Southern Seas 2010
So far this deployment has gone without a hitch, and with only a few minor setbacks. We embarked April 5th on a 6 month deployment to carry out a mission to bring together the countries and territories within South America with us in the attempt to help each other strive for peace with our areas of responsibility throughout the world.
So far on this deployment we’ve stopped in St. Lucia, part of the East Carribeans, who welcomed us warmly and shared with us freely what others pay thousands of dollars to see. The island is absolutely beautiful from a few miles out while the lines were being prepared to moor, you can see all the upper-class cottages and resorts littered all over the mountain range as well as the bustling city center that lined the harbor we moored to. At the time of our visit the tourism season was over, which meant a lot of the resort-areas were in repair or construction and the shops that most of us sailors were looking for (wifi shops, local food markets, bars) were closed down. In countries like these, the service isn’t anywhere like the service in America. Here the service is for the people that own the shops, not the consumer. You grab your own menu, food, and bring up your own check. Surprisingly so the exchange rate here was around $EC 2.00 = $1.00 USD, everything was dirt cheap and came in large portions than they normally would back home.
Our second stop was Fortaleza, Brasil. Even when the radar has only just recently picked up the shore, we’re on deck with our lines watching as the shoreline grew and grew. The area reminds me a lot like Washington, D.C. In which the buildings are limited to a certain height, in Fortaleza the buildings are still relatively tall but they all seemed to max out around 12 stories. The population according to the government there was only about 3 million, but the size of the city could easily hold 3 times that much. This area had a very sharp line where the high-level of commerce snapped into the slums (only took a single city block), although it seemed as though all classes mingled freely in all areas. Directly off the beach before the main strip there was a large bizarre that carried on after sunset, much like something you’d see at any flea market. At a certain time you could see dozens of vendors with their pull-carts (think of the same thing you’d see a donkey pull, without the donkey) start all merging into there little plots on the boardwalk, its an interesting way these people make and break each day.
Salvador, Brasil was our third port, and it was damn sure interesting. The tide was low and the weather was beautiful, no clouds at all. The weather is an interesting thing when you’re this close to the equator, regardless of how much cloud cover you have the sun’s rays still can burn you in a matter of minutes and the rain is as random as can be. This port was scheduled as a working port leaving us quite a bit low in morale, but a little ass busting gets anything done in a timely manner. I managed to get my liberty Thursday and enjoyed every minute of it. The ice cream so far in these countries is phenomenal, its truly interesting to see how all these different places to things so differently yet the idea is all the same. The exchange rate here, as was in Fortaleza, was $R 1.47 = $1.00 USD, allowing us to spend a little bit more than back in St. Lucia. This being a very high-crimed area, we were advised to stay where ever our ship-sponsored transport took us, and not to wander far. Fortunately on the way to these spots are normally always a wifi shop and the price is normally decent (here its $R 4.00).