File:Blue Ridge's first foreign port call, Rio de Janeiro.jpg

Rio de Janerio was Blue Ridge's first foreign port call and the ship got a downtown pier, within a short walk of the bar district. It was a port sailors had noted throughout its history for its women, brews and food. It was not a disappointment, even though it was just beyond Mardi Gras and into Lent. Recent landslides, due to heavy rains, didn't affect the areas of interest. The only negatives were the last gasps of "cinderella liberty" and liberty uniform requirements that most of the crew had to endure, but fortunately our dress whites allowed the short sleeves that wouldn't get into one's bar and table slop. Despite Brazil being a military dictatorship, the people were very friendly, even the police. In uniform, the buses and harbor ferries were free. All of their taxi cabs seemed to be the big and finned early '60's USA models, minus the shocks. [9]

Blue Ridge had organized tours to the Christ the Redeemer statue on Cordova Mountain and the old Royal Summer Capital, Petropolis. The statue tour went up a road that hung to the mountainside of Cordova in a corkscrew pattern that often narrowed to one practical lane of traffic that encouraged its drivers to drive like it was a rally race. The Petropolis tour centered on the old summer Royal Palace of Dom Pedro I, that was turned into the Imperial Museum and required visitors to wear buffing booties over their shoes to protect the mahogany floors. BR's sailors slip and slide approach to the buffing booties, fueled earlier by beer vendors outside the museum quenching the thirst of their bus journey there, kept another tour, of young and pretty Brazilian girls, amused. On the ship's last day in Rio, she opened the ship for all to tour,even the ladies of the bar district came aboard and never had Blue Ridge's mooring compartments smelled so good.