From Rio to Salvador it is about 750 miles and that distance we have to cover in about 40 sea hours, which gives an average speed of just under 19 knots. However with the Brazil current against us, the speed that we really had to make was somewhere between 20 and 21 knots with the current being the unknown factor. Therefore we went full speed the moment we left the bay of Rio de Janeiro behind us. It turned out during today that the Brazil current was a little bit less strong than I had anticipated and so we made good speed all day long. It means that we will make our pilot time of 8 am in the morning and that also means that we should be docked by 9 am. which is arrival time.

All the way from Rio we had wild life around the ship; in this case a lot of birds that sailed on the turbulence created by the hull above the water. I do not know much about birds but the chief officer recognized them as Jan van Gents (Dutch) or Gannets. Each chief officer is a professional bird hater, at least as long as he/she is on the ship, as these birds normally leave a legacy of whites splotches on the deck before moving on. The acid contained is not good for the paint and the varnish and hence many a chief officer only thinks murderous thoughts when birds appear around the ship. But they circled around the ship from early morning to late at night and their excitement of being around the Prinsendam was clearly visible on the decks and even on the bridge windows. The sailors do their best to get it all off again, but as there are more birds than sailors, it is a challenge that we will only start to win by the time we enter the Amazon. Once going up river, the sea birds disappear and for some reason land or river birds do not seem to circle around the ship.

That is also about the only wind that they feel in this area. Apart from an occasional breeze coming by, the ship has to make its own wind as there is seldom more than about 5 knots blowing. This area is collectively known as the Doldrums. In old days ships could be becalmed here for days on end and making no head way at all. We had a similar situation on the West coast while we were sailing down the Peruvian coast. It makes you understand why the invention of the steamship was such a big occurrence. Finally you could get somewhere on time without having to rely on the vagaries of the winds, especially in these area’s.

weather0001 The darker the purple the less wind there is. As you can see out in the deep open sea dark and light blue there is a bit of wind but close to the coast hardly anything at all. Chart source: www.windfinder.com

While in port there can be some wind but that will be mostly generated by the sun during the day and then it will taper off in the evening again. I am expecting that sort of pattern tomorrow in Salvador de Bahia as the weather forecast is not indicating anything significant. Just a warm day and depending on the cloud cover it might be in the 80’s or go up to the 90’s.

I have not been to Salvador for a long time, but it always used to be the safest city in Brazil. Pleasant people who work between breakfast, lunch and dinner and not the other way around. Most other things would take preference over work anyway, and so life would progress at a not too hectic a pace. I will find out tomorrow if it is still the same.

So today we had a nice day at sea, with sunshine and very calm seas, where basically nothing happened. As a sailor you cannot have enough of those days.