Marina in Salvador, Nautico Marina.

Our first guest is coming to visit us! Elize, Johan's sister was home sick in a grey London and is coming to visit us for a whole ten days! We are so excited to see a family member, and to talk about shared friends and family, even Marco is checking out every aeroplane to look for his aunts aeroplane. Hopefully she is loaded with chocolates and goodies in her bag...and Aromat.

We left Itaparica, and sailed to a little island close by, where we anchored for lunch, a delicious paella, with Prawns and Crayfish Joe bought the morning fetching water from the fountain taps.

We came to Nautico Marine at Salvador, and were a bit anxious about the berths. All we know was that we have to pick up a line in the water and somehow fasten Catlyn to them. There is no walk-on jetties on the side, only at the stern where we can fix two lines. However, we were on our way. Luckily we were welcomed by people from the marina, showing us where to berth, and they grabbed the lines and secured our stern lines. Another guy picked up the lines at port side lifted them up out of the water, and Joe only fasten them on the bow cleat. So easy! We were safe in the marina.

The kids couldn't wait for us to connect to shore power to get all the computers rolling and the Xbox singing familiar games. But we weren't so lucky! A light went on at the panel: REVERSE POLARITY! We haven't seen this light before. Are we fusing up the boat? Are we going to be electrocuted? Havoc on Catlyn! If something is going wrong with the electricity, how do you find an electrician here, and how are you going to explain to him what is wrong? Disappointment. We were so looking forward to be able to open the taps and to switch on all the lights and to use the snackwich, but alas.

The next morning Johan emailed an electrician friend from Catlyn, and soon heard that we will be ok. The appliances will work with the 220V and the batteries will charge and we can try and reverse the positive and negatives... The sun was slowly peeking over the darkness of the cloud, and the Van Niekerks saw a little light again.

But oh my, for so long we haven't been attached to land and we haven't been berthed, and we spend the whole night listening to Catlyn moaning. Johan almost emptied the Sunlight dishwashing liquid on the lines to stop them from moaning but nothing helped. We couldn't wait for the sun to rise, and Elize to arrive with the taxi from the airport, because we have to get out of here soon.

Good news for Marco was: Friends! The french children were here, and another cute little boy from New Zealand came over. At least when the sun was shining we enjoyed Salvador!

Ps.  We are looking forward to the two South-African yachts following in  our sailing steps some time this year,  Shangdu and Freedom,  if there is anything you would like to know,  we would really like to make it easier for you.  Good luck with the most difficult part, to get everything ready!