Hence in the early hours of Sunday morning, divining from gribs, synoptic charts, incomprehensible weather reports in Spanish and the sacrifice of a goat, that we could make a quick trip down to Punta del Este, we decided to set off. Unfortunately, as it was Sunday morning, it took us until almost 9 am to rouse the necessary officials to complete our port check out paper work and get underway.
A side note on the Falklands and Brazil inshore counter current: at various times of the year, there is a cold water current that essentially sets N/NE along the coast of South America from the Falklands as far north as Rio. The planning information we had gathered indicated that rates of about half a knot are most common and while there was a footnote that higher rates have been recorded we had accepted half a knot as the price of going south in spring. The reality has been that while we might have had half a knot in Rio, by the time we'd reached Rio Grande it was closer to 2 kts and then has been between 1 and 2,5 depending upon weather ever since.
So the combination of the now be-damned Falklands and Brazil inshore counter current, winds on our nose, as opposed to the forecast wind on our beam, and the late start, saw us preparing to round Punta del Este about 2 hours after sunset instead of 2 hours before.
Attempting to discern visually the cardinal buoys and channel markers against the backdrop of Uruguay's answer to Las Vegas, was somewhat of a challenge. However, we finally entered the mooring field outside the harbour whereupon deciding that discretion is a better part of valour, we hooked up to the first buoy we could find and promptly went to bed.
The morning saw us parking the rib at the dinghy dock adjacent to the yacht club's launch in the company of three gigantic sea lions who we were to learn, regard this parking area, as both their bedroom and sun deck.
After completing the now familiar dance with the navy, customs, immigration and port authorities we declined the ports generous offer of charging us twice the already expensive rate of a berth as they were obviously expecting two to three hundred vessels to arrive in the next 48 hours...
Punta del Este itself is clearly a high end tourist destination in season (mid dec to mid feb) and while around 30% of places were open and there were a few out of season tourists, the prices reflected the fact that the entire town has to cash up in less than a quarter of a year. So after enjoying an excellent meal at El Secreto Restaurant, stocking up on DVDs at the large American style mall and deciding that we much rather be plugged in to shore power where we could run the heaters, we checked out yesterday to head for Piriapolis this morning.
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