Fernando De Noronha, Brazil

Mariana is a great travel buddy because she plans meticulously, Cris and I on the other hand tend to just “wing it” so it was a good hybrid for us. If you know me, you know that I love Scuba diving so that was a big part of my plan for the trip, and I was not disappointed!! Mariana is not a big fan of diving but we did manage to get her in the water, possibly only because of an extremely hot dive instructor, but that’s neither here nor there. And for Cris, he got the best of both worlds, diving and exploring. 

We stayed at a great little B&B on a little hill near town called Pousada Mar Aberto. It was a perfect home base for our trip, close to town and to a bus stop so we could move around the island without a car. Within walking distance, there were many shops and restaurants so we had plenty to choose from close by.

As I normally do when I am near the ocean, I immediately sought out a dive shop. After a bit of research I settled on Atlantis Divers, a PADI shop whose equipment and boats were new and well maintained, as well as the above mentioned hot instructor! I spent the mornings that week diving and the conditions couldn’t have been better. There are so many turtles, sharks, and other marine life because the islands are a protected maritime national park. While I did enjoy the reefs and drift dives, the most memorable dive I did was to the Corveta V-17. The Corveta is a 56 meter (183 foot) Brazilian warship that sank in 1983 and now sits mostly intact 62 (203 feet) meters below the surface of the ocean. This dive is incredible! The Corveta V-17 is sitting upright at the bottom of the ocean and is almost exactly as it was prior to sinking, there are even still clothes in the closets! Diving to that depth is also a different kind of experience, I was super nervous the day before. I had never dove with side mount trimix tanks, and I certainly had never been that deep underwater before. I couldn’t take my camera because at that depth the pressure of the ocean would have crushed the case! All my anxiety was put to rest the moment I hit the water, descending the mooring line was easy and soon the Corveta was in front of us. We circled around the deck and the wheelhouse and finally to the propeller for a quick photo, we only had about 18 minutes to be at the wreck depth so everything went quite quickly.  Once our time was up we began to ascend back to the surface, and because of the escaping nitrogen from your body, the way up took longer than the time we were at the bottom. About halfway through our ascent, we could hear whales singing in the distance, and one of the divemasters told me that they have seen whales passing while waiting on the line! Once back on terra firma I caught up with Mariana and Cris and spent the rest of the day, probably to their annoyance,  talking about the dive.