I spent the whole long five months of my summer break quite productive upgrading and updating my two ice cream shops in Husum Markt 2 und Husum Hafenstraße 11, plus rebuilding my x-mas shop in Husum Markt 2 which opened when we closed the ice cream shop on October 14th.

Once done, I could fly off on October 16th, to look again into my paddling job to finally finish the big task to get around South America!

Mentally, it’s always a big change to be back to one or the other job. Fortunately I still like all three of them! Physically, I have recovered easy from the paddling stress, to go directly into the “shifting boxes” stress, loading and decorating the about 50 single shelves in my x-mas shop with about 4500 different items in over 125 000 single pieces out of over 50 Euro pallets of newly arrived stuff plus the leftovers from last year…a BIG puzzle I love to do. THINK BIGGER…

What am I expecting now being back in Brazil? About 1000 km of strong headwinds between constantly 15-20 knots (only, if I’m lucky…), before the shark infested corner at Recife marks a turning point in wind direction and speed.

When I usually calculate for 1000 km one months of paddling, I expect this time to make less than half the speed – with luck, 15-20 km per day. The counter current will decrease with the distance, but by now it will still be quite noticeable with Sao Luis with 7m of tidal range being still so close.

I am hoping to reach Recife by x-mas. But I’m also hoping  my loved, but by now quite weak and frail 89-old mother at home is hanging in there, being in hospital quite often now, as she wanted to last at least to the end of my trip and beyond. I had a hard time to leave her as I was also looking after her quite intensely the last months. Being the only daughter in Germany (my sister lives in England), this was my fourth job…

In Sao Luis airport, I got picked up by my proven crew of Jadiel and Lucas plus friends, even at 2 am in the night. Thanks to all of them to look after me so well! My kayak is doing all right, lots of repair spots, but still floating (I hope… 🙂 )

We went food shopping last night, after dropping me at a dentist at late 7.30 pm to glue back a piece of tiny ceramic-gold filling in one tooth which unfortunately fell out chewing some sticky candy. It was a modern looking building with about 20 or more dentists to chose from, mostly all still working so late at Friday night, but I felt a bit sorry this didn’t happen already at home… it was an interesting experience at a Brazilian dentist. Did we catch the wrong door to rather see a mason? It somehow felt like it… well, no complaints, I have a somewhat re-inserted filling now… 🙂

The plan to get me back on the water is quite adventurous – they will not only drive me back to the city of Humberto de Campo where I finally stopped paddling back up a river for a day, but also catch a boat at Humberto de Campo to drive to Puerto de la Cruz on the other side of the river a bit downstream, stay over night in a posada , and take a four-wheel truck to drive back to the spot on the beach where I had to turn around. Hope we’ll not get stuck in the sand and my kayak will survive the ride! At least this will save me two or more days of paddling…

It is hot as hell here, well over 30 degrees, and humid, but no rain. And – did I forget to mention it is a bit windy…?? At least my skin is healed perfectly, my physical condition is ok, I am fattened up to the max to have some reserves, but I have to get a bit more motivation to go through hell before I hit the eaiser and lovely coast south of Recife… same procedure as always!