Posts Tagged ‘Galeão’
Meat for Sinbad
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Sinbad had started to get despondent about the lack of red meat in his diet and was giving me nasty looks as he sat in front of his bowl of dry kibble, so I needed to go shopping in Valença. Cairú is not as conveniently positioned as Galeão and the options were either the slow boat from Boipeba which makes a stop here at about 0630 on it’s daily run to the town or a nippy powerboat to a connection with a minibus in Graciosa.
The second option would take about half an hour to reach Valença as opposed to two hours in the slow boat. It also seemed more interesting to have a look at Graciosa which wasn’t even on my map. R$4 for a ticket and then a short wait until enough passengers could be rounded up to fill the little powerboat. As soon as we were packed in, the 90HP Yanmar outboard was powered up and we roared off leaving an impressive wake. The route wound upstream past some small islands until we reached a low red and white bridge spanning the river. No shops in Graciosa.
It’s just a convenient connecting point for the bus to Valença. I was hurried along to take my place in the waiting minibus. It seemed comfortable and roomy enough with only 6 or 7 passengers. It was a beautiful drive along a country road lined with a variety of palm trees, cacao and banana, flowering hibiscus and bougainvillaea, cows, donkeys, chickens. Clay tiled cabins in small clearings surrounded by jungle. Often with a roadside stall selling cork-stoppered bottles of orange dende oil, plantains, mariscos, crabs. Here and there a pile of the red dende berries waiting to be collected. However, the little bus was making regular stops to pick up roadside passengers. A woman with two children, a very large lady, a cheerful, disabled old man who had to be helped aboard and a place sorted out for his crutches. Just when I was thinking that we couldn’t possibly take on any more we stopped and three fully grown men managed to shoehorn themselves in. Soon we arrived in Valença. The driver waited patiently as one of the old lady passengers explained to me where I would find a bus for the return trip.
As I wandered across the bridge over the Rio Una near to the ferry dock I had to wait for a gap in the traffic to be able to step around a man fishing over the side of the bridge who had just hauled in his crab trap and was carefully extricating a big blue crab. Using a thong-sandalled foot to prevent it from escaping, he was in danger of getting a nipped toe. As for the crab, it could easily have been flattened by a passing lorry piled high with plantains and pineapples. It was not a good day for the crab.
I spent a pleasant couple of hours doing my shopping and wandering about. It was easy to find the bus for the return trip and as soon as it became apparent that not one more body could possibly be squeezed in and the roof rack was loaded up with the bulkier spoils of the shopping expedition, we set off. The generously proportioned lady squashed up next to me was chatty and soon everyone on the bus knew that I was the owner of the little yellow boat anchored in the river. When we arrived back at Graciosa the motor boat was ready and waiting for the last leg of the journey. I was impressed at how convenient and cheap the informal transport system was. And the cat was happy again.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Almost a full week of strong wind and heavy rain. Luckily it was mainly from the SW and the anchorage was comfortable enough. It started to clear up yesterday so early this morning I moved back downriver with the outgoing tide.
Getting the anchor up proved interesting. There is a strong tidal current so for the past two weeks Speedwell had been swinging through 180 deg each time the tide turned. After hauling in the first few meters of chain it started to get very heavy. Oh dear.. Maybe the anchor had become tangled up with some garbage on the bottom. I motored around a bit but nothing seemed to help. So I ground away at the winch hoping that nothing would break. Eventually the anchor was visible and I could see that it had indeed become tangled up… with about 15m of its chain. Really snarled up. No way I could shift it with the boathook. I managed to free a few loops by getting into the dinghy and attacking it but eventually the only remedy was to tie a rope to the head of the anchor and haul the whole offending bundle up on deck. Keeping an eye on the echo-sounder as the current was swiftly dragging us down towards the sandbanks. I did have the engine turning over in neutral ready if needed. Once on deck, with the weight off the chain it was a relatively easy job to disentangle things. Also less chance of getting my fingers smashed up. Soon it was all sorted out and we motored off. No wind so the engine got some needed exercise.
It started to rain again just before I reached Galeão which gave me a good reason to stop there and wait for more pleasant weather.
When I went ashore I was welcomed like a long lost friend. Everyone seemed to remember me from my previous visit. The shopkeeper even managed to rustle up a lump of frozen meat for Sinbad.