An Atlantic Island Holiday

We stayed 4 days at the Brazilian island Fernando De Noronha. After completing our mainsail repair we were able to tour the island, renting a beat-up buggy and exploring all the tracks and trails.

There are only two paved roads on the island, the rest being either rocks and mud, or sometimes even mud and rocks - no wonder they only rent buggys or trail bikes.




The main village is beautiful, with traditional buildings still serving as the seat of government. The church faces onto a cobblestone square. There were several Portuguese forts on the island, the main one being Remedios, on a strategic hilltop overlooking the town, the port and adjacent beaches. From the fort, Pico Mountain is the next dominant feature along the coast, a near vertical volcanic plug. In the heart of town we could sit on an ancient stone wall along a cobblestone street, in the shade of an ancient tree, surfing the free (!) internet. It wasn't fast, but it got the job done. The internet was a bargain - everything else in the place was breath-takingly expensive.

Of course everything is imported, much of the produce flown in, and the culinary and service standards are very high. This worked in our favour, as we were able to buy limes, lettuce, bananas, carrots, potatoes, green oranges, cucumber and tomato - really the best provisioning since we departed Cape Town. Three and four star resorts are dotted around the island, which is 70% assigned as a marine park and very tightly managed. Diving, snorkeling and deep sea fishing are popular tourist activities. From a cruising perspective this is one of the nicest places we've visited. Everyone was laid back and friendly.

 The anchorage, while open to the north and west, provided smooth water and stable conditions. It was a little rocky, perhaps 40% rock between large sand patches. Our stand-out memory is the gracious and obliging behavior of all the government officials - port, harbour, immigration etc. They were genuinely glad to see us, and keen to assist in any way.

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A Birthday In Brazil

After our arrival at Fernando De Noronha we slept like babies. Ley woke early, and watched the sun rise from the cockpit, while I slept for 10 hours and eventually stumbled on deck later, to survey the anchorage and the island.

Breakfast was bacon and eggs, followed by a “birthday cake” made of toast with blackberry jam. 

We had a very slow morning, launching the dinghy and setting up the outboard motor, washing laundry and generally recovering from the passage.

A local man was fishing from a plastic kayak nearby, using just a hand line. We waved and said hello, he spoke no English, but paddled over to us and handed over four fresh (still alive) beautiful Coral Trout. What a wonderful birthday gift – Fernando De Noronha was already starting to impress us.

Later, we headed ashore to complete immigration and customs formalities, however it was now after midday and we found the port offices were closed – siesta of course! 

Plan B was quickly implemented, and we settled in to a very fine local restaurant overlooking the anchorage and serving wonderful Brazilian specialties.

The beer was cold and the wine was good, the staff provided birthday deserts for us, and we met a fine bunch of Brazilian nationals who were holidaying on the island. Several hours later, with our credit card beaten into submission, we staggered down the hill to report in to the authorities.

At the port office we were welcomed literally with open arms, and started to wade through the many arrival forms and details, though not one of our hosts spoke any English.

The Policia Federale were called, and they arrived after a few minutes to stamp our passports and clear us for immigration.  Fortunately the locals appear to live on strong coffee, and we were plied with small cups of sweet black Brazilian coffee as the process ground onward.

Once our birthdays were recognized it was handshakes and backslaps all round, congratulations and way too much rapid Portugese for us to follow.

By late afternoon we were clear of the formalities and caught a bus to the village, looking for a supermarket and hopefully a motor cycle rental.  The motor cycle didn’t happen, however another friendly local lead us to a mechanics yard where we rented a converted VW beach buggy, the standard form of transport on the island. Of course we had no local money – not a problem they said. Take the car, go now to the ATM at the airport, then come back and pay us later ….. life here is very simple, relaxed and trusting.

South Atlantic Stopover – Fernando De Noronha

Leaving Ascension Island we had a series of small problems (read it here), including an anchor windlass failure and small tear in the luff of the mainsail.

The anchor windlass was easily repaired at sea - carbon dust buildup inside the DC motor end cap was shorting the supply to ground.

However we really wanted a stable platform to setup the sewing machine and handle the mainsail on deck.

Looking ahead at our course across the South Atlantic, we decided to pause our voyage for a few days at Isla Fernando De Noronha, a small tropical island just 3 degrees south of the equator and only a small deviation away from our planned course.

The island, and the surrounding marine park, is part of Brazil and we had had heard it was beautiful, safe and welcoming.

Only a small proportion of the passing cruising sail boats stop here, as it is kind of expensive – port fees and compulsory national park fees add up to around A$130.00 per day, for just the two of us on Crystal Blues. This was balanced by the need to complete repair work on the main sail, plus the possibility of celebrating our birthdays in style…which is exactly what happened!

The passage from Ascension was just on 1100 nautical miles, which we covered in 8 days, arriving at the San Antonio Bay anchorage late afternoon. On approach the island has a lush, green tropical feel and tourist boats of all kind can be seen working out of the small harbor.

We often find dolphins escorting us into new anchorages, but this arrival provided a completely new experience for us – the attack of the Frigate Birds!

A flock of female frigate birds circled us for half an hour, soaring on the updraft from the genoa and attacking our masthead in turn.

Their target was the static charge dissipater (lightning protector) that we have installed there – a stainless steel brush that is grounded to the hull and mast, and works to minimise static charge in the vessel.

The birds were trying to pull the wire bristles out of the fitting whilst hovering, fortunately without success.

Each time the boat rolled to a swell they would lose contact and move off, then turn and make another pass – they were being very persistent. Our friends on the catamaran Ceilydh (blog here) had their masthead wind indicator systematically picked to pieces by a frigate bird some time back.

As we approached the anchorage the birds flew off to other adventures.  We furled sails and motored towards shore, where we anchored on sand in 8 meters of clear water, about 400 meters from the harbor entrance. Perfect.

Relaxing in the cockpit, we could hear the music coming off the shore and watched dive boats returning with day trippers to the beach.

At sundown we settled in for the night, catching up on sleep, looking forward to our Brazilian birthday experience…