Fernando de Noronha

This was the second "leg" of our trip.

We spent 6 glorious days on this island.

It is ringed by many beautiful beaches and of course, coral reefs :)

Some of the beaches are difficult to get to, but that just made the adventure all the more fun.

We visited, literally, ALL the beaches. Our son was the map guide to finding them! They were such troopers...sometimes climbing over hot sand or rocks in bare feet, or being so brave and hopping from stone to stone...

all in the quest for the amazing beaches. Here are two of my favorite, but I will post pictures of them all at the end.

On Baia dos Porcos you had to climb up and over some rocks with access from another beach called Cacimba do Padre (soft white sand and expansive was this beach), and what you came to was a beautiful, hidden sanctuary with large jutting rocks and pools and a curious little rodent/squirrel indigenous to the island called a Vespucci, I think. (In other texts, they say this rodent is extinct, but there was something there that looked like it!)

On Praia dos Sanchos you climb down a skinny passageway that they have put two ladders into and come to another amazing, cream colored sand beach.

We took a boat ride on the first day and did a neat activity where they drag you along in the water while you hold onto a large boomerang looking device connected to the back of the boat, breathing on snorkel. We saw turtles and an eel. The kids were loving it! They give you dinner on the boat by grilling on a small grill attached to the back of the boat!

My husband thought this was very cool...and something to consider for our future boat. I let him know, gently, that I am sure that it would not really be allowed to have a fire burning grill on the back of your boat because of Code 1234567, in the maritime laws of the US!

The kids also came on the dive boats with us. I do not have any pictures of our dives because I was trying out my video for the first time. It was amazing, and though I love the pictures, video is so much cooler!! I can actually still enjoy the dive without being so focused on one or two fish/corals/etc that I try to get the perfect picture of. Unfortunately, the video is going to take awhile for me to figure out how to upload it. I promise that I will work it out!

The exciting part of the dives for them was seeing dolphins in the Baia dos Golfinhos...in fact, almost every day we were on a boat we saw dolphins. They saw a shark jump out of the water and they saw turtles. The dive bug has really bit my son, so this summer we are going to see about getting him certified! I am so excited for him and us. We would love to share our passion with our children!

Our pousada, Teju Acu, was amazing. It was small and intimate, yet had a good restaurant, nice pool to relax around and just in a beautiful setting! The people that worked there were so friendly. They new our names by the first evening we were there, and always treated us so well.

My son asked one of the dive masters where to go for a good bite to eat for lunch...figuring the locals know best, right?! Well, he sent them to a place that has good milkshakes:) They were hooked after that...every day we went for a milkshake at TAMAR. This is a project that is very interesting here in Brasil. They are dedicated to saving the marine turtles that nest in and around different shores on this island, and the mainland Brasil. They had a little shop that sold refreshments, including the famous milkshakes on its property. Boy, they were really good!

Click on the name above to find out more about this great group. You can change the language of the website into English or Spanish also....

And just as we thought, our last day was a little sad, but, we didn't know that we still had one adventure left! The owner of our pousada, a Brasilian, but had spent many years in England, led us on an amazing trek. We all went without suspecting that it would be quite as difficult as it was! We had to walk/hop/skip over some rocks. They were slippery where they were wet, they were hot where the sun was blazing on them...

but what we came to was a little paradise!

This clear pool had little fish swimming around, cool water to bathe in and was so hidden that I am not sure anyone would ever know you were there!

It was a perfect ending to such a wonderful journey we all took to a little island called Fernando de Noronha.

The island was quirky...it has it's own rhythm and soul. The people are friendly, the food was pretty good and the views are just amazing!