Recovering in Natal — Farewell to Nadia, Valentine & Mounira!

We are in Natal, learning the town, fixing things, and generally recovering.

But first, a short quiz for the astrologically inclined:

Don’t look ahead! The sun on June 28th is about 23 degrees north of the equator.

The Maggie B is about six degrees south of the equator. When we look at the sun at noon, it is about 29 degrees north or down from overhead.

So, the question is: at noon, where, up north, will someone look at the sun at noon and see it about 29 degrees south or down from overhead? As a clue, 23 degrees north means that the sun is directly overhead Cuba, Oman, and Taiwan.

Natal

Natal is a fast growing town of perhaps a million people. Hard working, rich in parts, poor in parts, and seemingly generally successful. The interior here is reportedly very poor due to long term drought, and has been depopulated. One Brazilian described Brazil as “rich south, poor north, with the dividing line at about Salvador, and Natal the capital of the poor north.” Natal has been helped by tourism and the beaches have endless impressive hotels, which are apparently filled in season. June is not the season. Some of the “scene” and the tourist trade has apparently been spoiled by sexual tourism and an active and aggressive prostitution scene. We have not seen any of that, but then have been steered to specific areas (and away from others) by our friends at the Yacht Club.

Today is going to be a big work day.

Our “to do” list has 27 items. Some easy like “reglue paper towel holder” some hard like “clean boat.” Our hope is to finish by 4 PM and get a cab to the nicest beach area, the Ponte Negra (note: NOT one of the bad areas mentioned above), which is about 10 KM away, go for a swim and generally hang out and have dinner and reward us for a hard day. Tomorrow we are going to hire a driver and a dune buggy to go exploring the area north of the river, which apparently has fascinating dunes and wild beaches. Then the weekend to finish things up and hopefully off to Salvador on Monday. We are going to head south in short stages, checking out the little out-of-the-way beach towns. At least checking out the beach towns that are accessible by a boat drawing two meters. The coast is rather sketchy, with both electronic and paper charts being rather full of the symbol for wrecks. We should have fun.

As the crow flies, Salvador is about 475 miles. By sea, perhaps 550.

The crew is now down to the hard core:

Frank Blair, Max Hofman and Bori Kiss. Essentially, the Watch Officers from the last leg. The French girls are gone.

Answer to the quiz:

London, North of Newfoundland, Canada, Kiev, Ukraine, Warsaw. So we are getting “less” sun in Brazil that ALL of the US!

All is well.