Dinner With Friends

What Was It?

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... Well? ...

I did a lot of computer maintenance over a two-day period. 

For the Toshiba I ran a Windows 7 full system backup and for good measure I produced another System Repair CD.  I then backed up the photos and videos again into their own directory for easy retrieval.

The next day I ran Macrium Reflect to produce an image of the entire C drive of the Acer machine.  I also backed up its photos and videos separately.

All of these backup files are stored in the external Seagate 1 terabyte drive named “Data”.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk out through one of the security gates to  visit a nearby beach and community.  Unfortunately I was not able to find a shop selling fruit and vegetables (The nearby shop has not stocked bananas and carrots for over a week.) but settled for a cold beer at a beach side table enjoying the splendid views. 

On the way to the beach I took the accompanying photos of ruins near the marina and next to the hotel.  I'll leave it to the reader to guess that the buildings represented, and I will reveal all in the next exciting chapter of the blog.

Last night I met Francois, “Marian”, and Henrique for dinner at Phillipe's.  I was soon introduced to one of the iconic drinks of Brazil with an unfamiliar name that I cannot recall, but included plenty of ice, a chopped up lime, and a bit of sugar.  It reminded me of my favorite drink in Mexico, the Margarita. 

Before dinner was served Francois and I exchanged contact information and rough outlines of our plans.  I will have left Bracui well before Francois returns from Europe in early January.  He expects to set off for Cape Town with a crew of four friends on about 9 or 10 January, heading SE.  I expect to set of from Florianopolis, 370 miles down the coast at about that time.  Blue water sailing in close company is impractical but we'll keep in touch via Sailmail and HF radio.   

Over  dinner I asked Francois and Marian how their visit to Paraty went.  Francois had been there before and told Marian that it would be good, but Paraty exceeded all her expectations to the point where they stayed a third night.  Apparently a visit to Paraty is like going back in time to the Portuguese colonial era.  I was warned to visit now rather than during the High season, and to avoid weekends.  Henrique told me that I can catch a bus to Paraty on the highway and he offered to drive me there, but I didn't want to trouble him so I told him that I would walk those few kilometers.  I plan to go on Monday, prepared with fully charged still and video cameras.

Dinner for me was a wonderful big and thick medium rare steak, and I meant to tell Francois what a great wine he had chosen – went down like velvet compared to the wines that I am accustomed to drinking.  I had taken cash to be ready to jump in and pay for my meal, but Francois handled the payment so deftly and quickly that all I as able to do was to thank him afterward for dinner and his generosity.  He had become interested in the MarinePlotter software that I've been using and we agreed on a visit to Pachuca at 9 AM this morning for a demonstration.

I knew that Francois and Marian would not have a lot of time because they had to return a rented car by 1 PM (on their way out of the country), so I made sure that everything was prepared for a fast and efficient demonstration. I moved the Toshiba laptop to the cabin table so that they could sit on each side of me for an easy look at the screen.  I put the two little GPS antennas on the table and connected them to the laptop so that Francois could see the entire package at work.  I made sure that I had fast access to some screen photos that I had taken on the way to the Horn as well as the video of the approach to the Horn.

It all went very well.  We zoomed in on the Horn area so that he could see the advantage of actually being able to see the ocean bottom.  We zoomed in on the Bracui marina and they could see the boat in the exact position that we know her to be in at D jetty.  The satellite shot must have been recent because they found his 54-ft ketch GLENNIV tied stern-on.  We panned over to Trisan de Cunha and had a good look at the area and discussed anchoring spots.  Then we visited Cape Town and had close up looks at two marinas.  I showed Francois how easy it was to download Google tiles.  I wasn't able to show all of the features – for example, although I mentioned that MP can handle ENC and RNC electronic charts I didn't bring one up.  However, there was enough to give  Francois an idea of the power and usefulness of MP, and he plans to download it soon after returning home in Switzerland. I handed him a piece of paper bearing the URL of the Club Cruceros web site  and asked him to contact me if he had trouble downloading  the software onto his XP machine.  He asked me about payment and I told him that MP is free.  (David's gift to mariners.)

During our session Henrique showed up with a copy of just about every paper chart of this area, along with other material.  He told me that he could supply me with any chart that I wanted to purchase.  I had a look at the material but decided that I will rely on my electronic charts of Brazil.  What I really  need is a chart covering the South Atlantic ocean from South America to Cape Town, and I'm hoping that he can bring one in from Rio.
Then it was time to say our farewells.  For Marian it was Goodbye, and I was so glad to have met such a pleasant, alert, and cheerful person.  With Francois it was the hope that we meet again.