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We got up early at 7-30am because we wanted to get to Itajaí early enough to find a parking spot. If last week was anything to go by there would be hundreds of people there to watch the sailors parade to their boats and then leave on the 8th leg of the race to Newport, USA.
The traffic on the main highway north was running smoothly and we drove past the two accident spots. The first only had a few skid marks but the second had a large burned out patch on the nearside lane and the burned out truck still on the side of the road. That must have been a truly bad accident. No wonder the traffic had been affected for so long yesterday.
Itajaí is a major port in this state and our friends from Brusque warned us that it is not exactly safe. So we needed security at a parking area so we could leave Winnietwo to walk to the two spots where all the action would take place - the event grounds at the harbour and the jetty which is 3km further away where the boats would sail out.
The first parking spot we looked at was completely empty with no security so we went to the second at the jetty where there were already lots of cars parked but also plenty of police. Super! We parked up directly in front of the numerous police vehicles and next to some food stands and walked 4km along the promenade to get to the event centre.
When our friends Jocemar and Adriana drove us here last week they said we were going to a regatta and we had no idea that this is one of the most difficult boat races that goes around the world. We had also picked up a lot of information about the race and had actually had the time to read all of it. We were becoming sailing enthusiasts!
Volvo Ocean Race:
The Volvo Ocean Race is often described as the longest and toughest professional sporting event in the world, sailing's toughest team challenge and one of the sport's Big Three events, alongside the Olympics and America's Cup.
In the first race, 1973-74, a total of 19 teams entered and the course took them 27,000 nautical miles around the world over four legs: Portsmouth-Cape Town-Sydney-Rio de Janeiro-Portsmouth.
There is no prize money but many of the world's best sailors have dedicated years, even decades of their lives trying to win the trophy. Sir Peter Blake competed in the first race and came back again and again until he finally won the 1989-90 race.
The race's concept is simple: it's a round-the-clock race and the ultimate ocean marathon, pitting the sport's best sailors against each other across the world's toughest waters.
43 different nationalities have been represented in the 12 races to date. They took place every four years until 2008-09 when the cycle changed to every three years. Whitbread UK sponsored the event until Volvo took over in 1997/98.
126 women have competed in the race since 1973, including 11 in the first race. Clare Francis (UK) became the first female skipper in the 1977-78 race. Tracy Edwards and her crew of Maiden became the first all-female team to compete in 1989-90. Since then a further four all-female teams have competed. No women competed in the race in 2008-09 and 2011-12.
In the 1973-74 race three sailors died when they were thrown overboard. Lifebelts became mandatory for all future races but didn't prevent all deaths and another sailor died in the 1989-90 race. New rules for the 1997-98 race meant that all boats had to be the same W60 model and a new point system was introduced.
In the 2005-06 race several new rules and changes were made. For the first time the race did not start in England. It started in Spain and finished in Gothenburg, Sweden, the headquarters of Volvo, the races sponsor. The Volvo Open 70 yacht was used which was 1000kg lighter than the W60. During the last long stage from New York to Portsmouth, a sailor was thrown overboard from team ABN AMRO 2. Meanwhile team Movistar was taking on water after they suffered keel damage and team ABN AMRO 2 rescued them even though they had just lost a member of their team at sea.
In the 2008-09 race the participants were caught up in a typhoon. Some boats had severe damage and had to stop for repairs. Two teams had to miss out the following leg.
In the 2011-12 race Itajaí, Brazil became a host city for the first time. The leg between Cape Town and Abu Dhabi caused headlines. In order to avoid pirates off the coast of Somalia the boats raced to a port in the Maldives which was kept secret. The boats were then loaded onto a container ship and taken under armed guard to a point just off the coast of Abu Dhabi. The crews travelled separately and then rejoined their boats for a short sprint to the harbour. Live coverage was suspended during the operation.
The one-design Volvo Ocean 65 mono hull was introduced for the 2014-15 race. Team Vestas Wind ran aground on a reef 200 nm from Mauritius in the Indian Ocean on the second leg. They managed to recover the boat, repair it and rejoin the race for the last two legs. On another boat the all female team won three consecutive in port races and one of the legs but only finished second last overall.
The 2017-18 race:
One of the themes for this race is the environment which is why one of the boats is called Turn the Tide on Plastic. Several beach clean up operations have already taken place in various locations in Brazil and more will be happening over the next few months.
This is the 13th Volvo Ocean Race. With a race distance of 45,000 nautical miles (approx. 51,500 land miles or 83,000km) it will be the longest course. (The previous longest was 39,270 nm in 2011-12.). It will feature almost three times as much Southern Ocean racing, around 12,500 nm, cross four oceans and take in 12 major cities: Alicante, Lisbon, Cape Town, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Auckland, Itajaí, Newport RI, Cardiff, Gothenburg and The Hague. The race will start on 22 October 2017 from Alicante and finish eight months later in The Hague.
The same boats from the previous race in 2014-15 are being used again for the current race after an extensive refit. So all the boats are the same design. The seven teams are: Brunel (Netherlands) with skipper Bouwe Bekking taking part for the eight time: Dongfeng Race Team (China); Mapfre (Spain); Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (Hong Kong); Team AkzoNobel (Netherlands); Turn the Tide on Plastic with female skipper Dee Caffari from England; Vestas 11th Hour Racing (USA/Denmark).
By now we were fully aware of just how dangerous and dramatic this race is. Unfortunately there's been more incidents during the current race but particularly on the last leg from Auckland to Itajaí. The worst news was from Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag who lost a crew member overboard only a few weeks ago. They were heading for Cape Horn in notoriously bad conditions, gale force winds and high seas. Plus it was extremely cold.
Here is an excerpt from the report :-
"At roughly 1300 UTC SHK/Scallywag surfed down a large wave leading to an accidental crash gybe." (That was approx 15 minutes before sunrise for them) John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether as was standard procedure when moving between positions.
As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the main sheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat. The crew on board believe John was unconscious from the blow before he hit the water. He was wearing a survival suit with a wetsuit hood and gloves and a life jacket."
Two buoys were thrown out to mark the position and then the crew battled to turn the boat around to start a search and rescue. They spent several hours searching but didn't find their crew member or the buoys. The report said "With weather conditions deteriorating, a difficult decision was taken to abandon the search and preserve the safety of the remaining crew."
They sailed to the nearest land which was in Chile and then a reserve crew was flown in to sail the boat to Itajaí and to continue the race. John Fisher was a very experienced sailor from the UK and all of the crew members are devastated. It must be really hard for them. Everyone was wearing black arm bands with the name "Forever Fish" on there - John Fisher's nickname.
We found out that four days after the man overboard incident, another boat (Vestas 11th Hour Racing) suffered a broken mast after they'd got past Cape Horn and south of the Falkland Islands. They used their engine to get to the islands and then jerry rigged another mast using a former aluminium street lamp along with fittings from a small sailing boat. Instead of a 30m mast they now had an 8m mast so they could sail the 1500nm remaining to get to Itajaí where a new mast would be fitted. They only got to the port 4 days before the next leg started.
Yet another team, Mapfre, suffered damage to its mainsail just before reaching Cape Horn. They had to go ashore near the Cape and fixed it themselves. Turn the Tide on Plastic also had mast problems and one of the crew of Team AkzoNobel broke his nose when a high wave swept over the boat and knocked him down.
The only two teams without problems were the first to land in Itajaí - Brunel and Dongfeng. Amazingly they were only 2 miles apart after racing 12,000nm or 23,000km over 16 days!
If you'd like to know more about the daily life on board and the current boat positions etc. check out the following website: www.volvooceanrace.com
All the information made it a lot more personal for us and we were looking forward to seeing the crew members as they all came out to their respective boats. There were huge crowds again but we managed to get a decent place behind Team AkzoNobel's boat moored alongside all the others. We had an hour before the sailors parade took place but there were lots of things to see as the crews made the last preparations before they set off on the next leg - 5,700 miles (10,488km) in approx. 18 days to Newport.
Each crew was announced and walked to their respective boats and then one member of each crew was interviewed. Then one by one, the boats left the harbour in reverse race standings order. The current leader by only one point, Dongfeng, left last.
The only Brazilian amongst all the sailors was Martine Grael, whose father won this race in 2008/09. She herself is an Olympic medallist just like her father. The crowd was certainly cheering her on but we were fascinated by her because she looks exactly like a younger version of one of Kirsten's volleyball team mates/best friends in Hamburg who just happened to have her 50th birthday that day! What a coincidence! That was kind of spooky and we sent her an email with photos. She was happy to have such a good looking, younger doppelgänger!
Volvo Ocean Race in Itajaí - Sailors parade and farewell
It was 1-15pm by the time all the boats had manoeuvred out of the harbour and we had to race back on foot to the jetty to watch them going out into the open ocean. However, we were stopped by a family of capybaras, related to guinea pigs, and the largest rodents on the planet!! They were happily munching on the grass next to the promenade walkway so we had to stop to take photos. One of the local ice cream vendors came along and scratched the belly of the smallest. Apparently you don't want to do that to the adults!!
We finally got back to the jetty but were hungry and thirsty. Kirsten had tried to find us something to eat earlier whilst I kept our place next to the boats but all she could find was a packet of biscuits. So we went to one of the stands and bought ourselves a hot dog each.
The end of the jetty was almost 1km from the car park with huge rocks and boulders at the end. At least 500 people were already there and we had to scramble over the rocks to try and get a spot where we could see the boats that were already tacking in the bay. Team Brunel seemed to be sailing in a different direction and were coming at the other boats at a ninety degree angle to make the turns at the marker buoys.
Helicopters were flying above and several other boats were out there watching the racers as they spent at least an hour tacking before heading off into the open ocean. It was a super atmosphere and we had a great time watching. We found out that nearly 450,000 people visited the race village in Itajaí during the stopover. We may well come back here in the future if they host another race or maybe visit another of the host cities but that's for the future.
Volvo Ocean Race in Itajaí - in-port race and start of the next leg to Newport, USA.
(Since then we have kept an eye on the race, following the boats online and watching the extremely good daily and weekly reports. It's amazing that we had absolutely no idea about the race before we got to Itajaí but now we are sailing enthusiasts!!)
We were planning on staying at the jetty car park for the night but there were too many cars with boom boxes coming and going and no more security personnel so we drove further along the coast and found a spot on a dead end street near to the hotel where other Volvo Ocean Race members are staying.
The next day we drove through Balneário Camboriú to the far end of a peninsular to visit Parque Unipraias. There is a secure parking area opposite the entrance ($6 R, approx $2 US, per hour) although it's possible to find street parking during off season. We went to the ticket office to get two tickets for the gondola ride. It costs $42 R per person ($14 US) but we only got charged half price - the price for the over 60s!!
Well the man at the desk rattled off something in Portuguese and we both said "Huh?" accompanied by perplexed faces - something we are very good at, due to the amount of practice we get!! Anyway, Kirsten gave him a 100 R note and he gave us 58 R change.
I was really happy because he thought we were both 60 plus and not just me!! The explanation is simple enough - in our rush to get to the Volvo Ocean Race yesterday we forgot to put suntan lotion on and both started turning very red in the evening - far too late to do anything about it. We ended up with white lines that accentuated our wrinkles. No wonder the man thought we were both over 60!!
Of course, I won't let Kirsten forget that one and will reminder her that looking older isn't so bad when you get discounts!!
But I digress! Back to the gondola ride. It was built in 2000 when there was hardly any high rises on the peninsular. Since then there has been a veritable construction boom, especially in the last 5 years. Maybe that's because most Brazilians think their country has become a lot more dangerous except here in the south. Hence a building boom with thousands of hotels and apartments being built.
The gondola rises 400m to the top of a hill where you can get off and then continues down the other side to a beach. We got off at the top and went on a short boardwalk trail through the rain forest. There were some huge spiders in their webs along the trail and great views across the bay from the viewpoints.
There are also various rides - YooHooo, a kind of bobsled/helter skelter ride; a children's train; a children's fantasy-land walk, and a zip line. There are extra charges for all of them but the walking trail is included in the price.
We got back on the gondola to enjoy the views going down the other side. The beach was extremely crowded even though it's off season and a Monday. There were also plenty of parking areas, some of which included showers (cold). Had we been here in Winnietwo it would have cost us $50 R for the night.
We wandered around and even bought a new pair of shorts for Kirsten and then got back on the gondola for the return trip. We had seriously considered going on the YooHooo ride which would have cost us $45 R for 2 people, seeing as we had saved $42 R on the entrance fee. However there was a notice up saying that no cameras or smartphones were allowed. So Kirsten couldn't take any photos and maybe it wouldn't have been the best idea with my back recovering from a slipped disc. So we just walked along the trail again to the viewpoints for one last look at the beautiful view.
Gondola ride at Parque Unipraias in Balneário Camboriú
We took the gondola back down and paid $14 R (i.e. 2 hours 20 minutes for parking). The peninsular road is a one way loop with several cross roads to get from one side to the other. We took a slow drive all along the bay which must have been at least 6km long. There's hardly anywhere to pull over and we had to park illegally so Kirsten could jump out for a photo!
Then we got the GPS out to get a route back onto the main BR101 highway. We were following the directions, turned a corner and ended up in a traffic jam. At first we thought it must be traffic lights that we couldn't see around the corner ahead. But the traffic wasn't moving at all. Very odd! After waiting at least 10 minutes I decided we needed to find a different route and moved over into the left lane that was completely free.
Around the corner we realised that we'd been in the queue for a ferry!! Our GPS recalculated but then tried to get us onto yet another ferry!! Another route calculation and we hit more traffic. It was getting late and, by the time we finally got to the BR101, it was already dark. We really try to avoid driving in the dark but we seem to have done an awful lot of it lately!
We finally got to our planned overnight stop which ended up being a very noisy Petrobras petrol station. We parked up for the night but kept getting whiffs of sewer!! So we moved to a different part of the large, dusty parking area but could still smell sewer. After a while we realised that it might be the natural smell coming from the mangroves right next to us. Hmm! We certainly pick some great spots for the night but it was too late to drive further and we didn't know if there would be any other possible overnight places so we had to put up with the ripe mangroves!
I mentioned in an earlier report that our GPS was getting completely overwrought here in Brazil and would end up going on strike. Well the next morning it happened! It wasn't just overwrought but completely overloaded. We needed to delete some of the routes we had on there and afterwards it seemed to work again. Well, at least it finally accepted the planned route from our computer. Will it still send us around the houses and on some adventurous short cuts? Most likely!!
Our next stop was Beto Carrero World, the largest theme park in Latin America. It is located in Penha, Brazil and is considered to be one of Santa Catarina's signature amusement parks. It was opened in 1991 and has an area of 14 square km, divided into nine theme areas. In 2012 they secured a partnership deal with DreamWorks Animation and Universal Studios that allows them to feature characters from both film studios.
Right now it's low season and only open Friday to Sunday. It's Tuesday! But we already knew it would be closed. We don't want to do any of the rides and were only there to take photos of the main building which is a bit like Disney World's signature castle. The entrance prices were also a bit like Disney world - $115 R per person plus $50 R for parking. ($100 US for the two of us and parking.)
Even when the park is closed they charge for the parking but at least it's only $4 R per hour. We parked outside on a gravel area and walked across the main car park to get to the building. We were allowed to go inside the entrance area but no further. Kirsten tried to get through for a photo but the female security guard gave her a definite No! Oh well, at least we could take some photos and the whole visit was free!!
Afterwards we headed south again on the main highway. We needed to get to the balloon festival a lot further south in Torres but there were several things we wanted to see along the way. So we zipped back down to the restaurant where we had been forced to park overnight 3 nights ago when we got stuck in traffic.
We were hoping they would let us stay overnight again and plug in but we also wanted to get there in time for a buffet lunch. We arrived just after 2-30pm and only just had time to eat before they started clearing up at 3pm.
Afterwards we got onto the internet to watch the Champions League semi final, Liverpool vs Roma. We managed to see the first half but the connection wasn't very good. I noticed that a TV was running inside the restaurant. All the waiters were watching it! Brilliant! We got to see the second half on a TV! Now that's a luxury!
