Fernando

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16^th - 19^thFebruary

Arrived Fernando 16^th Feb about 3pm and as the customs etc werent' working, we just anchored out in the bay and settled down. Tinopai had already been ashore and informed us and told us that we could go in at 8am in the morning. It is very expensive to Anchor at Fernando – you have to pay anchoring fee and tourist fee. So for 3 days it cost us 770 Real. We went to the bank to try and get some money for them there, but found out that it's a local bank only and international cards do not work there. Luckily a lady who was doing her banking there spoke very good english and could help us out. As we were leaving I asked her if she knew where we could hire a buggy. Not many cars on the island, mostly just buggys (tough ones tho not golf buggies). She phoned a friend, but he was all booked out – so she offered us her car. She drove us back to her place and showed us how it worked and for R100 we had her car for 24hrs. Maria didn't know us from a bar of soap and was willing to give us her car for 24hrs. Time to explore the island!! There is one main road that is bitumen and a few minor streets, but all the rest are just dirt tracks, some of them very rocky and most full of potholes. We found out that if we wanted to visit the 'private beaches' we would have to pay a national park fee R100 per person. At the first beach, we decided that we really didn't need to pay that money and would just explore the 'free beaches' and the forts. The island is very rugged and looking out to sea, from the forts, you can see why they were built in such positions (although I don't know if Fernando came under attack – will have to google that one) Next morning Boomerang arrived. I”d been up at 4am to check AIS as we knew they'd be in soon and then at 0530 phil was up and saw them approaching. He called them up on the radio to guide them in as there are very long mooring lines all over the place. It was all clear if they came in right behind us and dropped their anchor there. The roll in the bay is massive, at least 2m so getting from the zodi onto boat is very very difficult. Not a comfortable last night, we were glad to be up and away in the morning and out to a more comfortable sea. Because of the roll, stowing the zodi took so much longer than usual. We were away by about 9am.

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