We left Brazil on September 3, 2007 and this forever. We will never come back. We were deceived by so many aspects making this country so far from the pictures on the post cards all people have in their minds when they think about Brazil.
We can imagine the pages of the travel agency catalogue full of pictures of these beautiful girls in bikinis on the sand beaches of Copacabana, of the Christ of the Corcovado in Rio or the Iguaçu falls but beyond these dream images there is the day-to-day poverty, the violence, the bureaucracy that are among the burdens of this country we dislike.
Brazil is no longer a welcoming destination for yachties. "Minuit" went south from Salvador to Parati, 90 miles after Rio, stopping in the Abrolhos archipelago, Guarapari, Buzios, Cabo Frio and Rio only to discover many yacht clubs where international yachties are not welcome, some where non-Brazilian are not allowed and some others where dinghy engines were stolen without talking about a particular place where 5 boats were "visited" during the night.

Yachties don't have an easy life in Brazil. As an example, Benoit stopped in Parati, on anchor facing the marina and at one mile from the village. Going to the village by dinghy would have taken 3 minutes but, since outboard engines are easily stolen, the access to the village is only possible by going by dinghy to the marina first, leaving the dinghy there and making the trip to the village by bus, that's to say 45 minutes in total. One day, on the way back from the cybercafé with the laundry and all the shopping from the supermarket, in other words 3 backpacks and 5 plastic bags, he tried catching a bus, waited a long while, waved to the first one but by the time he picked all the bags, the bus driver went... He had to wait one hour to catch the next one from a round-about a bit further down the road. From the bus stop, there were still 25 minutes walk to the marina. He was back on board at 9:30 in the evening after a long tedious day. There is no way to appreciate the country under these circumstances.

Going back to the everyday violence, only in Rio, since the year started, there were 2.000 people killed in the gang warfare in the "favellas", the name given to the poor areas in the gigantic cities where guns are common.
Brazilians left the country side to go to these mega-towns to look for comfort and wealth only to find pollution, dirty water at the seashore where the sewage ends and with a level of poverty hard to imagine.
In Brazil, people survive or at least try to or, for a little minority, they are rich or are the "newly rich" which is even worse. They treat their fellow citizens like servants and they are responsible for the constant price increases that make life even more difficult for the vast majority living in absolute poverty.
The level of poverty level is high, so is the level of obesity which makes the day-to-day Brazilians girls really hardly looking like these beautiful girls shown on TV during the Carnival.
The only good memory we have is our visit of Salvador da Bahia and the Bay of All Saints. First the town of Salvador with the Old City called the Pelourinho were the small houses are in all colour shades although the charm is short-lived with the people advising you to avoid all streets beyond the tourist area and also to avoid walking after sun down since you might be mugged. The night brings along more thieves and especially well-armed gangs.
During the first week we were in Salvador, 4 yachties were robbed in town. One even came back to the marina only with his short on. They certainly couldn't find anything else to steal from him, did they?
Some friends on a catamaran got also robbed on the boat this time. They made the mistake to go out for a drink at night and came back to discover their cameras were gone.
Going back to the Bay of All Saints where Salavador is located, the positive thing is that there is a couple of marinas were we could safely leave the boat to walk around and to go shopping. Then, there is this gigantic bay with a very nice island, Itaparica where the water is clear, what a relief!
We were there at anchor except for 48 hours spent in the tiny marina to fill our tank with a very good mineral water from a source which is said to have medicinal properties to cure muscular pains...
We spent almost 2 weeks there and it's in the restaurant 'Namaste" that we ate the only good meal in Brazil. That's right, for lovers of good food like we are being in Brazil makes us miserable.
In most of the restaurants, the "comida per kilo" where you pay per kilo, we always found the eternal beans, red, white or black, the overcooked potatoes, the tomatoes with no flavour and the overcooked salty meat, a disaster for us. Well, we ate to survive in Brazil, not for fun. Even provisioning was a problem in term of quality and conservation.

One example; the pasta "made in Brazil", absolutely impossible to cook without them sticking and the taste is disgusting. We had to go to a up-market shop to buy Italian pasta for the crossing to French Guyana. As a conclusion, we didn't appreciate Brazil and we leaft Salvador for a quick crossing to French Guyana.
Only 2 stops, one in Macéio where the water was very murky with garbage and plastic bags floating all around the boat and a stop in Natal where the water was clearer.
On August 27, we left for a crossing of 2.225 kilometres on the total of 7.491 kilometres of coastline for Brazil. At the start, 5 days with good wind in the right direction and also, right after the Cape at the very east of Brazil we had the current pushing us along at the speed of two knots. Although the swell was a bit disturbing we were sailing fast, at the average speed of 8 knots.
Unfortunately, after that, the wind dropped almost suddenly and we were left sailing at a mere 5 knots for the remaining 2 days.
We reached French Guyana on September 3. We entered the Mahury river at the right time to benefit from the rising tide and the wind also helped us make our way without engine until the anchorage near a tiny marina. Just a few boats on 3 small but very solid pontoons. Green is the main colour on all these boats, the green of the humidity which makes some of these boats look like they are abandoned, not a nice sight. We will not stay here. We heard Kourou is a better place since from the moorings or pontoons it's only a few minutes from town. We are now 10 kilometres from Cayenne where the port is silted, so there is no access.
Who knows, in Kourou we might see the launch of a rocket...