Pier Salvador marina in Ribeira

Wow! What a welcome! As soon as you come close to the dock, three employes jump up on the boat and take care of securing all the mooring lines. Then a waitress shows up with freshly squeeze fruit juices on a tray. I mean really!!! The marina is further to the downtown area so taking the buses or taxies is required and the river is not too clean but the service more than makes up for it. If you need a part and that part exist in Brazil (this is not a given) Sandoval and his team will find it for you. There is also a repair shop for dinghies and some space if that is need to make some minor repairs. If you remember, this is were we fixed our forestay after Gaston’s sister flew in with the missing parts and saved the day. We used the space to built a tarpaulin which will cover the front hatch and also gather rain water since our fresh water maker is being repaired in the US. Hopefully, this will save us a few trips of lifting jerry cans filled with water in more remote places. Sandoval who speaks both French and English was kind enough to show us around town. This gave me a chance to practice my portuguese and in return, he practiced his French. He went way beyond our expectations and we appreciated very much spending time with him and his wife. We would trust him to look after our boat while visiting the inland or going back home anytime. While Danielle was visiting, we mostly visited the Barra neighborhood. It’s the richer part of town with restaurants and big shopping malls along the sand beaches. One of my favorite ways to pass the time was to get on a bus not knowing exactly were is was going an seeing if I was actually going to get were I wanted to go. I have to say that I’m pretty good at finding my way around. But shut! Don’t tell Danielle I didn’t know where I was going. You see, she doesn’t like to take the bus. They drive too fast for her. So much so that on the first day, we suggested taking a cab to head back to the marina. Well, it was worst! The driver seemed to think he was a Formula 1 driver and was impressed by his own driving skills. Oddly enough, Danielle started to enjoy taking the bus. Finally, we met a couple from Quebec, Jean-Louis et Denise from the yatch Alero who have been traveling for many years. They took a different path by coming out of the Mediterranean sea through the Suez canal. This is known as quite a dangerous pirate hang out. They hadn’t seen another canadian couple in the past 4 years!

We added a picture montage on Salvador and Ribeira to our web site: http://bidule.micro.org/Site/Salvador.html.