Sailing the day away…

Today was our last full day of Paraty. And we wanted to make the most out of it. Our day started with a wonderful breakfast (see yesterday’s blog). Well-fed, we then headed onto a schooner cruise. Our boat, known as Rei Cigano, was run by a friendly, knowledgable family. We were the only non-Brazilians on the schooner, however the hostess was wonderful, translating most important things into English for us. The schooner left the piers of Paraty for the beautiful blue-green waters, with the verdant, green mountains as a backdrop.

We were not the only ones on the waters on this beautiful day…

After a little bit, our boat anchored to allow us to dive off the boat and into the waters to swim with the fishes. The Brasileros didn’t waste anytime to jump into the waters, however, given that I don’t swim and definitely don’t dive, I was very happy to watch everyone else go crazy.

Another schooner doing what our schooner just did. We saw some hilarious belly flops from people jumping off this schooner!

We then proceeded to a beautiful beach. However, to get from the schooner to the beach, there were 2 options: swim (see the last paragraph) or take a little raft boat. We squeezed onto the little inflatable raft which was an adventure in itself with the waves! But I’m happy to say that we made it to and from shore okay, with myself and my camera intact. (Our quote of the day: “Save the camera, save the world!” – for you Heroes fans out there…) The beach was beautiful, with nice sand and we were happy to engage in a bit of sunbathing.

Ro taking the little inflatable life raft to the shore. She was fortunate – there were 8 people stuffed into ours!