22 55.907 S, 043 06.337 W Niterio, Rio de Janeiro
I tried to look for the reflection of stars in the water at Saco do Ceu but the overcast skies meant no stars.
Yesterday morning, 2/20, we were up at 6:15 am and up anchor at 7:30 am after our morning cuppa. With little or no wind we motored our way to Rio de Janeiro. It was a long day and around 6:00 pm we passed Ipanema and Copacobana beaches with Christ the Redeemer statue high on the hilltop overlooking the city. We were not close enough to see any details of the beach but enough to see that it was busy with people. Passing by Sugarloaf we crossed the channel entrance to Niterio which is across the bay from 'downtown' and anchored just before 7:00 pm in front of the Clube Naval de Charitas, a yacht club recommended by our friends on SV Storm Bay of Hobart.
Rich and I sat down in the cockpit to rest a bit and enjoy our CDA* drinks (Cheated Death Again), but our celebration was premature. Had we displeased Neptune in some way?
It was starting to get dark. In the distance we could see thunderheads as we had approached the city but we thought that we would be okay.
First our anchor started to drag. Rich fired up the engine and we turned all of the navigation equipment back on. I went forward to help with bringing up the anchor. The winds were picking up and the seas were too. On the radar we could see where land was but everything else was covered with rain. The anchor came up but was caught on some line. Let it down and back up and luckily the line came off. Now the winds were up to 34 knots. The water was frothy, the wind howling, the rain coming down in torrents. Rich steered the boat over our original course coming in, back and forth over about a half a mile, waiting for the storm to pass. As we have our sunscreens around the bimini, whenever the wind was behind us, the cockpit and Rich would get soaked. We could hear the rain splashing on the deck when it filled the mainsail to overflowing and the boat would heel in the wind.
Finally the storm passed after about 45 minutes. We re-anchored with plenty of chain and reset the anchor alarm.
Welcome to Rio.
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