We stayed overnight in Rio de Janeiro while the other ships departed. The Delphin Voyager sailed at 11 pm in the evening and will work its way up the Brazilian coast before crossing over to Africa. The MSC Poesia and the Grand Mistral sailed earlier as for those two ships the port was a change over port and they commenced a new cruise here. The Grand Mistral is the old Mistral that was built for Festival cruises. Festival was a company that emerged very quickly from nowhere, riding the boom of the cruise business before 9/11 and then later ran into cash flow problems which caused the company to be broken up and its assets to be sold off. Festival Cruises focused on the Mediterranean public and as Grand Mistral the emphasis is now on Latin America. Its two sister’s ships, the European Stars and the European Vision were sold to MSC and are now sailing as the MSC Armonia and the MSC Sinfonia. The same company to which the MSC Poesia belongs; although the latter is a new build.

In the early morning those two ships were replaced by the Costa Magica which had sailed with us from Montevideo but had called at another port before Rio and was now catching up with us. For that ship Rio de Janeiro was just a port of call and the ship was leaving the same day again at 5 pm. Our 2nd day was one of a shorter duration. We sailed shortly after 3 pm having to wait for a container ship to go first. Our early departure was due to the distance to Salvador de Bahia which is a tight stretch even with a 3 pm. departure. However the weather looks good so it should be no problem.

Sail away is always a scenic affair as you pass the Sugar Loaf close by and also the fortifications at the entrance to the bay are of interest. We had our Travel guide Frank doing a narration and while he was all engrossed in explaining why the Copacabana was called the Copacabana, a lovely Italian voice joined him on the loud speakers. Our scenic cruising system is separate from the regular emergency PA system and transmits from the bridge wireless to support points in the crows nest and outside decks. The Costa Magica must have a similar system and although we were about 3 miles away from the dock, the antenna’s picked up this Lady. Not a planned part of the proceedings and as Costa makes announcements in several languages it tends to drag on, so we cut Frank off until the barrage of Spanish and Portuguese ceased. I have to remember that for next time when we are docked together maybe I can play the Dutch National Anthem over their speaker system.

I had warned my guests to be careful when walking around while we leaving the port as on the way in there had been a large swell running over the bar. Coming in was not that bad as we were going with the swell. Now we had to oppose it and the ship would be pitching while we sailed to open waters. In the end it was not a problem at all; the swells had abated greatly during the past two days and by keeping the speed at 12 knots, the ship was only gently moving on the waves until we came to deeper water. As we were changing course to the east, the long rolling waves then started to come in on the beam and were no problem for the ships stabilizers. So I could crank the Prinsendam up to full speed and set course for Salvador for the day after tomorrow.

The weather forecast is predicting sunshine and showers and thus we have to see what we will get. For the rest it should be a smooth ride as it has been very quiet off the Salvador coast in the past few days.