All checked in

32 02.519 S, 052 06.370 W

Yesterday we went to what we thought was correct location the Receita Federal or Customs. We took a number and waited. When our number came up we went to the appropriate desk and the nice gentleman realized we were at the wrong place so he wrote down the location of where we should go so we could give it to the taxi driver. It was out where the cargo ships were being loaded and unloaded. The customs agent spoke good English and helped us fill out the form online. The form is oriented to airplane passengers so we had to adjust for our situation. The fellow was very chatty but nice. After printing the form and Rich signing, he went off to have his boss sign as well. Meantime we talked to another fellow in the office who also spoken English and had recently visited New York City so we talked about that.

Next stop was the Capitania de Portos. Here there was very little English spoken other than greetings and please sit down. We managed to muddle through with our Spanglish. So now we are all checked in.

Next stop was to get SIM cards for our phones. This was a little bit of a Catch -22 situation. We want SIM cards for our phones so we have Internet access and can use apps like Google Translate but without SIM cards we can't use the phones to ask for SIM cards. Luckily we met Geovane, a mechanical engineer, who speaks excellent English and was in the Claro store getting a new cell phone as his was broken. He volunteered to assist us and we are glad he did. For non residents to get prepaid cell phones and SIM cards is new in Brazil. Typically they are only sold to residents who have a national identification number. You can get SIM cards in the large cities like Rio de Janeiro but there are not a lot of tourists here in Rio Grande. Geovane used his id number to help us purchase SIM cards and get our phones up and working. We now have Brazilian phone numbers. Thank you Geovane!

Today we stayed on board and washed some of the salt off from the last passage. Rich moved some fuel from the jerry jugs to the tanks. We might have a weather window on Sunday if we can get checked out and get fuel for the next leg north on the weekend.

We want to get to Ilhabela to pick up our new main sail. It is about 640 nautical miles away. There is an anchorage we may stop at along the way if the weather window does not hold but it is about 400 miles away.

We will let you know.
Boa noite.


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