Diving and Surfing in Brazil
Lure: Get in with the in crowd
Location: Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
Only 500 overnight visitors a day are allowed on this hilly, ten-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) isle(岛), the centerpiece of a Hawaii-like 21-island volcanic chain 340 miles (547 kilometers) from Recife on Brazil’s equatorial(赤道附近的) northeast coast. The limit was imposed to protect the archipelago’s pristine National Marine Park, threatened by ever increasing buzz from just-back, big-eyed divers, snorkelers, and surfers.
You can stay at one of the dozens of modest guesthouses or do the island in high style by checking in to one of five spare, swank(时髦的) bungalows(小平房) or three rooms at the Pousada Maravilha. Your to-do list should include snorkeling with sea turtles and juvenile lemon sharks in the blue-green waters of nearby Baía do Sudeste. Dune buggy your way to the northwest coast’s Sancho Beach, reached only by climbing down iron ladders mounted on hundred-foot (30-meter) cliffs, then drive to the lookout over Mirante dos Golfinhos, a bay where every afternoon the world’s largest resident pod of spinner dolphins—some 600 strong—exits en masse to fish.