Location: 7° 48.8 S, 34° 43.7 W
Tuesday 12:00, 07.04.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on the Glorious Fourth was 07° 48.8 S, 034° 43.7 W. We are about five miles off the coast of Brazil, just fixing to slide by Recife, which is about 15 miles ahead.

Recife looks a little like Chicago from the water — rows of different high rises. The difference is that south of Chicago is the end of the lake and Gary, Indiana — South of Recife is the Great Southern Ocean, as well as the rest of Brazil and Argentina.

We have wind at 170 degrees at 10-12 knots and 1/2 knot foul current. We are paralleling the coast and making about five knots. Since Natal, we have been going through the water fine, though slower than when we had our slippery J-Prop, but the combination of being close hauled, tacking out regularly, a foul current, and fair residual seas has made our VMG (Velocity Made Good — how fast you are really getting to where you want to go) a pathetic three knots.

Salvador is under 400 miles away, but we are going to have to speed things up a bit if we are going to have some time to have some fun before Bori’s plane back to Hungary. But we have almost turned the corner, etc, etc.

Another Lewmar block broke this morning.

I’m getting concerned about whether we have the right size or whether they are manufactured adequately. This one just gave up in 20 knots of wind. Some parts of the Lewmar engineering seem pathetic.

I hope that this hasn’t been too much of a list of things that have gone wrong. I want to take a moment to mention some of our stars. The Furuno radar/GPS/plotter system has been great. Jorge, our Furuno Autopilot, has learned how to steer by relative wind and is a star. The icebox system, a pair of Sea Frosts has been flawless. The Spectra Watermaker works tirelessly. The Force 10 stove has always been there for us and made endless tasty meals. The Iridium Sat Phone with UUPlus has made staying in contact with the rest of the world effortless. Once we discovered that our “leak” problem was water coming back IN the bilge pump outlets, the hull has been perfectly dry. And on and on. Just wanted to mention the good stuff.

All is well.