest of the guys couldn’t get to sleep. I had the same problem later.

This should be our second last night at sea and we all are dreaming about what we are going to do once we hit shore. Steak & beer top the list, for all but Hans who is a vegetarian.

1 February: Cape to Rio, day 17

Shortly after our shift started last night, the wind changed and we had to drop the spinnaker and hoist the Genoa. Everyone got on deck, but halfway through the sail change it started to rain. Naturally no-one wants to go to bed wet, so when things took a bit longer than expected the rest of the guys went down below. Leroy and I then preceded to hoist the Genoa and trim the boat. By this time both Leroy and I were drenched, fortunately not cold…yet. The rain receded and we were doing well.
We were almost dry when it started to rain again. This time we got cold, quickly. Not that it was cold, just wet. So we cut our shift short by 30min to go dry off.

This morning there was a bit more wind and by the afternoon there was a steady 11kts keeping us going. I drove for 2hours with the asymmetrical spinnaker and realised that I still have a lot to learn. While driving, Leroy made a video clip which will give you a glimpse into the surroundings that we have had. The wind held up and by nightfall we were sailing at a good rate of knots.