Bote II

Following a further visit, more photos of the boat, which is in the middle of being painted. Hopeful that next week will see the project completed and Shamrock on the water...

Bote

As promised/threatened, some photos of the boat. I had written several paragraphs about it, but have now lost them (twice), and can't face typing it all up again - so you're spared the detail for the moment. More when the project is nearing completion.

Update

As you can see, internet access has become even more spasmodic. This is due mainly to us moving permanently into our new house, which is in an area which is relatively remote in Manaus terms – so we have no mains water or sewerage, no telephone (yet), and our electricity is a “gato” or ‘cat’, which is an interesting euphemism for ‘stolen from the nearest electricity pylon’. Anyway, I’ve borrowed this connection from our friends Zaira and Flavio, who have limited broadband access in the nearby (very posh) Ponta Negra area, so I’ve taken the opportunity to provide here the first pics of the house and attendant wildlife. Speaking of which, everything seems to come in biblical porportions here, which is to say all the animals come two by two – we have 2 Sauim de Coleiras, 2 Iguanas, and 2 toucans. We’ve only seen one sloth, but the other one was probably just too slow to capture on ordinary film… The moth in the pictures measured just over six inches from wingtip to wingtip, and there are lots of other equally monstrous insects, but it’s difficult to get close enough to them to do them justice on film. I’m still working on getting a shot of the beetle that keeps knocking at our wee small door (Walter de la Mare..?).

Since my last post, we have had great fun trying to get a few things organised, predictably with only limited success. And Brazilian beauracracy (help – I can’t spell in English anymore – oh the shame of it…) continues to try to keep pace with continental drift (the continents are pulling away easily). Notably, our goods remain locked up by the local sheriff(s), although we’re moving (well, pointing, at least) in the right direction. In the meantime we’ve managed to get some necessities for the house (vis. one mattress, one fridge, one microwave, two plastic chairs and a TV), and have finally got the pool clean (at least we had until some nocturnal visitor crapped in it last night – strange to say the least!). [Note - to he who offered to come out as pool attendant (you know who you are), I would just like to point out that I have now spent 4 days cleaning the thing out and not only does every bone in my body ache, but the skin that was underneath the skin on my back that was burnt, is now burnt. So where were you…?] I now know how to operate the water pump and the pool pump, and yesterday we invested heavily in a small lawnmower B&Q wouldn’t be seen dead giving away. This is for our gardener, who threatens to come today to cut the grass and tidy the garden up a bit. We also have an electrician lined up to come and sort out some of the last occupant’s ridiculous DIY connections, and after that we may even be able to get an air-conditioner.

Pool

Since we’ve been cleaning the pool, it has struck us as somewhat ironic that as we move around from one spot to the other, rotating round the garden to avoid the sun, presumably there’s more than one of you back there rotating yourselves round the garden to avoid the shade. C’est la vie and all that…

Ozzie

Ozzie isn’t very well at the moment. We still haven’t managed to get him clipped (but hopefully today we will), and he has now been introduced to fleas and carrapato, which I reckon are somewhat similar to sheep ticks. So he’s bitten and hot, and feeling a bit sorry for himself. Hopefully by the weekend we will have improved things a bit. And we daren’t let him run around the garden yet, for fear of him running off into the jungle and getting eaten by something (or eating something, I suppose). This week we hope to fence off the worst of the jungly bits and treat the grass for carrapato, so that should help. I took him into the pool the other day (I thought it might drown the fleas), but he really hated it. Interestingly, his instinct for the doggy paddle kicked in as soon as his back legs were in the water, so even though his front paws were out of the water they were still doing the paddle. Amusing, except for the fact that in the absence of any water, the end result was my chest getting a good clawing (yes I know – serves me right – but he did stop scratching after his bath, so maybe we did kill off a few of the fleas after all). So at the moment Ozzie is moping about the house looking like a disappointed pig, but I’m really hoping that the next time I write he will be fully back on form.

Boat news

The boat is coming on rightly, and I hope to get some photos for the next entry(ies). So far, the boat builder has put nearly all the relevant bits in place except for the cover or capota. The thing now looks more like the Queen Mary than a 6m fishing boat, but hopefully that’s just because it’s out of the water. The next step is to fit the steering kit and the seats, and then paint it (navy blue on the outside and grey inside, with a white capota). The boat will be named Shamrock (after the one we saw in Plymouth) and carry the appropriate symbol too. This neatly avoids the issue of calling it Ozzie and upsetting Naice, or vice versa. After this, and probably next week, the boat will be delivered into the hands of the local Suzuki agent to have the 4-stroke 50hp motor fitted, along with the various instruments and other bits (lights etc). And finally, we have to order the various ancillary bits from someone else (life jackets, a ladder, fire extinguisher etc etc), so that we can take it to be properly registered with port authorities.

Still no progress with the floating bar, I’m afraid. There just aren’t any floats around for the area we’re interested in. This is making it look increasingly like the project could be delayed a full 12 months. Frustrating, but not a disaster – it will happen in due course. All the paraphernalia is carefully stored for appropriate time – thanks to all contributors!

I find myself with a spare 15 minutes of internet use, so here's a quick update. Today we had our first rain since arriving. Very welcome it is too, as the temperature has plummeted to just below 30, which my burnt back is finding most comfortable.

Our car, which went into Renault yesterday for assessment of an oil leak, has failed to emerge and we probably won't get it back until tomorrow now. I guess that's what you get when the French laissez faire and Brazilian amanha attitudes combine.

We're still not in the house permanently, but hope to be tomorrow. Or maybe the next day...

Went to see the boat yesterday to check on progress, and asked them to move the main seat back 10cm. This was due to my re-checking my plans and realising that the 100 litre fuel tank I requested (and on which I will be sitting) is positioned just forward of the theoretical point of equilibrium. Does this make any difference? I asked myself. Well, drawing on all my years of boat building experience, I figured it probably might - so I thought moving it as far back as possible would be generally a Good Thing. Perhaps those of you out there with more knowledge of these things might advise? (Although it's too late now, anyway...) As far back as possible turned out to be 10cm, otherwise it would have compromised my other requirement, which was to leave a space of at least 170cm between this seat/tank and the rearmost seat, so I can get things like huge fish in the boat with ease, and so I can lie down if I want a snooze (and tie a hammock diagonally between the posts supporting the cover). Anyway, next visit is tomorrow, when I'll be able to see all the seats in place and give my authorisation for the next stage (whatever that is).

Ozzie hasn't been clipped since we got here (things still being held by the Gruppenfuhrer at Manaus docks), so he's beginning to look like a big ball of fluff. We are getting him clipped next Tuesday, so we can allow him out of the air-conditioning, poor chap. Must get clipped myself soon, too...

First day in the house

We spent our first full day at the house (except for sleeping there, as we have no bed as yet), and I have started cleaning the swimming pool. I thought this would be a pleasant and generally enjoyable thing to do, but was quite wrong. Apart from anything else, unless you have diving gear on, it´s almost impossible to get any force behind your scrubbing brush when you´re standing at the poolside and the brush is six foot under the water. And then there´s that dashed sun. I can´t get in the pool, ´cause it´s too dirty, and I can´t stand around it when it´s too sunny or Í´ll get burnt to a crisp (I know this, because I am that crisp). Then there are all the chemicals - chlorine for this, sodium for that, something else for the other thing. And the pump, and the filter, and the dead frogs in the water, and the insects, and the leaves. And finally, I thought I could solve the riddle by just draining the pool, giving it a good scrub and filling it back up. The problem is, it holds 60,000 litres of water, and our water tank holds 2,000. The water tank is fed from an artesian well in the garden, and it took an hour and a half to fill it up with the little green water pump we have. So....I empty the pool, we´re immediately into, what, 30 tank-fulls at 1.5 hours = 45 hours of pumping? And anyway, we have a small stream at the bottom of the garden, and the environmentalists among you will think it pretty not-on to pump 60,000 litres of dirty, chlorinated water into it. Jeez - I´m already thinking of filling it in and planting an herbaceous border instead. (Only joking).

On a more exciting note, we had 5 visitors to the garden during our first full day there. Firstly there was a big fat froggy-toady-thing in the pool (and still alive, as no significant chlorine in the pool at this point). So I helped him out and chucked him down the hill towards the stream. No doubt he will return.

Second visitor was a preguica, or sloth. We thought it was a monkey, until we saw him reach out veeerrrryyy sllllooooowwwwlllyy to pick something off a branch.

Shortly after this, we had a pair of collared monkeys come up to steal fruit off one of the trees. They´re Sauím-de-Coleira monkeys, quite small and on the endangered species list.

Third visitors were a pair of toucans, who were playing footsie in and around the garden for a while, making quite a racket (tsk tsk). I´ve seen one in the wild before, but it was much much bigger, so I think these were red-billed toucans.

And finally, we had a big green iguana lolling around in the top of one of the trees.




Quite a toing and froing really, and long may it continue! Other than spending time trying to identify our guests, it was just Naice doing some tidying up and me getting burnt while trying to figure out how to clean the pool. But it was really great to finally get our own space, although we´re still sleeping at Sao Jose as we haven´t much in the way of furniture yet.

I´m hoping to get some photos posted up soon, but until I can get wireless access, it isn´t going to happen. In the meantime, I can tell you that the house is quite small and unassuming, with two bedrooms, a through lounge-dining-kitchen affair and a couple of wee rooms which could be an office and a store room maybe. The main bedroom has its own bathroom and there is a separate, so-called ´social´bathroom for guests (although at present it´s not very social, I must say). This is all on one floor. There is a separate area below the house for the live-in (no, we won´t be having one), comprising a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/utility area. The grounds slope down towards the house, so that above the house is a swimming pool and covered barbeque area, and at the very top of the garden, near the entrance, is a small kennel block and the water tower. And that´s it, really, except for the view. To the rear and left of the property is a small valley surrounded by rainforest. We have no way of knowing when this will all be chopped down (tomorrow? next month next decade?), but you can be sure it will be. Until such times, we will enjoy it and look after it as best we can. Hopefully it´ll still be there when you come to visit, and who knows - maybe the pool will be clean by then too!

New house

This post is a bit out of sequence I'm afraid, but I'm going to have to go in a moment and have no guarantee of when next I'll get internet access, so here's the latest...

Cutting a long story short, we finally took the plunge and bought a house. It was over our original budget (nothing new there then), and not precisely what we were looking for (ditto), but we both loved it the minute we saw it. After some strategic toing and froing and some reasonably hard bargaining, we got the price down from R$290,000 to R$200,000 with an air-conditioner thrown in(!). I don't have any pics yet, but will endeavour to post some in the coming weeks or months. For those who like google earth, you can get a clear picture of the site (it shows the original house, bottom left, and oubuildings, right) at 3 deg 1 min 36.11 sec South/60 deg 4 min 30.04 sec West. It belonged to a vet, and the outbuildings are actually kennels. A new house was built on the site of the old one, and a swmming pool (yay!) added in 2003. We hope to move in tomorrow, so more on this later.

We've also placed an order for a small 6m powerboat (bote - as per awful pic), which should be ready by the end of the month. We've had no luck so far with the floating bar - there are currently no available boias or floats in the area we want to place the bar (3 deg 49 min 13.13 sec S/60 deg 22 min 17.95 sec W), meaning they would have to come over 100km by river from Manaus. Eek. Still looking, but if we don't find something this month, the water may be too low for us to get the boias across, meaning a delay of almost a full year. Keep you posted.

Manaus - the start of things

Sadly my poor addled brain is apt to forget lots of things (as many will attest), so I'll have to give you the gist of events, and when I can put together a more complete diary I'll add anything of interest at a later date.

After ensconcing ourselves in our billet in Sao Jose (b&w pic) and recovering for a while, we visited old friends Charlie (Italian) and Annick (Belgian) on Sunday and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Annick was able to tell us of someone who was selling a car which was almost new. We weren't desperately enthusiastic (in Brazil 'almost new' or semi-novo can mean anything up to 200,000km or 10 years), but said we would have a look. Having arranged to do this, we then proceeded to look at some new (and semi-novo) cars first. Ha ha ha. The price of a half-decent 2-wheel drive people carrier is around GBP30000 - GBP40000. Anyway, we then went to look at the recommended semi-novo, which turned out to be a Renault Scenic with 16000km on the clock. Apart from a few dents and scrapes and a leaking oil sump (cars have it tough here), and apart from being French and a Scenic, it looked pretty good...so we bought it for R$35000 (around GBP8000). First problem resolved.

Meanwhile, back at the house, we were suffering from a distinct lack of air conditioning, and had discovered quickly that walking the dog, apart from being a ludicrous thing for anyone to do in Sao Jose, was fraught with problems. Firstly, the roads are like mini obstacle courses, with drivers of all sorts of vehicles competing at high speed for any available patch of unholed tarmac. There are no road signs, no traffic lights, no zebra crossings (ha ha ha), no road markings. Where there is any pavement, it is usually covered by weed, rubbish, turds, stray dogs and dead people (OK, I exagerate slightly on this last point). To get to one, you have to first traverse the stream of water cascading down from all sorts of dubious outlets protruding from the popular houses lining the road. These usually culminate in open sewers located at strategic points so that you can either drive into them, ride into them or walk into them. The stray dogs, of course, are not used to Irish royalty (I refer to Ozzie, in case you doubt) striding purposefully among them and piddling on their favourite posts or mounds of rubbish. So of course they round on the offender to chase him off. So we quickly discovered that walking the dog needed two people - one to keep Ozzie in check until he's done what he needs to do; and one at the rear with a big stick to fend off the repeated attacks of the locals. All this in 34 degrees of heat is somewhat tiring, and normally results in us (all) collapsing on the bed after the walk. More of a battle than a walk, in fact. So far, we are winning the battles, but the war is clearly theirs...

Phew!

Phew indeed. It has been an interesting (Chinese sense) time since our last post some 3 weeks ago now. Since for the forseeable future my posts may be pictureless (but I'll do my best), I'll keep them short in order not to bore you too much.

You may or may not know, but chaos reigns in the skies of Brazil at present, with hordes (squadrons?) of flights cancelled or delayed, so we were relatively lucky that our flight to Manaus was delayed only 2 hours. Interestingly, since the break-up of the national airline Varig, the most common carrier now is called GOL (Goal, in English). It is difficult to know who they're modelling themselves on (see pic., if I can upload it) - orange livery, pay-per-bag, no seat booking, no food, sour faces, no refunds etc etc. Hmmm.

The good news is they've put their latest modified 737 on the SP - MAO route, cutting the time down to 3.5 hours. Hooray! So we arrived late afternoon, and when we emerged from the airport it was raining - I thought for a moment they'd flown us back to Belfast. But that rain was the last we've seen since then, more's the pity - no more now until October.

We were picked up at the airport by Naice's brother Robbie, and driven the 40km or so back to his house in Sao Jose, which is an area rather hopefully described as being "popular". Makes more sense when you understand that 'popular' in Portuguese can also mean 'poor''. Anyway, that's where we remain to date, although we hope to be moving tomorrow morning. more on this in a mo.

Sao Paulo

Well, here we are languishing in Sao Paulo, waiting for Saturday and our onward flight to Manaus, 2500 miles away by air, or a lifetime away for us (well, half a lifetime).

Ozzie was rescued this morning from the clutches of the dreaded Receita Federal or Federal customs. We arrived at the (helpfully unnamed) central cargo area at 08:30 this morning, and after visiting British Airways once (6th Floor, Room 21), Infraero 4 times (Ground Floor, Room 5), the Federal Vet twice (Ground Floor, Room 6), the official cartorio (or place where you are sent to get forms and copies of documents) 5 times, and the Banco do Brasil once (Ground floor, Room 3), we were finally able to secure the release of our hostage to outrageous bureaucracy at just after 11:00am. A typical exchange went something like

"We're here to pick up our dog, and here are all the papers."
"Do you have a form 1234xyz?"
"A what?"
"A 1234xyz."
"Um, no."
"OK. Go the cartorio and ask for two copies of form 1234xyz and come back."
"We'll also need copies of this...and this...and two copies of this...and this."
After a round trip to the Cartorio....
"OK. Now you need to take this, this this and this to Room x."
In room X...
"We're here to pick up our dog etc.."
"Do you have a form abc123 and def456?"
"No."
"OK. You'll need to go to the Cartorio and blah blah blah."

So, you may ask, why don't the people who need the forms keep copies of the forms, and/or do the photocopying themselves and/or tell you in advance what you need to bring? Well, because half the Brazilian population is employed in taking photocopies and running from room to room throughout the land, that's why. Let's face it, if anybody got the hots for a bit of intelligent efficiency, the entire economy would collapse.

Never mind, he's here now and none the worse for it. He's been out to see what Sao Paulo looks like (big, smelly, hot) and have a pee and a poo; he's drunk half the water in our minibar, had some food and a bath, and he's flat out now on his blanket. Meanwhile Naice has had to go back to the airport to sort out the tickets for Saturday, and we've to get him examined by a vet tomorrow to get his cert. for onward travel.

The hotel is fine - only 15 mins from the airport in the district of Guarulhos, northwest of the main city which can be clearly seen from the hotel, sprawling out like some giant lego set, with helicopters and planes whizzing around everywhere and above which floats a huge pall of brown smog. Lovely. The few of the 29 million inhabitants we've encountered seem happy enough with it, but it's not for us. The only thing that has impressed us is that all the taxis are converted to run on petrol and gas and alcohol (no, not at the same time). The favoured fuel at present is gas.

BTW, our internet access is a bit hit and miss at present, so forgive us if you're awaiting an e-mail response or anything. This is likely to get much worse before it gets better, so please bear with us.

Whistle-stop tour of the South & Southwest

The success of our foray to the Royal Albert Hall (photo) was followed by a second journey to London to deliver Ozzie into the hands of the kennels.

From there we drove down to Plymouth to see my cousin Anton, and enjoyed a very pleasant evening there with a curry followed by a drink in the nearby Irish bar. We took note of the various cultural artefacts on display, that we might replicate these in Brazil (mercifully there weren't too many leprechauns or shamrocks etc), and Naice reckons she has a good idea of how it's all going to look.

Next day Anton took us to see an old (1899) sailing barge (photo), called Shamrock, after which we have decided to name our own somewhat smaller version in brazil. After this we were off again, up the A38 to Bristol, thence to Chepstow, on to Gloucester and Stratford-upon-Avon and back to Scunthorpe. We were suitably impressed by the Clifton Suspension bridge, the Tamar bridge, the Severn Bridge, Chepstow Castle (well worth a visit) and Stratford's half-timbered houses.

Once back in sunny Scunny, and after a good night's sleep, we were treated to a wonderful meal in the company of the now-long-suffering Dawn and Garry, and today Garry managed a great barbeque to round it all off. I'm sure they'll be glad to see the back of us tomorrow, but we'll miss you!

We leave at 12:00 to drive to Heathrow, drop the car off and get to the bag drop off point (we managed to check-in online and get decent seats (for scum-class, anyway). I will as usual be asking for a free upgrade when I get there, but on the basis that the usual response goes something like "ha ha- if only I had a pound for every time someone asks..." etc., I'm not hopeful. I hear about people who know people who do this successfully, but now that I think of it I've never spoken to anyone who has personally succeeded in the endeavour. Perhaps it's a myth.

Anyway, this will be our final post until we get to Brazil, so thanks again to everyone and talk soon.

Sunny Scunny

We caught the HSS ferry on Friday morning, delivered there by Rabea in style. The journey was fine, and Ozzie didn't seem too upset after his trip in the HSS kennel (on the car deck). We hired a Focus Sport 1.6 and the drive to Scunthorpe was uneventful, except that I strongly recommend not buying a petrol Focus Sport 1.6 - what a dog. They must have put the word Sport on the badge just because it shares the same initial letter as Slow or Slug. And far from the 56mpg we got out of the diesel version of the same car on our trip to the Mull of Kintyre, we're lucky to get 32mpg out of the petrol version. What a pile of crap.

We're now enjoying the excellent hospitality of our good friends Dawn and Gary in Sunny Scunny. The weather has been ridiculously good, and we also managed to fit in a trip to see Happy Birthday Elgar at the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday.

Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory)
Cello Concerto
Enigma Variations
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4
Cockaigne Overture
Julian Lloyd-Webber - cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Christopher Warren-Green - conductor

Apart from the 7.5 hour round trip in the car, the concert was excellent, with Julian Lloyd Weber playing his heart out and the orchestra doing us proud with three choruses of Land of Hope and Glory. The sound of 5000 voices in vague harmony in the RAH really has to be experienced in the flesh.

We have finally exchanged our Sterling for Reais, having watched the exchange rate collapse on us at just the wrong time. C'est la vie. And tomorrow we take young Ozzie down to kennels at Heathrow (boo hoo), where he has to wait for his papers to be processed before his flight next week. From there we drive to Saltash to stay with cousin Anton, and thence to Kidderminster to visit the auction house where our 3 irish watercolours will come under the hammer in June (if we make £300 we'll be lucky). We'll be back in Scunthorpe on Saturday and after a day of rest we'll be driving back down to Heathrow on Monday to fly out in the evening to Sao Paulo.

Our passports languish with the Brazilian Embassy in London, despatched there on 23rd May in order to get a piece of paper confirming that we have been resident in the UK for the previous 12 months (which means we avoid being taxed again on the goods and money we are transferring to Brazil). I have rarely come across an institution so utterly and consistently incompetent as the Brazilian embassy. Nuff said. Hopefully they will send the stuff back tomorrow and we will get it by Saturday. Talk about cutting it fine...?

It's your round

The farewell get-together for drinkies happened as planned at the Cutter's Wharf in Belfast on Wednesday 30th. It was great to see everybody again before leaving, and we really appreciated the company!

Thanks to everyone for a great night - here are some photos from the evening, and if anyone has any others that they'd like posted, please send them to me at home@maguirenet.com I'll add them as I get them. Click (or double-click) on the images to enlarge them.

The hardcore drinkers who remained took part in the pub quiz which kicked off at 10:00pm, and whilst the highlight of the night was just seeing everybody again, I have to mention that we won the quiz by 2 points, after some fine cheating principally by Peter, Lee, and Sarah. Well done. I'm still convinced there's a biblical character called Tarantulus. And if there isn't, there should be. The prize was a bottle of Vodka, which Sarah swopped for wine, and which Stuart made disappear.

Naice's lasting memory will probably be Sarah shouting "los-er" at the guy trying his best to win the £350 "open the box" event (it's a long story), and she now refers to Sarah as "Mad Sarah", an accolade she probably richly deserves (in the nicest possible sense).

Thank you all - you're wonderful and we'll miss you. If anyone hasn't sent me their e-mail address, please do so and I'll keep you up to date. After some discussion, and based on my Cousin Anton's original idea, it looks like the official opening of Maguire's Floating Irish Bar and Cultural Centre will be 17th March 2008, so I hope you'll all be able to come. We can provide the food, drink and accomodation if you can get yourself on a plane.

Mull of Kintyre visit

The actual Mull of Kintyre half marathon run itself is detailed on the running blog here. However as far as the trip to Campbeltown is concerned, we can thoroughly recommend it as long as you’re not in a rush. The round trip from Stranraer was just over 500 miles and the journey time there is around 5 hours. Of course you can shorten this by clever use of ferries, but a) they’re not cheap and b) you need to time everything properly to take fullest advantage.

The roads are pleasant enough and there are dual carriageways up to the other side of the Clyde, using the Erskine Bridge. Then you’re down to the slow tourist plod past Loch Lomond before the bulk of the traffic turns off on its way to the Highlands. The rest of the way is all single carriageway but through some lovely countryside which you shouldn’t really want to race through anyway. We sopped at Inverary on the outward journey, which was OK, although I recommend staying away from the chip shop on Main Street, which is crap.

The rest of the journey is pleasant but largely unexceptional, following the main A83 route through Tarbert and down the west coast of Kintyre. When you hit Campbeltown your first impressions are likely to be that it’s closed. Abandoned, in fact. There are a couple of interesting buildings, perhaps, but pretty it is not. Never mind – we drove through the town and on to Machrihanish to the west. We stayed at the Machrihanish caravan and camping park run by Dave and Chris, and rented a Wigwam for the duration, which we can recommend. Dave and Chris(tine) are refugees from dan saff, escaping the shitty side of UK society and enjoying their first season in Machrihanish. Good for them.

The only excursion we had time for was towards the Mull of Kintyre (Mull means point, apparently). We didn’t get as far as the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse, but we did stop at Keil Caves and had a fine view of the Mull and saw a seal sunning itself on the rocks and lots of otters playing around it, which we feel was much better than a crummy lighthouse.

Following the race we decided to take the scenic route back to Tarbert, and this really is one of those ‘musts’ people talk about. The road is narrow (single track) and hilly, but is a spectacular route. It’s on the national cycle path map (was it route 93? – I can’t remember) and I would think it would be a stunning cycle ride, with lots of things to see and places to stay.

We tried to stop at the Loch Fyne Oyster bar and restaurant on the way back, but apparently you have to book. How really tiresome. We ended up instead opting for the “Diner” you’ll see sign-posted at various intervals along the way. I won’t say too much about this experience, save to say that I hated my food and Naice loved hers. We were agreed that the service didn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of ‘pathetic’.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful and we deposited our Diesel Focus 1.6 back with Hertz in Stranraer before getting the Stena HSS ferry back to dear old Belfast.

209623 - licensed to pleasure

The RYA navigation exam was passed with only one wrong answer given. I can hardly say this was the most taxing exam I’ve ever done, but I’m still pleased it’s in the bag and I am now the proud bearer of one International Certificate for Operator of Pleasure Craft. Happy days.

!

The CEVNI inland waterways navigation test scheduled for today at 12:00 has had to be re-scheduled for tomorrow afternoon...because I couldn't find the test centre.

Timing...

I am so glad the weather has turned miserable again, as it clearly vindicates our decision to resign from our jobs, sell our house, and throw all our furniture on the tip. Moving to the rainforest, in this context, must be viewed as the icing on the cake.

I also find myself freed from the tyranny of the tie, with promises of salvation by the shorts. This is undoubtedly a good thing, and I am already eagerly listing all the things I will be able to do as a result. I’m up to item number two so far, so it’s going well I think.

Meanwhile Ozzie steadfastly continues to behave as if everything is normal, although this may change next Tuesday when we accompany him to the grooming parlour to learn how he likes to be clipped. Even with our earnest good intentions, I fancy he will find out what it feels like to walk around looking like a disappointed pig.

Our decimated agglomeration of personal effects begins its journey tomorrow, 18th May, when the container ship departs Belfast on its way to Le Havre. We will be closely following its progress on the internet.

Finally, our money is languishing in an HSBC current account while we try to organise getting it to Brazil. Meanwhile the Brazilian Real continues to strengthen, while the pound suffers gentle subsidence. The longer term prognosis for the Real is pretty good; that for the pound, less so. While we’re hoping for some unexpectedly good news on the British economy, the chances are small, so I think we just need to get the transfer done as quickly as possible. Timing - the essence of all good exchange deals. Arf.

25 days to go.

Now we are transportless too.

Well, the BMW was finally sold last night, to a Mr David Doherty from Glengormley, bless him. The car was delivered to him last night and he gave me nearly £8000 in cash. He wanted to give me this on Saturday afternoon, but I didn’t fancy the idea of not getting it to the bank for two days, hence a small deposit had already been received. All the dosh is now sitting next to me in this café in a small rucksack, but if you have any ideas about this, you only have 25 minutes before it’s deposited in the building society across the road.

We’ve also managed to cancel a few DDs and SOs and some insurance policies and so forth, so the admin’s getting a bit more organised. Now we’re researching the best way to transfer our dosh to Brazil. I’m sure there’s an obvious solution to this, but am finding it hopelessly complicated. The various options appear to include:

1) use the bank, transfer pounds, leave it to be exchanged in Brazil
2) use the bank, let the bank do the exchange, then transfer to Brazil
3) use a specialist agency in the same manner as for 1
4) use a specialist agency in the same manner as for 2
5) open a sterling account in Brazil and transfer pounds, exchanging in Brazil as required
6) exchange pounds for dollars here, open a dollar account in Brazil & transfer dollars, exchanging in Brazil as required

And of course what complicates it further is how, when and with whom do you negotiate the relevant exchange rates and charges/fees etc?
If anyone knows anyone who’s familiar with all this guff, please let me know!!!

The CEVNI test

That's the written test on the Code européen des voies de navigation intérieure, to you pal. And I have to take it so that I can apply for an International Certificate of Competence to operate a motorboat on the Amazon. Not that the Brazilians give a stuff about whether I know the European waterways regulations or not, as they don't actually apply in Brazil. So, for example, the direction to the effect that

un feu ordinaire rouge et un feu ordinaire blanc ou un feu clair rouge et un feu clair blanc,placés à 1 m environ l'un au-dessus de l'autre, le feu rouge étant le plus haut,

may be required from time to time, is likely to be as unintelligible and irrelevant in Brazil as it is in the UK.

Never mind - don't you just love senseless bureaucracy? Especially European - especially French - bureaucracy. Jeux sans frontiers, indeed.

One car down, one to go....

We have sold the Yaris. Even this was difficult, and took over a week’s worth of advertising and a price £500 below guide. As yet we have only one person interested in the BMW, even after 3 weeks of advertising and at about £1000 below guide. We have another 3 weeks to get it shifted, otherwise it’ll be down to the local dealer to get a fiver for it. Ah well.

We also have two remote controlled yachts left which we’re giving some thought to now (at 5ft high and 4ft long, these are not items you just put in your luggage, and anyway since there’s no wind in the Amazon, remote controlled yachts are not a particularly interesting proposition).

What else do we have…oh yes - one small watercolour purporting to be by Hugh Thomson, the Irish illustrator for Jane Austen and the like. I’m tyring to get the Ulster Museum to take a look at it, although if I do, no doubt it will turn out to be a £1.50 fake.

Other than that, I think we’re fairly organised now. Just some clothes, a dog called Oz, a laptop and papers, and 4 very large (and relatively empty) suitcases. All this stripped-down, baggage-free living is all very well, but it does make me wonder what we do if the container doesn’t turn up. Speaking of which, we have a reference number for the container so that we can track it online. Although I had hoped this would something like the little blip on the map you get on flights, apparently it’s just a text update. Pity – I rather liked the idea of watching the container chug slowly to France and then to Port of Spain and finally up the Amazon to Manaus.

We're out.

We have now moved out of our house and are in rented accommodation for a month (less than that now, as I write). The move went reasonably smoothly, once we had completed boxing up or wrapping the various bits and pieces we couldn’t get rid of before the appointed day (30th April). In the process of disposing of stuff, we were impressed to discover to what extent we have become a disposal society: essentially, if something’s not new, people don’t want it. The items that went to the local tip were amazing (a 3 year old suite, for example?), when neither the auction nor the charity shops were prepared to take them. One piece we just couldn’t bring ourselves to dump, and decided to take with us (although what we’re going to do with sunbed, I don’t know - ha ha).


We finally ended up with 141 boxes and other items, which we duly had to load into our 12 foot container (after storing them in the garage a week, courtesy of our very understanding purchasers). This significant task was completed with the help of good friend Rabea, and able assistance from some of the purchasers’ family members, dear help them. Ozzie took it all in his stride of course, as usual. The whole lot was tied down with some newly-learnt knots (see earlier piece), and I have no doubt it will be secure for the 6 week voyage...

We are now relaxing in our temporary home, and concentrating on getting rid of the two cars, as well as sorting out our paperwork and preparing for the Mull of Kintyre half marathon.
Only 5 weeks to the day now. In fact I think I’ll start counting down from here. So this is B-day minus 35. Anyone want to buy a BMW….?

Ahoy there Seaman Staines...

As part of our preparations for Brazil, I signed up for a 2-day powerboating course on Lough Erne. Unfortunately the only available course was over our last weekend in the house – 28th/29th – but it had to be done, and anyway we were pretty much on top of things. So off I went…

It turned out to be a fantastic experience. The course content itself was interesting enough to keep us all (6 students) occupied, particularly as most of it was practically orientated and involved us mucking about on RIBs (Rigid Inflatable Boats) all day. The weather decided to honour us by giving us wall to wall sunshine, and although the winds were fresh, this just stopped us overheating in our lifejackets and wellies.

Being completely inexperienced around RIBs, the tasks were challenging enough, although by assessment time on day 2 we were all doing our high-speed maneouvres with relative ease, and were finally able to do our Man Overboard routines without chopping the buoys up with our propellors or knocking them senseless with our bows, which no doubt was reassuring to the assessors.

The whole thing was quite inspiring, and has reassured me that I will be able to look after my passengers (mostly Naice and Ozzie, initially anyway) and my boat once we get to the Amazon. I also managed to learn my bowline, round turn & two half hitches, clove hitch and sheet bends for real, and have now even put them to good use (albeit in quite un-nautical circumstances, but that’s the way it goes).

Your basic flutuante

Lots of people have asked me about this floating bar and seem to think (not unreasonably I suppose), that it will be some sort of boat. So I thought I should clarify. What we're talking about is what they call a "flutuante" in Portuguese (that's flootoo-anchee). Something like this, in fact:

The principal difference will be that ours will be painted GREEN and will say MAGUIRE'S on it somewhere. It will also be on black water, not the "white" water you see here. Black water, being more acidic, generally has less bugs and other animal and insect life in and around it. This suits me fine, and you will be especially grateful when you come to stay.

Organisation

Well, we're getting ready to move out now. Just a week to go and I'd like to say we're totally organised. But here's 2,000 words worth of pictures to give you an idea of what total crap that would be.

Never mind. I'm sure we'll get there. Not that Ozzie's too bothered....

The CELTA clan

Leaving work isn't the only recent news. In March, Naice spent 4 weeks in Edinburgh doing her full-time intensive Cambridge CELTA course, which was a traumatic experience (for both of us!). She has now passed it, and I think she can consider it a major achievement: not only is it considered a post-graduate qualification, but it is generally only completed by native English speakers. I'm very proud of her, and it also means we are now a TEFL family, as I got my CELTA in 1995.

So at least we can expect our children to be able to speak reasonably good English...!

I am unemployed

Following an evening out at the Cafe Vaudeville and the Northern Whig with colleagues I know I will soon be missing, and now that the hangover has finally cleared, here I am watching the start of the 2007 London Marathon on a Sunday, knowing that I won't ever be going into work again. I'm finding this somewhat unnerving, but I suppose I'll get used to it in due course.

The roll of honour for Friday was as follows:


Stephen Baker, Deborah Burrows, Simon Burrows, Paul Campbell, Joanne Caughey, George Crawford, Sinead Dillon, Alison Gibson, Betty Grant, Sarah Jackson, Kirstie McAllister, Jennifer McDowell, Sarah McAndrews, Stuart McAtee, Hilary McVitty, Peter Ruddell, Millar Selfridge, Angela Woods.


And they're all quite mad of course.

I will be sure to put the leaving prezzies to good use at Maguire's Irish Bar and Cultural Centre. For those who didn't see what will probably be the centrepiece, here's a photo (I've cropped out the frame). Naice hasn't stopped laughing at it since I got it home.



There were lots of other goodies too, and all very much appreciated. I hope everyone will come over to Brazil to see them in their new home.

Thanks for everything guys!

It's been a while since my last post. I've been keeping myself busy at work while trying not to worry too much about the move.

We now have Ozzie all sorted out, and we've booked the tickets through to Sao Paulo. We've also rented a house to stay in during May. So it all looks like this now:

20th April: finish work
26th April: ship goods
30th April: move out of house
May: stay in rented accomodation
1st June: ferry to Scunthorpe to stay with friends
7th June: drive Ozzie down to Heathrow to leave him in kennels
11th June: drive down to Heathrow for flights
12th June: arrive Sao Paulo, stay at hotel
13th June: Ozzie flies to Sao Paulo
14th June: pick up Ozzie from Guarulhos airport
16th June: fly to Manaus

We've been spending considerable effort sorting out how to transfer our money without having to pay tax on it again at the Braziloian side, but it looks like we've cracked this.

In the meantime, in trying to get as fit as possible for our new life, I've had a few problems (see http://theoldsloth.blogspot.com/). Hopefully things are progresssing on this now.

I've also sold our first household item - actually got rid of it, that is - our kitchen table. Now we have a staging area for all the other stuff that's got to go. Happy days.

Spare me.

There surely can be nothing quite as sad and worthless as a grown adult who, authoring their own misfortunes, is unable to take responsibility for their actions and uses all their precious time blaming others, until - becoming so bitter and twisted they are unable to recognise friend from foe, or truth from fiction - they finally succeed against all odds in fulfilling their own mean and nasty little prophesies.

House sold...?

We have agreed the sale of the house. The buyers were here today to measure things up, and we had a good chat. They're very nice, and I hope they enjoy the house as much as we have done. We agreed a completion date of 30th April, and our target date for the flights is the second week in June. They suggested we could use the garage between 1st May and when we go away, if we need it. This could be really useful, although we'll be trying to sell or ship everything prior to the end of April.

Guess I've misunderestimated the flight times

Our idea of driving 1400 miles down to Lisbon and hopping over to Brazil on the short flight to Salvador has been scuppered! The times they publish for the flight are local times, meaning it looks like it's just a 4-hour dash, whereas* it's actually an 8 hour slog. Couple this with the fact that the shortest internal flight from Salvador to Manaus is 9 HOURS (at least without changing planes). Unfortunately the flight just crawls up the Brazilian coast, stopping at just about anything that looks remotely like an airfield. I did it once before, when I was young and knew no better, but now? Ha - I don't think so. The flight times from Heathrow would be 10 hours to Sao Paulo, then 5 hours to Manaus. To do about 70% of the distance (Lisbon - Salvador - Manaus) is going to take 17. Bad joke.

*I know this is nothing to do with Brazil, but I've been reading a lot of US posts recently, and I've noticed that a lot of Americans seem to think that the word "whereas" means "although". You know, like "Whereas I can't grasp the general principles of English, I don't care." Obviously the President's illegibility is catching on.

Quickies

Latest:

• The house sale continues apace. One offer in, 3 viewers tonight, and another 4 tomorrow.
• I must mention the website gringoes.com, where I'm finding lots of useful info., and where the folks in the forum are really friendly and helpful. Keep it up guys!
• It's February already, and we're planning to move in June.... Omygod.
• We've more or less sussed out the vehicle we're going to get in Manaus - it's either going to be one of these or one of these. The Fiat's probably the more practical; I just don't know whether I could be seen in one.
• We're also thinking of revising our route to Manaus - instead of Heathrow - Sao Paulo - Manaus, we're thinking of overland to Lisbon, then Lisbon - Salvador - Manaus. All for the sake of the dog!!! (more on this later).