Tango and bus tours

We had a great dinner before the show at Almacen in San Telmo

The tango dancers moved swiftly and gracefully across the stage

The open air and hot seat bus tour

In Argentina, it is not a White House but a Pink House

Caminito the birthplace of the tango

The cemetery in Recoleta. Eva Peron was here but not now

Jesse & Rae visit

Jesse and Rae flew in from Los Angeles arriving on Wednesday. We took a walk here in Puerto Madero plus a long walk into downtown including a stop at the Galleria Pacifico with the bright red Christmas tree.

Windarra at Buenos Aires

Windarra is berthed at the Yacht Club Argentino, Puerto Madero. You can see some of the buildings of downtown in the background. Puerto Madero once was the principle docking and cargo area for Buenos Aires. Unfortunately it soon became too small and other areas were developed. Since then Puerto Madero is now an upscale neighborhood with condominiums, sidewalk cafes and upscale restaurants. It is still a mixture of old and new where building of glass stand near the old cranes used to move the cargo. The main yacht club building was commissioned in 1913 and designed by the French architect, Eduardo Le Monnier. It features a tall tower or lighthouse topped with a sphere of iron and glass. You can see it on the right side of the photo below.

The last few days we have been cleaning and rearranging stuff inside to prepare for Jesse and Rae's arrival. They are coming down for a visit and to spend Christmas with us. We are sorry that Sarah will not be here too but hope to have her visit while we are in Brazil.

We hope all of our friends and family will have a wonderful holiday season.

Cheers,
Elaine and Rich

Arrive Buenos Aires

34 35.737 S, 058 21.650 W

If you read last night's blog entry, you would know we were complaining about the wind and sea conditions. Well, they continued for most of today. We had hoped that a river would be relatively smooth and slow flowing. Not the case here. It is shallow but still worked itself into uncomfortable conditions.

The river is a wide, flat expanse of brown water. We had to go a long way before we saw the buildings of downtown Buenos Aires. The channel where large ships may pass is relatively narrow, and it is not separated into two lanes and there is no separation zone. A few times, we went outside the channel to avoid getting close to some of the large cargo ships. We saw the ferry to Montevideo, zipping by at 50 knots!

Now we are docked at the Yacht Club Argentino at Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. It is a relatively new section of town but the yacht club is old and established. Mario, the lancha driver, helped us get settled.

Doug and Nancy, this is the yacht club we saw from the deck of your cabin on the cruise ship, when we visited you here in Buenos Aires two years ago in March.

We walked to the Prefectura office to check in and what did we pass, a Starbucks! Now we can have good coffee for breakfast, plus some pain au chocolate! The Prefectura officers seemed a little confused by our paperwork. They did not have us fill out the forms in quadruplicate like we did in Ushuaia and Mar del Plata. They just took the form we got when we check out of Mar del Plata, signed it and made us a copy. Okay.

Tomorrow we will do some cleaning and scouting around the area.

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Day 2, Roll, Roll, Roll in the Hay

35 39.977 S, 056 29.570 W

For the last several hours we have been sailing on a port tack on a beam or broad reach, with 1-2 meter seas on the beam. While it is great to be making between 5-8 knots speed over the ground, the occasional roll from 30 degrees to starboard and then back to zero and 30 degrees on port, is getting a little old. Add a splash of salt water on the port side, just for fun!

Most of the things below are secured but there have been a few missiles flying around, like some pillows and crackers and a loaf of bread.

Are we having fun yet?

Soon we will be entering the channel to take us into Buenos Aires, up the Rio Plata. We have about 120 miles to go.

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Day 1, Leaving Mar del Plata

37 33.063 S, 57 00.271 W

This morning while the winds were light we lowered the staysail and put tape on the sail where it was starting to part. It was one of the many items we found during the last passage. Rich bought new belts for the alternator and installed them, we had the main sail repaired and have ordered a new one which we will pick up in Brazil. Rich also has the heater working but it has been so warm that we are only running it to heat water for washing.

We walked to the Prefectura and did our paperwork to leave and head to Buenos Aires. Even though we signed a paper saying we would not stop at the Falklands, we had to sign another. Who would stop at the Falklands on the way to Buenos Aires? Whatever?

Paperwork in hand we left the yacht club taking advantage of the high tide and tied to a buoy for lunch and to wait for the winds to switch from northeast to south. It did not take long and by 1:00 pm we were on our way. We tried to sail for a while but the winds were around 4 knots, so we fired up the iron spinnaker and we are motoring along up the coast. The total passage should be about 280 nautical miles to Buenos Aires.

Cheers,
Elaine and Rich

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Main sail repair

Oscar and company are taking our main sail off to be repaired. It has many, many miles on it.