I could handle having a place like this

We will have been here five days already and it seems as if we are spinning our wheels.  It takes so long to get things done when you are dealing in a foreign language.  We need to replace our inner stay, on Tuesday we went to a shop to ask about getting it done.  The proprietor had enough English to understand our request and called someone to come out to our boat, he said he would be there 4:00 P.M.  He was a no show, so the next morning I called the shop again and got someone who could kind of speak English and he said that the fellow would come to the boat in the afternoon.  He showed up and looked over the stay and said that he thought he could fix it.  I went up the mast later that day and managed to get it undone and lowered down without too much difficulty, a five minute job that actually only took about five minutes.  This morning, Thur. we walked back down to the shop, about a 20 min, jaunt and gave him the stay, yup, he could fix it but we would have to go back to the boat to measure the fitting on the deck to make sure attachment he was going to give us would fit.  We set out back to the boat and found that if Barry could file the hole about a millimeter wider the fitting would work.  We took the dinghy back to the shop (I’ll explain that later) and agreed to pay the arm and the leg they wanted for this fancy fitting and the wire for the stay.

We took the folks from Mr. Curly, Richard and Kathy to the ATM to get out some money and try and find new starter batteries for them and then stopped back at the shop on the way home and lo and behold the stay was ready.

Back at the boat Barry was busy filling away while I geared up to be sent up the mast to attach the stay.  I got up there and there were multiple problems.  The least of which was how I was supposed to hold up the stay and then use two hands to thread the pin through the fittings and get the washers on the pin as well.  I was up there for over half and hour and I started loosing feeling in my legs, the climbing harness was cutting off my circulation and my feet were falling asleep.  This did not help my concentration on a delicate task that required an extra pair of hands.  I had to tell Barry to bring me down and we will  try again tomorrow!!!!!  So a job we started on Tues, may be done on Friday if we are lucky.

Okay, taking the dinghy to the sail loft where the rigger was working.  There is a long windy river that has very expensive houses built all along it.  Every home has a dock and a slipway.  There are every kind of boat that you can think of tied up to these docks, huge catamarans, small 20 foot sailboats, very large cabin cruisers, speed boats and large traditional sail boats. 

                                      

Lots of homes also have some kind of boat hauled up on the slipway that is next to their house, instead of a garage, I guess.  I have never seen anything quite like it.  There is a lot of  very expensive marine hardware sitting around awaiting their owner to come down and make use of it.  Some homes must rent out dock space because there were 2 or three boats tied to their waterfront.  The canal or river has off shoots that just beg to be explored.  We went right to the end and tied up the dinghy and then walked about a kilometer along the main highway to a small grocery store and an ATM.

After we get the stay attached, hopefully tomorrow, ( I hope to  borrow a proper bosun’s chair from Mr, Curly).  Barry has suggested I use duck tape to attach the stay to the mast in the position I need, thus negating the need for an extra pair of hands and Bob’s you uncle I should be able to get it reattached. Then we hope to head out to Ilha Grande to do some serious cruising, no more sweating in the marina.  It is very hot here when the sun shines, probably about 35 degrees with high humidity.  Every night so far there has been a thunder storm and the rain just buckets down.  We are med moored to the dock, anchor out, stern in tied to the dock.  There is no way to get off the back of the boat so we get in the dinghy and pull ourselves over to the dock and clamour up a ladder.  The first day we were here we went out for lunch and came back and the dinghy was stuck under the dock.  The tide had come up and pinned the dinghy underneath.  Barry had to deflate the pontoons and then almost sink it to get it out from under the dock.  Thank heavens we have a cover for it now otherwise I think the mussels and clams may have cut holes in it.  No we had a very complicated rope system so we can pull the dinghy back towards the boat once we get off on the dock and e dinghy stays close to the boat away from the clutches of the evil dinghy eating dock.