Greetings from Bahia dos Ilha Grande, Brazil

Two more days and we will have been in Brazil six weeks and we're only a little more than half way from our landing in Recife to Uruguay. We've been moving fairly quickly since July 18th when we left Newfoundland, driven by a magic date of mid-February to get through the Straits of Le Mare and into the Beagle Canal. Our goal was to be able to spend almost a year in Chile.

Today as we cruised from Ilha Grande to Angra dos Reis we made a major change in our scheduling. After spending two days talking with the French couple we met on Ilha Grande, Maurice and Evelyn, we've decided to spend January to November in Argentina, basing the boat in a small town west of Buenos Aires and use that time to get maintenance done on the boat and tour around Argentina and parts of Chile. Why? Our original plan was to spend the southern winter in Puerto Montt, Chile, but quoting Lonely Planet's guide to Chile: "Renowned for inclement weather, it has fewer than 60 days of sunshine per year and up to 150 days of storms, but in summer it can be magnificent." It will be easier to leave the boat for long periods of time in Buenos Aires enabling us take extended trips into the interior of Argentina and Chile. This change will allow us to leave for the Straits of Le Mare in early December, more time to pick our weather windows and spend the southern summer cruising Chile. April of 2007 we hope start the journey back to the NW.

Since we are now not under a time constraint, we can slow down a little bit. The Ilha Grande area of Brazil, just southwest of Rio de Janiero, is one of the nicest for cruising and even though it's been raining a lot it’s very beautiful. We began to see more relief to the coastline in Vitoria, making the scenery more dramatic. The setting for Rio is quite spectacular but unfortunately it's not a safe city to visit so we noted Copacabana and Ipenema beaches at a distance as we cruised by. We can now make a few more stops on our way south that we were going to eliminate due to time.

The safety issue has been a big factor while in Brazil. Maurice, who's cruised the world the last 35 years, feels that it's one of the most dangerous countries he's visited. While in cities you just don't go out at night. You can go out in the evening while in the small villages but you still have to lock up your dinghy (engine) at night whether it's on shore or tied to the boat. It's what prevents most cruisers from coming to Brazil. That being said, we have been able to enjoy ourselves and make sure to take prudent precautions. And there have been places like Camamu where we didn’t need to worry about locking everything up. The disparity between the haves and the have nots is in your face everywhere you go. The haves just put up walls, gates, iron bars and hire guards. Even in the mall here in Angra there are armed guards, though the marina we're anchored is an area of mostly haves.

We'll spend another day here in Angra, then head back to Ilha Grande for a few days (there is a trail systems around the whole island), then onto Parity before leaving the area and making tracks south.