Isla dos Abrolhos and Guarapari – Aug 25, 2006
Leaving Porto Seguro, we head some thirty miles out into the open Atlantic to a Brazilian national park, a group of four windblown nearly bare rocky islands called Isla dos Abrolhos, where we anchor in a protected harbor. The islands are uninhabited, and generally uninhabitable, but for a few park personnel who conduct scientific research and operate a lighthouse on the largest of the islands.
By far the most remarkable aspect of this place is the whales. This whole area is a breeding and feeding ground this time of year for humpback whales making their preparations for heading south to Antarctica. In the morning and evening hours, as we gaze out over the wide sea before us, there are blow spouts everywhere you look. Hundreds, maybe thousands of whales are rolling, feeding, breaching, doing the whale thing. One morning, sitting at breakfast, my eye catches a huge whale breaching in the nearby sea, and he repeats this for me three times more just in case I missed the first. Several times while underway, we have to slow or veer to avoid hitting one of these sluggish monsters. As we are preparing to leave the harbor, a momma, daddy and a calf come swimming right up to Indigo chasing schools of krill while lunging through the surf.
From the Abrolhos islands, we head for the town of Guarapari, a smallish city with a fine beach and anchorage. There I go ashore for a lunch of fresh grilled fish served right on the beach with copious quantities of cold beer, and regrettably I’m befriended by a local English speaking guy. Carlos Eduardo is dressed, like nearly all Brazilian men at the beach, in a small tight fitting bathing suit of the speedo variety. That would be okay by normal local standards were it not for the gigantic belly hanging over and largely obscuring the suit, thus bringing to mind the humpback whales I have only recently seen.