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MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Mossel Bay has been host to a sailor from Madeira for the past two weeks.
He wanted to sail around the world, but the lockdown delayed his voyage.
Henrique Afonso (58) docked at Richard's Bay on 20 October. He had come from Reunion Island.
He left Madeira, a archipelago west of Morocco, on 15 January 2019 and crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, docking at the Dutch island, Curaçao, which is part of the ABC islands. Here he discovered long lost family.
Photo gallery: Madeira sailor in Mossel Bay
Special cargo
On his yacht, a nine-metre fibreglass Jeanneau Attalia, which dates to the 1980s, he has a special cargo: two 100-litre barrels of wine. The sealed barrels are made of old French oak.
Madeira, an automonous region of Portugal, is famous for its wine and has a long tradition of exporting wine overseas, such as to India, in exchange for spices and other goods. This dates back to the 1800s.
Wine that was not sold, was returned to Madeira. It was discovered this wine matured quickly. On the transatlantic trips and with two crosses through the tropics, the wave motion and the temperature variations speeded up the ageing of a particular grape variety and the wine had exceptionally good qualities.
After the trip around the globe the wine sold at high prices. It was called Vinho de Roda, meaning "round trip wine".
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Tradition
So, reviving an old tradition, the two barrels of wine on Afonso's boat are undergoing a special maturing process before being returned to Madeira. Afonso is also carrying two cases of beer from Madeira on the yacht.
When Afonso crossed the Panama Canal, he spent 26 days on the boat alone. Because of Covid-19 he was locked down for six months in East Timor. Afonso made friends with José Manuel Ramos-Horta, who was the former president of East Timor and co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.
Afonso had to sit put there, "waiting for the world to open up" and lockdown regulations to ease. Then he heard that "one place in the world had opened" at which he could dock - Reunion Island, so he set sail and arrived there 36 days later.
Afonso had planned to only stay in Mossel Bay for a week, but this turned into two weeks. He had engine problems which had to be attended to here.
Daughter
His boat, Sofia do Mar, is named after his three-year-old daughter, Sofia.
At places he has docked, people have called him the pirate from Madeira. Afonso has been embraced by the Portuguese community in Mossel Bay and he is impressed to have even met ex-Madeirans here. He says the Portuguese in Mossel Bay have been fabulously hospitable but he has indulged too much in wine and tobacco. "I will be detoxing when I am back on the sea," Afonso says.
He foresees that the most difficult part of his trip, weatherwise, will be from Mossel Bay to Cape Town. He is not sure where he will sail to from Cape Town, he says, complaining about lockdown restrictions.
On his trip he has been given messages in bottles to take back to Madeira.
See Afonso's Facebook page.
Afonso with one of the barrels of wine.
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