Buzios ("Saint-Tropez of Brazil")

Armacao de Buzios, commonly referred to as Buzios, is a former fishing village made famous in the 1960's after the actress Bridgette Bardot visited while she was dating a Brazilian.  She came to Buzios to escape the paparazzi.  Her visit there put the town on the map making it now one of Brazil's most upscale seaside resort towns. The area is littered with pretty beaches, boutiques, lively cafes and bars and classy hotels and pousadas all located along cobblestone streets giving the area a Mediterranean touch.  We spent the day walking along the waterfront and ambling around the shopping district.  We made a few purchases and contributed to the local economy.

We finished up our visit with a couple of beers at a cute café and bar called Madame Bardot's overlooking the sparkling bay.

Another great day for us as we make our way down the coast of Brazil.

Pretty beaches of Buzios

Colorful fishing vessels all around our ship

 

Lush green hills surrounding the bay

 

Bronze statue of Bridgette Bardot
on the waterfront walkway

 

Cold beer at Madame Bardot's boat bar

 

Easy to see why this area is so popular among Brazilians

More public art along the waterfront walkway


FROM THIS IDYLLIC BEACH RESORT TOWN WE ARE HEADING TO RIO!!!

 

 

 

The Coast of Brazil

Natal

Our first stop in Brazil was at the coastal town of Natal which we visited in November, 2015.  Natal juts out so far east on the Brazilian coast that Africa is closer to Natal than the western border of Brazil.  We enjoyed Natal when we visited two years ago so the beautiful sail in brought back fond memories.  We sailed in under a suspension bridge that reminds us of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge back home in Tampa Bay.  We passed  by a Portuguese fort that we previously toured and recalled the scenic areas of the city from our last visit.  Rather than repeat our previous tour, we decided to take a free shuttle bus from the port and walk around on our own...BAD DECISION.  The shuttle bus dropped us off in a rather inconvenient area.  Knowing that tourists must be careful in certain areas of Brazil notorious for pickpockets and purse snatchers, we could not wander around too far on own.  In the area we were in nobody spoke English.  Forgetting it was a Sunday, we had no way to exchange currency and could not find an ATM, so we had no local currency for a taxi, thus we were stuck there.  It was blistering hot and we had no money for refreshments.  Basically, no money no fun.  After a short look around, we caught the next shuttle back to our ship!  You can’t win ‘em all.  We knew we had plenty of good times in Brazil ahead.

City of Natal

Colorful boats in the Port of Natal

Impressive entry into the harbor of Natal

Fort built by the Portuguese to defend against the
hostile Indians and invading French pirates

Recife (“Venice of Brazil”)

For our return trip to Recife, we booked a catamaran tour that took us up the river that runs through the city.  We had a very knowledgeable tour guide that filled us with a lot of information on the history, culture and economics of the city as we cruised past colorful colonial buildings built by the Portuguese and a series of bridges reminiscent of Venice, Italy.  She also openly expressed her opinions about the notoriously corrupt government of Brazil and the state in which Recife is located.  We all appreciated her candor recognizing that she loves her City, State and Country, but hates to see corrupt politicians taking from its citizens.  She told us a joke that when God created Brazil, He made a country that is not plagued with earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes as other countries are. However, to be fair, God gave Brazil its politicians!

Recife's tall buildings in the business district

 

 

Recife's iconic obelisk designed by a local artist.

Waterways and bridges

 

 

The last stop of our tour took us to a distillery that makes cachaca, the liquor used to make caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil.  This very cool distillery/warehouse/party venue was a great setting for us to learn about the distilling process and, more importantly, sample the cachaca, some of which was aged for smooth, but lethal, sipping.

It was a fun day for us re-visiting this area in a different way from our last trip.

Vitoria

Next on our coastal stops was the city of Vitoria, a new town for us to visit.  It is a town filled with shops, boutiques, outdoor cafes and leafy squares.  We were able to walk from the port to the town to explore on our own on a quiet Sunday morning.  After walking along the pedestrian friendly waterfront, we walked towards the main part of this hilly town.  We climbed up an ornate set of stairs called the “Maria Ortiz Stairs” built to commemorate a Portuguese business owner who led the fight to successfully defend the city from the invading Dutch in 1624.  You go girl!!!

Maria Ortiz Staircase

Busy waterfront road that is closed on Sundays
so pedestrians and bicyclists can enjoy the waterfront

We also visited a cathedral perched up on the hill with its tall spires, gorgeous stained glass windows lit up by the morning sun and ornate wooden doors and altars. We are always amazed at the engineering and architecture of the colonial settlers.  Kudos to the Brazilians for maintaining these incredible churches and cathedrals. 

Catedral Metropolitana

Beautiful architecture around the City

We walked to a palatial building in the area that also sat up on the hill overlooking the port.  It is the Palacio Anchieta, a former Jesuit mission that is now the residence of the state's governor, but is open to the public.  Again, it is a magnificent building with a grand entrance of tiered stairs up the hill to the front doorway.  A side entrance to the building led us to an art museum that was open and free to the public.  We were drawn in by the words "free" and "air conditioned"!  This unexpected museum stop turned out to be terrific.  We toured a wonderful art exhibit in this beautiful palatial building that also had preserved remnants of the ancient Jesuit mission as part of the structure.  So many times in our travel, we have some of our best experiences in the most unexpected places that are totally unplanned.

Palacio Anchieta

Ornate Staircases and Fountains

 

Enjoying artwork and air conditioning

Remnants of the Jesuit mission

 

We finished up our visit stopping at a small café and buying local beers that we drank sitting at a sidewalk table under leafy shade trees among the locals who were enjoying their Sunday afternoon.  We toasted our good fortune!

Tourist

Mrs. Tourist

Complicated high voltage wiring (picture compliments of Tourists)

Our sail away from Vitoria was very interesting.  Since we had sailed in on a narrow channel and docked facing inward, we had to turn the ship around to make our exit.  It was very narrow where we were parked so we had to back up to a wider spot in order to turn the ship around.  Two tugboats had to assist.  The tugs were positioned on each side of the ship at the front and back as the side thrusters pushed and pulled us away and we made a 180 degree turn in the channel.  Of course, there was other boat traffic in the area, too.  There were winds and currents effecting the steering.  It is a marvel how the port crew, the tugboats, the harbor pilot and the ship's bridge crew coordinate these maneuvers in a tight channel and they all speak different languages, but are able to work together.  Makes us wish all global leaders could work that well together!!!   

Our ship docked facing inward on this narrow channel

Tugboats assisted turning us around to exit

Beautiful sail away from the channel out to the Atlantic


NEXT STOP, BUZIOS, BRAZIL.

Devil's Island, French Guiana

Following our wonderful visit to Barbados, we continued our journey down to South America with a 2 day sail to French Guiana, crossing the Equator along the way.  The ocean had some strong swells from the east along with a few heavy squalls so the ship was moving moderately, but we enjoyed our sea days.  We had time to relax around the ship and catch up on a few personal things.

Fifteen miles off the coast of French Guiana are three rocky islets known as the Iles du Salut (Salvation Islands).    The best known and smallest of the three is Ile du Diable (Devil's Island).  All three islands are part of France's notorious prison settlement that was established in 1852.  Over 80,000 French political prisoners and criminals were deported there for almost a century until it closed down in 1953.  The accused who were sentenced to over eight years of imprisonment had to remain there permanently.  Very few prisoners ever returned home to France.

Ile St. Joseph (1 of the 3 Salvation Islands)

Ile du Diable (notorious Devil's Island)



Ile Royale (largest of the 3 Salvation Islands)

We visited the largest of the islets called Ile Royale.  It is the only one inhabited.  It has a small harbor and is known for its flowers and monkeys.  Ile Royale was the headquarters of the penal colony.  There are no proper roads there, thus are no cars or taxis, but there are good trails around the island so we could easily walk the whole island in about 1 hour.  However, we spent longer so we could visit many of the remaining buildings including the Governor's house, the hospital and prison buildings and inmates' cells.  The old isolation cells were scary to see and imagine what the conditions must have been like.  It is easy to understand why so many inmates died there.  All three islands have rocky coastlines with rough breaking surf and heavy jungle terrain so escaping was pretty much impossible.

However, one prisoner did escape.  Henri Charriere, known as "Papillon" ( butterfly )  was condemned in 1933 for a murder he did not commit and was sent there when he was 25 years old.  He tried to escape 8 times, but each time was recaptured.  After 11 years of imprisonment, including solitary confinement where many prisoners went mad, he finally escaped from Devil's Island on his 9th attempt.  The famous movie about him called Papillon was filmed on location on Ile Royale.

Governor's House on Ile Royale (now a Museum)



Housing for Guards and Soldiers

Checking out the ruins of the prison

 

Monkeys checking out tourists

Grim isolation cells

Remnants of bed frame in isolation cell

While we enjoyed our visit to Devil's Island, we are happy to "escape" back to our ship to our luxury isolation suite as we head to Brazil.

Rescue At Sea

On Friday, January 19th, we were sailing along blissfully about 80 miles off the coast of Brazil headed south to our next stop in Vitoria.  There were no other vessels in sight and no land to be seen.  At about 5:00 p.m. local time, Captain Elliott came on the public address system and made an announcement that we were slowing down dramatically.  The ship received a distress call from a small vessel off our starboard side that has a medical emergency.  The ship would check it out.  We went up to the front of the ship to watch from the top deck.  We scanned the water to the West and finally spotted a sailboat coming our way.  It was just a tiny speck at this point.  As we continued to slow down, the sailboat sailed toward us.  Apparently, it takes our ship about 1/2 mile to come to a complete stop in an emergency.  After a while, we were completely stopped, but of course we were in open water.  While the sea was not rough, there were continuous swells.

As the sailboat approached us, it appeared to be about a 35 foot boat and was flying a Swedish flag.  There were 3 people aboard...2 men and 1 woman.  The woman was hurt or sick.  As the older man steered the boat, the younger man put out bumpers along the side rails to prepare to possibly dock with one of our ship’s platforms.  During one dramatic moment, the woman crawled along the side of the sailboat clinging to the railing and clutching her side as if in pain to be ready to transfer off the sailboat.  It was gut wrenching to watch.  The driver struggled to maneuver the sailboat in the sea swells as she clung to the rail.  It was too dangerous to dock.

Captain Elliott announced that one of the ship’s vessels would be launched for the rescue.  We watched the crew lower a tender boat into the water with several crew members aboard.  We were unsure if the doctor was with them.  They maneuvered the tender alongside the sailboat and tossed a line to the younger man and they were able to tie up.  The woman and the younger man were transferred to the tender bringing a couple of personal bags.  The tender returned to the ship and was raised to the 5th deck to off load the patient.  The sailboat sailed away just as it was getting dark after sunset.

The sailboat took its sails down as it got close to our ship

The sailboat attempts to maneuver for docking

Sailboat struggles in swells

The distressed woman climbs to the side of
the sailboat in obvious pain

A ship tender is launched for the rescue

Tricky maneuvering in the sea swells

 

Good work by the tender crew transferring the passengers

 

Boat sails away after the transfer

All of the passengers applauded when Captain Elliott reported they were aboard and she was receiving medical care.

We heard the next morning that “she had a good night”, but we have not heard any further details on what the emergency was.  We all wish her the best.  We assume she will be taken off in Vitoria on Sunday.

What would have happened to her if our ship had not been in the area?  There was absolutely nothing else around...no freighters, no fishing vessels, no land.  They were fortunate.