Lady O!

A big part of Brazil will stay with me forever, wherever I go. It was an amazing 2 years in São Paulo with my even more amazing Brazilian colleagues at Randstad.
Pessoal, muito obrigada por tudo !
As a tribute to all of them, see the collage of some of their tattoos at the bottom of this post.

But as those Brazilian friends like to put it : “ano novo, vida nova“. So on December 20th, 2019 I set foot on board Orinocotoo – O2 for family & friends – for the very first time. What can I say ? She is a Lady and my Captain and I are the Tramps. We both love her very much and we plan to take very good care of her.

The end of the year 2019, we celebrated in Lisboa, in search of azulejos & pastéis de Belém. And although My Captain and our friend Maxime listened with childlike wonder to a rendition of der schonen blauen Donau on Lisboa’s Praça do Comércio, it was on the rather brownish but never the less beautiful river Tagus that -together with our brother Simon – we sailed into the year 2020. Under the Bridge and past Henry the Navigator who was pointing us in the right direction.

In Lagos (not Nigeria, but Portugal), O2 was hauled out of the water for a final finetuning and setting right of important shortcomings: leaking escape hatches and drill holes were replaced, extra shelves were put in cupboards, and both our engines got a revision. It was a happy coming and going of very skilled craftsmen and technicians who all did an excellent job with a lot of passion, purpose and joy.

My favorites were the Brazilians, of course. (Brazilians are all over the place, I felt very much at home) . The young easy-going guy who patiently and mindfully polished the “scar” into oblivion. And Gilberto, the very savvy & very outspoken engine expert who strongly advised my Captain to do away with the 2 extra filters he so carefully had installed before.

In order to convince my reluctant Captain of the necessity, Gilberto enthusiastically mimicked how the engines felt strangulated with the extra filters cutting the free diesel flow. With one hand over his nose & mouth, he stifled himself, with his other hand he groped for his chest while hyperventilating & rolling his eyes. We got the message. And as Gilberto set himself to work, he added with happy mischief that the technician who had sold my Captain the too-many-filters solution in the first place, surely must have been a distant relative of Bolsonaro.

And that’s how we got ourselves ready to go with our Lady O ! Portugal is a perfect jumping-off point for an ocean passage: the entire coast breathes maritime history and excitement of adventure & discovery. The literary writings are all over the place on white washed walls.
To quote the Brazilian explorer, sailor and writer Amyr Klink:
“The sea is not an obstacle: it is a passage way …. “

So let’s slip the mooring lines and hoist the sails !

Ode to Brazil and the Brazilian lust for life .