New crew!

When Jon left Sula Bassana in Fernando on Feb 5th and made his way through the slow, hot sweaty port immigration process, I did the reverse. I arrived in Fernando from Ottawa by plane on January 31st via a 38+ hour trip through four stops spanning Panama, the Amazon and finally the Brazilian coast and the archipelago that Seb has written about so lyrically and informatively. The waiting was not a hardship. A shirt I got Greg in compensation for the experience on land he did not have, reads: “no.ro.nha, pequena porção de terra cercada de saudade por todos os lados” (small piece of land covered with longing on all sides). I am not sure what that means at a granular level but the feeling of it suits the island.

Although waiting in Fernando was not hard (first photo), I could hardly wait to connect with Greg, see Sula Bassana in real life for the first time, meet the legendary crew and join the crazy, amazing, and surreal adventure they started and I am beyond fortunate enough to finish, when we get to Antigua.

True to Sula trend, and, like life, my pick-up at the port did not go according to plan. For those who also read Jon’s FindPenguins page, he laid out the details: the less than ideal conditions of anchoring at night in a very busy harbor where apparently it is lights optional amongst the many moored, the inadequacy of the toy style “stick motor” in the dinghy or tender (pardon in advance for lack of technical terms, maybe Greg can edit for accuracy, the big picture issue that I understand is that the dinghy would be better served by a fuel engine rather than an lithium battery powered ‘motor stick’ it has) that did not have enough charge to bring Greg, Jon plus suitcase in to shore. Just after midnight after a couple of hours of efforts I was disappointed but content to return to Jon’s fancy pousada for the night and try again in the morning. Greg, true to form, however, did not give up. All of a sudden, while I was off investigating more hospitable docks, I heard a casual “hello” and there he was! Steaming into the dock with a head lamp and a torch. So much for capturing the magic moment as planned by video (see second photo – the reality was much more finger in front of camera, camera flips upside down ).

Without enough power in the motor stick to get back to the boat -- which by then had turned into full blown Club Sula in celebration of the Fernando milestone and Jon’s last night aboard -- we headed to Jon’s pousada.

The next day: provisioning, immigrations and getting to the boat
An important note to make about Fernando is that crime does not really exist on the island. No doubt because of its very isolated island status. The next morning the dinghy remained untouched at the dock, later that day the 8 newly refilled tanks of diesel (previously seen photographed strapped on the back of the boat) remained stacked first at the island’s only gas station and then after they had been transported by buggy to the docks, to rest there until we were able to transport them to the boat. Prior to and in between immigration snafus, Greg and I made delivery trips to the boat. We started with pulling together provisions at the Supermercado Noronhão (apparently words ending in ão in Portuguese mean “big’). Seb had done an inventory of what was currently on the boat (third photo) and there was a shopping list. I had scouted markets and was disappointed with the quality of fruits and vegetables. To Greg, however, it was a bonanza compared with Saint Helena. Everything is relative. A taxi dropped us exactly at the pier and Greg negotiated a lift to the boat with the Noronha Divers (a plug for anyone planning to dive there, they were so kind and skillful considering the size of their vessel). I have included a photo and video, one of the pier (fourth photo) with Sula’s location marked with an SB (basically expand and look for the tall black mast) and the second a video from the Noronha Divers’ captain cabin, transporting me, and towing Greg to the Sula. Despite language gaps, two of the crew returned in a smaller boat to return us to shore. Two trips later, one for the diesel and finally one with us and appropriate paperwork which for whatever reason, apparently always takes a day, we weighed anchor. The last leg of the Cape to Caribbean voyage had BEGUN!Read more