We left Barbados on the 18th of November 2008. The plan was to sail as high as we could into the SE trade winds until we hit some point on the northern coast of Brazil, tack our way east in the calmer water closer to shore, round the corner, sail down to Rio and then cross the Atlantic to Cape Town and be home in time for Christmas. After taking 9 days just to hit the northern coast of Brazil, we quickly realized it was going to take a little longer that we thought. We tacked along the cost for another 9 days, averaging around 125 miles per day of which only 30 were in the right direction. When we hit the corner and turned south, things went a lot smoother. The wind was more on the beam and we averaged 125 miles a day in the right direction. Our first major port of call in Brazil was Fortaleza, where we met Steve, a seasoned delivery skipper. He advised us it would be better to head straight to Cape Town from Salvador. So we did. It took us another month to make the crossing from Salvador to Cape Town. On route we bumped into Isle de Trinidade. We were met by friendly Brazilian soldiers who treated us to lunch and a tour around the amazing, Jurassic Park like, island. The winds were kind from there on out and stayed south, so we managed to sail more or less straight to Cape Town with only a few days of easterlies that pushed us north. We arrived at Hout Bay Harbor at 3am on the 18 of February, tied up on a free walk on and slept in a bed that did not bounce for the first time in 2 months.

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