As we flew into Fernando de Noronha (an archipelago of 21 islands off Brazil’s East coast) the morning of March 17th, Colin and I were greeted with some fantastic views. We expected it! This island is a special marine park (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site) that only allows 700 visitors in per day. Visitors actually end up making up a bulk of the islands residents, since the population is only around 3,000. Thus it makes a trip here really expensive – think thousands of dollars for just a few days on the island. While the flights cost around $500 USD p/p, there is an environmental tax per person PER DAY ($125 USD p/p for 6 days) and exponential levied on any visitor to the island PLUS (this we did not know beforehand) there is an additional ticket you must purchase to swim at any of the beaches with marine life costing $75 USD p/p, valid for 10 days. On top of the cost of hotels ($75 USD per night for basic) and food, this wasn’t the cheapest 6 days.
Nevertheless, it was 6 days spent in paradise, and the island really is jam-packed with marine life. Sharks, stingrays, large tree rats, rock cavies, (think: slightly larger chinchilla looking mammals,) spinner dolphins, turtles, eels, all kinds of exotic fish, birds, giant colorful lizards, and beautiful corals! This scenic island was discovered by the Portuguese in 1503, and spent the next 300 years bouncing between the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and finally, Brazil’s control. Once Brazil finally had control, they put a prison on the island in the 1800s and cleared it of its forest that covered it to better spot the prisoners.
Once we landed we had an immediate problem with money: there was only 1 set of ATMs on the island we could use with our foreign card, and that was at the airport. We took some out but knew we have to return since most things on the island would need to be paid in cash. After paying our fees and collecting our welcome pack, we grabbed a taxi to our (thankfully, with AC) home for the next days: Casa da George. Getting out along a quite muddy street, we arrived at our homestay which was actually a room in ex-pat George’s house and got ourselves settled in and unpacked. We took a short walk down the hill (it was a huge hill though, not very fun to walk back up!) to grab a burger and some groceries from the local market (called ‘Breakfast’) – as we had a fridge in George’s place, we thought it would save some money to stock up on some food.
The next afternoon (the 18th) we decided to start our adventures exploring the island. With our rented snorkels from George, we head off, grabbing the bus outside George’s place and heading to Sueste Bay. Initially, we were surprised by having to pay the beach entrance fee (which is the $75 USD card I previously mentioned) here and were a bit thrown off. This was made even worse by the seemingly instantaneous rain we encountered as soon as we made it into the water, after having rented lifejackets and our other gear. Retreating inside for an ice-cream, we decided to risk waiting out the rain since we had come all the way from town for this beach. Turns out it was really worth the wait!
Colin and I weren’t sure what we’d find in the water, and after an hour of waiting in a damp enclosure while it poured outside on our dream island, we wanted it to be something awesome. We walked down to the buoyed-off section of the beach and headed into the water. We weren’t in more than a couple of minutes before Colin told me to get out of the water, quick! He said he had seen a shark swimming near me. Confused, since I was only 10 feet into the water from the shore, I started to walk back out when I saw a shark myself! It didn’t look very big – I would later learn it was a baby lemon shark – but I had never been in open waters with a shark before! Especially one I didn’t expect to be there! As we rushed back out of the water, we were again surprised. Trying to avoid the shark, Colin and I almost stepped on a stingray! We looked back into the water and saw two stingrays, a baby about the size of a medium pizza and a momma stingray which was a HUGE saucer… at least 3 feet x 3 feet. Its’ long stinger trailed behind it, easily hidden by the sand and seaweed around us. Close calls!
I found out later that stingrays are actually related to sharks! So between the rays and the lemon sharks we were basically at a big family reunion. 
The rest of the afternoon was spent running along the shores, spotting baby sharks and tracking momma and baby stingrays. We even got to watch these huge (and determined) birds ‘dive-bombing’ themselves into the water, chasing fish. Every so often there would be a splash and the fish (large groups of sardines) would literally jump away from the birds out of the water. As the day went on and we realized the baby sharks didn’t seem very dangerous, we ventured a bit further into the water. It wasn’t very difficult to swim/snorkel with the sharks because the group we saw that day (perhaps 12-15 different little sharks who continuously circled around the area) stayed very close to the shore for hours, napping up fish just a couple of feet from the sand. From Colin’s shark attack database he found, we knew that there were no reported shark attacks on the island, but we were still a bit timid and careful around the little sharks at first. After all, they are still sharks with teeth! (In fact, I later found out that there have only been 22 lemon shark attacks since 1508, and none of them resulted in deaths.)
Later I would learn that the baby lemon sharks we saw can grow up to 10 feet in length. I don’t know too much about sharks (although, I’m learning) but they looked like mini Great Whites to me with their grey skin and flat heads. Interestingly, they are named after their ‘citrus gland’ from which they spray out a lemon-fresh scent to attract fish for dinner. Hmm… sharks that smell like they’ve been swimming in a bath of lemon-scented Pledge. Since Sueste Bay is surrounded by mangroves, it is understandable that we saw lemon sharks there, as this is a common area for young lemon sharks to grow up in. We didn’t have to worry too much about the older lemon sharks, as they go to deeper water away from the shore as they get bigger.
That evening we picked up groceries along with some laundry detergent, as we had tried to get the laundry done earlier in the day with no luck. (Who charges more than $40 USD to do one medium load of laundry?) The morning of the 19th I worked on my MBA dissertation (still hanging over my head!) while Colin figured out how to work George’s old-school washing machine, then hanging our clothes out to dry. Laundry and schoolwork, all with an amazing view of the mountains and beach!
Once the laundry was done, we decided to make the best of the rest of the day and try and see some turtles at Leao Beach, which we thought would have turtles swimming near the shore. Turns out that the tide is actually a total nightmare, but more about that in a minute. We went to the airport first to try and get more cash out (seriously, come prepared if you come here – you can’t rely on the ATMs) which failed since the machine was out of money. Already? It was only 1 pm…
After a bus ride to Leao Beach (which is just near Sueste Bay) we thankfully hitched a ride with a couple of friendly tourists on the walk uphill, saving us a load of effort. The beach was absolutely breathtaking, hardly a soul on it. After the rocky climb down to the sand we realized we could see turtle tracks running everywhere, and certain parts of the beach were marked off where the turtles had/were going to lay their eggs during the evening. Colin and I tried to swim, but it was the roughest tide I’ve ever been in, really throwing us around. Without a lifeguard in site, we decided to stick to the shallower small fish-filled pools just up from the actual ocean. Once it started to get dark we walked back to Sueste and got a taxi from there. One shower later and we were treating ourselves to dinner with loads of sides at a restaurant in the main square of town called Flamboyant. Quite pricey, but delicious food served platter-style.
Once we got to Sancho Beach we thought our luck was off – it was raining again, almost straight away! Thankfully in these months, the rain lasts just a short while, and we walked down the path leading to the views and the ocean. What no one told us was how difficult it is to actually get down to the beach! We had to climb down two (not so stable-looking) ladders situated right against the rock face of the cliff. Then we had a long walk down a ton of rocks to get to the sand.
The benefit of this walk was the nature we got to spot along the way. There were tons of lizards everywhere, some that were massive Iguana-sized lizards. They had a beautiful sheen on them which made them look almost ‘mother-of-pearl’ in their rainbow iridescent. I think they are called Tegu lizards and the story goes that they were introduced to the island to combat the rat infestation, but this failed because of their different sleeping patterns. (The animals aren’t awake at the same time!) On the way back up from the beach we actually saw two large wild rats running around on the trees, which I’m guessing were the rats the lizards were supposed to control.
We also saw these cute little furry bunny-looking mammals which instantly reminded me of chinchillas. We thought they might be capybara, but they looked too small. Turns out they are called rock cavies, which were sadly introduced by the Brazilian military in the 1960s as, get this, a HUNTING game for soldiers. Poor little things!
We finally got down to the beach and tried out the water. Another really rough tide! After a while of struggling, we realized we couldn’t get out to the good snorkeling spots without more help and decided to reserve the snorkeling in the Sancho area for the upcoming boat trip. After a bit of laying in the sun, we braved the rock path and ladders back up to the showers to cool off with drinks before heading to the other side of the area – Dolphin or Golfinho Bay. We discovered we were the only ones at the look out point after the walk down, giving us plenty of time to admire the view and try and spot some dolphins!
That evening we returned to Flamboyant for another delicious platter. we just couldn’t resist a second visit, the first was so good! We did try and get to bed early that evening because the next morning we were going to go to one of the shallow pools for a snorkel. Plans ended up changing however (turns out you have to be pre-booked for the pools as only 100 people are allowed in per day and they all arrive at 7 am, and we re-arranged for the following morning) and we took the boat ride instead.
Turned out to be a fantastic idea! It was a gorgeous morning and we were in bright spirits when they picked us up and brought us out to the boat at the port. We were ready once we had our gear rented and some water for the ride!
This journey was supposed to be in two parts; the first for spotting spinner dolphins and snorkeling in Sancho Bay and the second for a special sport-type of snorkeling I had never heard of before, with a light lunch of sashimi and rice in between. Towards the start of the boat trip one of the guides called us all downstairs to see the spinner dolphins. We looked over the front of the boat and realized that there were about 10 of them, likely more on the sides of the boat, and they were just swimming and jumping around us. Unlike bottlenose dolphins, which I’ve swam with before, these spinner dolphins looked to be a lot slimmer to me, and even faster. Their coloration was also different – dark on the top and a lighter gray for their underbelly. Their noses also seemed to be more pointy than other dolphins I’ve seen. They swam so fast, and seemed to be having a lot of fun trying to keep up with each other and the boat. They are called ‘spinner’ dolphins because they apparently spin when they leap out of the water, sometimes doing 2 to 5 spins while airborne!
The next part of the boat trip was the exciting part I was really waiting for: planasub! This ‘sport’ involves being dragged behind a boat on a long rope on a short boogie-board which enables one to look down at the water and see all the fish below. Hanging onto the board also lets you dive and turn with it, dragging yourself to the right, left, and even deep under the water in a kind of deep free-diving, which lets you reach water levels somewhere between snorkeling and scuba-diving. This technique was supposedly invented by a Brazilian fishing engineer who was also a former shark hunter. Apparently, in order to fund his shark museum on the island, he invented this sport.
Colin wasn’t feeling too well, so I got to have two chances behind the board. I fell in love with this technique straight away! I got to move the board, diving feet under the water and then zooming myself back up again. I even tried to dive deep while turning, the more advanced move. Do not miss this if you go to the island! My new favorite thing, and definitely the best way to snorkel the waters – no swimming, no treading water, no flippers or life-jackets! As we were going through the water I managed to spot 3 large turtles!
Interestingly, when I was looking at one of the turtles I noticed there was something strange under the water. It looked like large underwater piping – a ship wreck, known as one of the most spectacular in the world! This massive ship just under the water is the Corveta Ipiranga V17. This ship is a 56 meter long Brazilian warship built in 1953 by the Marinha do Brasil. It sunk 30 years later in 1983 after hitting an unmarked object, sinking almost totally intact. As we were pulled over the ship I looked down and marveled at it – truly stunning.
Since the boat trip took the entire day, we decided I would run out and grab some take-away for us that evening so we could relax in the hotel. The morning of the 22nd our guide took us to Atalaia Beach, making sure we were one of the few that got in to the shallow snorkeling pool. This pool is so delicate that you aren’t allowed to wear any sunscreen in it, as that would harm the ecosystem. We were also timed while we were in the pool, as there is a strict limit for people of 30 minutes in the water. Nevertheless, we still saw quite a few creatures while there: different colored crabs, another lemon shark, tons of fish schools. Colin even told me he saw an eel!
Later that afternoon, Colin and I headed back to Sueste Bay to get in a bit more time with the sharks and stingrays. By this point we were familiar with the sharks and so comfortable with them that we ran straight into the water, relaxed about being in there with them swimming around our legs. We even got in some more snorkeling, heading further out along the side of the mangroves past the sharks. We figured out that around lunchtime is when the birds start dive-bombing for fish, when they arrived shortly after we ate our own lunch under the umbrella Colin set up in the sand to shade us.
The next morning was our departure day, but we weren’t supposed to leave until around 4 pm that afternoon, so we decided to get in more time at more of the natural pools. These two pools were special ones in an area called Caieira, and the round-trip was supposed to take 4 hours due to the difficult walk over rocks we had to endure. (There were even cactus lining the hills near the rocks, so it really proved a challenge!) While it took a lot of effort to get to these pools, it was totally worth it. They had some of the best snorkeling I’ve ever seen, and certainty the best on the island. There were two pools, the first was huge with lots of drops or ‘levels’ of colorful coral filled with hiding fish interested in our every move. There was even another shark I spotted in this pool! I focused on getting as many amazing pictures as possible… and I think it worked. Check them out:
Once we left the water, our guide brought us over to a place in the rocks where something was stuck. Upon a closer look, we discovered it was an eel! He told us it was a moray eel, and while it looked scary it also looked quite beautiful with its brown and yellow pattern. The eel was probably around 2 feet in length and kept moving around, showing off its creepy mouth and long body. It was trying to wiggle and jump but since the water level was so low it was literally beached in between the rocks and sand trying to go after little fish. We wondered if we should help it in some way, but the guide told us the water level would soon rise again, bringing the eel back out to sea. That’s fine with us – looked too freaky to try and move the thing!
The second pool we went to really showed me how amazing the reefs are – and how similar they are to complex cities! This pool was filled with these deep drops, and if you slowed down and stayed still for a while, the fish would come out from their hiding places and ‘business as usual’ would continue for the reef. With their different shapes, sizes, and unique ‘homes’ they each had, it looked really cosmopolitan in a way!
After the long and careful (moving so slowly because of the many large, sharp rocks and our wet feet!) hike back to the main street and a taxi ride back to George’s house, we showered up and got everything packed for the flight out to Sao Lois. We let George know that we would come back to pick up our stuff after a quick burger in town… or so we thought.
I’ll let Colin tell you the next part of the story:
---------------------------Colin’s post---------------------------------
It was very hot and I was feeling sunburnt and wanted to get out of the sun ASAP. We were walking quickly to the restaurant we had visited before to get some burgers when I heard Francesca slip behind me and let out a scream. It sounded like a bad one and I turned to see her holding her knee and try and get a good look at it. We both saw the bone at the same time. We both freaked out initially, Francesca screaming and crying in shock and pain, and m running over to her and trying to get a look at it. I realized when I saw the blood pouring out onto the floor that it was serious, so I ripped of my nice blue shirt, buttons pinging all over the place, and used it as a tourniquet whilst shouting for an ambulance. Luckily the accident was on the main high street of the center of town and there were lots of people who quickly made themselves useful. I had one woman sitting down giving Francesca water and stroking her head and cooling her down with Francesca’s head in her lap; two other guys were ensuring she didn’t fall off he sidewalk into the meter deep waterway next to the road. I was holding the leg elevated and had at least stopped the bleeding, much to Francesca’s dismay, poor girl. The island hospital was a stone’s throw away so the ambulance turned up within minutes, mercifully. I marshaled one local waiter translate to the medics on scene what had happened. They were not taking any chances and got Francesca placed on a body board, so any head or neck injury would not be exacerbated. I was holding my shirt up now as a sun block, so she would not get too hot, as hey had removed the shirt and added a compress to the wound. We piled in the ambulance and set off to hospital. A short bumpy ride, we were there within minutes.
The doctor spoke a little English, so I was able to find out what was going on from him. We had Francesca x-rayed (no breaks, so very lucky – one of the medics on scene told me she thought the leg was broken), and then into theatre for 6 local anesthetics and 6 sutures to the leg wound. I managed to keep Francesca distracted long enough for her natural bravery to shine through. She handled the pain and the situation really well, I think. I had visions of flying back to the States, or worse, botched hospital jobs, or lost limbs, etc. Luckily nothing like that occurred, and her leg is even now healing nicely. I replace the bandage everyday, and can see it improving. We were really lucky. The stone she landed on cut through the skin, but did not chip or fracture any bones or damage any ligaments or tendons which are present all around the kneecap. Also, the locals on the scene were fantastic, so a big thanks to all who helped us out, especially the medics and doctors at the hospital. The hospital being so close was really lucky – considering earlier that day we were clambering over rocks and loose wet pebbles an hour away from the road. It could have been worse – lesson learned – pay attention to what you are doing, and walk slower! We are now planning on getting Francesca some new good walking boots – her ones were to blame for the fall, as they are too old now to give ankle support.
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Needless to say, because of my accident we flew back to Recife instead of on to Sao Luis, having to cancel our flight with TAM (warning – they won’t give credit or change flights unless you pay a lot more) and book into a hotel back in Recife instead. We knew that outside of Sao Paulo, Recife was known to have the best hospitals in Brazil, and just in case we decided to stay in the city until my knee was a bit better. We ended up resting and going to Hospital Esperanca, a private hospital near our hotel. They checked it out and determined everything was fine; the previous doctor had done a good job stitching me up. At least the downtime spent resting in the hotel in Recife allowed me to finish and submit my MBA dissertation – finally! Because of the accident, we had to go to the police station in Recife to extend our visas in order to make sure we would still have enough time to finish our Brazil plans – which is actually where we are heading off to right now! Update you later on where our next journey will be!
Francesca
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