Passing Tarifa

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A look back at our first year cruising South America

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365 days, 7000nm, 3 continents, 5 countries, 3 gales. We are Lin and Richard sailing on our 1986 Oyster 55 Velvet Lady.   For those of you who don’t know us, this is not our first long trip, or even our longest trip. We’ve been making long trips in the northern hemisphere for the last 20 years. It is however our longest trip, just us, no charter guests and for Richard his first time across the equator. We left Mayflower Marina, Plymouth on 20 th September 2022, the day after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was somehow disrespectful to set off on our dream trip the same day that Her Majesty was buried. We had been in the UK 3 months.  Closing our Adventure Sailing business, emptying our lock up, working on getting the boat ready with the new equipment for South America and visiting family to tell them of our plans. Like many sailing trips – we were behind the schedule that we set for ourselves. ...
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First year living aboard in South America

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We've lived onboard Velvet Lady for 17 years, all in Europe. This was our first year as liveaboards on the east coast of South America. Read on to see how we found it, or scroll to the end for our more practical tips. A year already. That has passed in a flash. Mid May last year we had just sailed across the Atlantic and were oh so close to arriving in Salvador , Brazil. It was warm and sunny but the wind gave up! Light winds on the nose and outgoing current made the last few miles painfully slow. We eventually dropped our anchor on South American soil for the first time at 00.30 Brazil time on 16 May. Today, one year later we are in Piriapolis marina, Uruguay. Its very different to a year ago. Cold, 8 degrees, beautiful clear blue sky and gale force winds. What a fantastic year it has been. I've been reminiscing, reading old blogs and my diary entries on No Foreignland. You can read them too. Velvet Lady Blog starting in May 2023 and Velvet Lady N...
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Taking time out for Maintenance, repairs and upgrades.

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  Today is the September Equinox marking the first day of spring here in Brazil. Only 3 months until the start of summer, when we want to be heading into the deep south. Deliberately we haven't moved very much in the last month. It's 2 years since we left UK and time to both give Velvet Lady a good dose of TLC and continue our preparations for sailing in Argentina and Chile. We have spent the past 2 months scouring chandleries for bits we might need. We already have most things to pass the Argentinian safety check - we just needed a fire axe which we bought in Buenos Aires. In Parity we bought 120m long floating mooring lines and fuel containers, but we haven't been able to find 12 strand dyneema or netting. Preparing for Chile we made some really big upgrades. Before leaving UK we installed a new heater and a new watermaker. It is disappointing that these are the things that have given us most trouble. Despite making sure we bought 'internation...
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