Fernando de Noronha is located just 200nm off the Brazilian coast, and is an archipelago consisting of a total of 21 islands. It is on the Unesco Natural World Heritage list and the whole area is a Marine National Park. This means it is a well protected and pristine place with a delicate ecosystem, which also means restricted access to many locations and activities.
There are only 400 tourists allowed to arrive on the island every day. This means that everything is targeted towards the few and privileged – ergo very pricy. It costs app. EUR 100 daily in fees for us and the boat just to be at anchor. And another EUR 60 per person to get an access pass to the area of the island defined as a National Park.
We rented a beach boogie one day and toured the main island, which is the only one that is inhabited. We purchased the extra access card, so we could visit the national park sites, which mainly consist of beaches and hiking trails. We saw some beautiful beaches and one of them, Praia do Sancho, had the most peculiar access we have ever experienced. You had to climb a ladder which was located in the middle of the cliffs to get to the beach. It was steep and narrow, and definitely not for the claustrophobic ones.
Bruse had fun body surfing in the big waves that came crashing down on the beach. It is particularly big swells here right now, which means the visibility in the water is not the best. It is normal for December and January, which also makes snorkeling and diving not ideal right now. Inside the national park sites, it is not allowed to access the water in most of the places, to protect the animal life.
There are a lot of turtles and spinner dolphins here, and they come very close to our boat. We experience some great entertainment from them almost every morning. We are not allowed to swim with them, and was instructed that we should immediately hop onto our boat if they appeared while we were in the water, otherwise we would be fined. They are pretty serious about protecting the area, for sure.
We have made our best efforts to decorate the boat for Xmas. We brought with us some decorations from Norway, and enjoy our little “nisser”, ribbons and glitter.
We are only three boats here, and one of them happen to be another Norwegian boat! What are the odds… They are four Norwegian twenty year old girls who have sailed all the way from Norway in a 31 foot monohull. Pretty impressive! We invited them over for drinks and tuna sashimi on Xmas Eve.
It turned out that Iben, the captain, is the grand daughter of a Norwegian circumnavigator, Carl Emil Pedersen, who has been a big inspiration to Bruse as he read his book about sailing the world as a child. Really a group of gutsy ladies, and we wish them all the best on their continued journey!
We have enjoyed lots of great food while here, some on the boat, and some at the very pricy restaurants onshore. We have splurged a little more than usual, as the prices on the restaurants are as steep as in Norway. But, with a very nice Xmas present from parents, we treated ourselves to it 😊 Thank you for the present!
As we see that rain is on the horizon, we are planning our departure a few days earlier than planned. We were originally planning on going straight to the Caribbean, but after some research, we have decided to stop by French Guiana and possibly Suriname.
Follow our next passage on the captain’s logbook.
PS: Carine’s cell phone decided to shut down a few days in on our stay here, so therefore we have fewer pictures than normal 🥲