Finally - Up till now!

Maresias

We spent 2 weeks in Maresias, which was a wonderful unwind really. We spent our days meandering around the town, walking on the beach, buying fresh fruit for breakfast and local produce for supper. I started running again, which is great – long may it last. And of course looking after Lucy! We have been faced with the stark reality of hand washing… but I guess that comes with the territory – and that will take a bit of getting used to, the little things that we take for granted!

The house that we are staying in belongs to our dear friend and life saver Luciano – Ludi, and is more than comfortable for our needs. There are a few interesting observations about the Brazilian building that are worth noting – firstly there is generally no hot water piped into houses, only cold. The shower is the only place that has hot water, and that is one of those electric hot water shower attachment goodies. Houses may or may not have glass in the windows, depending on the builder, perhaps you only have shutters in some windows, and electric plugs are placed in the most fascinating places, e.g. right next to the kitchen sink for example!

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This has taken such a long time to get started, and I am so pleased that I have waited until now, as I am so super ready to start blogging it is great. I guess it should have really started when the boys arrived, but there you go…

This morning Lucy slept in till 6:30 – bonus ;-). I think her teeth have been bugging her today though. Mom and I spent the morning doing washing of various grubby items, it is completely amazing how priorities and activities of your life can change in such a short space of time! Hand washing one’s clothes is definitely something that can take up a fair amount of your day. All sorts of tricks that you start to rekindle, like boiling things to get stains out, and using Lucy’s sterilising fluid to bleach stains. And soon we will be doing all this in salt water! Hhmmn, that sounds like fun.

Our new rubber duck arrived this morning, it looks AWESOME, I never knew I could get so excited about a dinghy. Our old dinghy has a soft bottom, and many punctures – not particularly useful really. The new (second hand new anyhow) is a semi rigid, so it has a hard bottom, and nice big flotation thingymejigs around the side (very technical term). All this sounds much better to me, as this means we will have a more stable, dryer and altogether more pleasant ride to and fro from our boat, which is pretty important really as we will be doing this at least once a day maybe more, with all sorts of gear for the cameras, the baby, and most importantly the baby herself. I guess it would be the equivalent of having a leaky old Volkswagen Beetle, and upgrading to a demo model Polo! So a huge improvement.

This afternoon we took a walk from where we are staying to the boat, with Lucy in her baby carrier, she has only just started using it, as it arrived with the boys on the boat, and she absolutely loves it.


Andrew just got back from having a beer down the road with Rupert and Dan – he cannot stop talking about the amazing game of local soccer he has just watched, the accuracy, the ball control, the instinct of playing a game that they have played since they could walk. He is in absolute awe, and could not believe how brilliant they are, so much so they lost complete interest in their beers, and just sat mouths open and watched the local genius with their soccer ball. I guess it’s not suprising they are so good at soccer really!

Made a cool supper of gorgeous avo salad – the avos look like small soccer balls come to think of it, and sweet potato, onion and sausage sort of mash, really good – will have to remember that one.


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Andrew went off in his running shoes to find the path to the fountains that are apparently just up the road, the problem is that without a local guide, you would never guess which road, as the roads are not particularly well signposted and nor are tourist attractions it seems! The Brazilian tourist trade consists mostly of finding the smallest possible piece of fabric to cover your bits and lying in the sun, displaying and roasting yourself for hours on end, so really there is no need for these signs as any self respecting tourist would want a guide, and would definitely not want to find his own way there.

We then all traipsed off to the boat, where we started to organise ourselves proper, as we need to be out of our friend Ludi’s spot by Friday. We have been camping at his house, as the boat has been full of Andrew’s crew. We started to organise and clean up stuff. At the moment it is difficult to believe how we are going to be fitting it all onto the boat, and there will definitely be some rationalisation still, but there also still needs to be a whole lot of reorganisation as the boat is geared from an ocean crossing currently, and we need to get it ready to be our cruising home now, which is all pretty exciting really. It is also pretty grubby at the moment, and every last nook and cranny needs cleaning at the moment, so there is lots of work ahead. Mum and I cleaned a lot of the kitchen equipment today, ranging from slightly rusty knifes and forks to rather revolting wooden spoons with mold on them, I think they had a mixture of the last chicken curry and meatballs growing babies,,, nyumm.

Andrew gave me a camera work lesson on the beach today, that was good fun, REALLY LOVE the camera work, just feels so great to do, and getting the shot is an immensely satisfying feeling, which all makes me feel very positive.

Lucy went shopping for a pair of sandals as she is starting to totter around all over the show – with assistance at this stage, and some of the surfaces she ends up on are pretty mucky. She also bought some bubbles, which amused her for a good 10 minutes until she broke the bottle by hurling it on the pavement, Managed to force down a little ice cream this afternoon… going to have to keep up that running,

I think Lucy is getting some more teeth, not her happy camper self today. Had a local shrimp dish called bobo da camarao for supper, tasty and cheap, good stuff.

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ok, change of plan, we are going to stay around this area for a bit more time before heading south. Will do a day trip or two from Ihla Bella, and maybe go to Paraty for a few days, then spend Christmas and New Years with Ludi’s family at Bonet, which apparently is just super amazing, and then head south for the island of Florianopolis, then onto Buenos Aires, and then off to Tierra del Fuego, aiming to be there for the month of February.

Today we said cheers to the Kaal Voet Klonkies -Rupert (one of Andrew’s crew) and Dan (his mate who came across to join him travelling), who embarked on their travels with surfboards and backpacks to head around South America, we may well meet up with them later on.

We all traipsed off down the island for a reccie to suss out the filming opportunites, which was successful, even though we managed to spend a fortune at a beach bar on 2 coconuts and 2 cuba libres, we are going to have to get used to watching those pennies (or reals) a little more tightly!

Stopped at the supermarket on the way home to get risotto ingredients for supper. Supermarkets in foreign countries are just so much fun, there is always something cool to look at! Today’s oddity – no fresh chicken breast… who knows!? The other cool thing is the tomato sauce – goes by the name of Catchup – I kid you not!

Lucy doing better today than yesterday, I hope those teeth arrive soon!


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Today we went to Cachadeas de Toca, a beautiful waterfall with a million dreadful biting insects called Barashoodos, similar to Baracuda, except I think the these little sods bite harder and have a worse effect. Little Lucy had a marvellolus swim iwht her Dad and seems not to be too badly affected by the bugs, though that is probably party due to paranoid Mum I guess, as I have been liberally coating her in Johnsons Baby Mosquito repellant! There are over 300 waterfalls on the island, this one with amazing slides, rockpools and blue butterflies the size of your hand flying past. Today we were supposed to move onto the boat, however Mr Tunstall has a few drinks with the owners and so we postponed the move until tomorrow. Today 5 enormous coconuts fell out of the tree where we have been staying, they are lethal, there is a reason that one is advised not to sit under a coconut tree!

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YIPPEE, today Andrew moved the boat from our friend Ludi’s mooring and sailed around the corner and announced his arrival at the very fancy pants Ihla Bella mooring, were we are now enjoying (courtesy of our friend Ludi – the Waxer) and extended stay on the guest mooring of 3 days. So today we lugged all our heaps of bags, it seriously ridiculous how much luggage we have, and half of it will have to go, but until we have it all together, there is no deciding what! We can also clean the boat properly, which has not happened yet after the ocean crossing, and repack everything were we want it for our new life. Crazy hey! The feat of fitting even half of this stuff ino the boat is beyond me at the moment, but we will just take it one item at a time! Lucy so far really seems to love the boat and the rocking motion, even though this has only been on the mooring at this stage, She is also really happy to be reunited with a whole lot of her toys, which has been too cute! She loves the forepeak cabin, where she can roll around to her hears content and just have a jol. I am feeling super happy to finally be on the boat, and to be sorting stuff out. Our plans at the moment are to be doing a bit of cruising in the surrounds, and then after New Year to head down to Florianopolis, where we will visit my (I think third) cousin Alastair and his family, and then on to Buenos Aires, and south to Tierra del Fuego to be there in around February. The filming has started, and we are getting some really good footage, though of course until we have a finished product that has been bought by someone we are not there yet, but we are getting there!