Ilha Grande - The Big Island

Araçatiba Beach- from Google Maps

Araçatiba beach used to be the home of a Japanese family. They and other Japanese families ran sardine canneries in the 1960's on the ' Big Island' - Ilha Grande  while it was still used as a prison island, similar to Devil's Island in French Guyana... Today, the scenario is different: The prison was demolished years ago, the canneries shut down due to overfishing of sardines, and today tourists flock in especially in the summer. Aquaculture, or the farming of marine organisms, is slowly being accepted and incorporated as a way of life by local residents of the island. By the way, follow our trip on our Google Maps collaborative effort. You can see some of our discoveries and places we visited at this site - click here  

Araçatiba Beach - old sardine cannery pier and our boat the 'Yank I'

Mussel farm on Ilha Grande

On our way to Raquel's restaurant after a morning of discovering how to measure certain water quality parameters such as phosphates, nitrates and salinity on Araçatiba beach , we passed by one such aquaculture operation. Yellow buoys mark the limits of the farm, blue buoys hold the actual lines with mussels.

Giant sea cucumber - Isostichopus badionotus

On the sea bottom below mussel farms, in this area of the Atlantic, sea cucumbers find plentiful organic-rich sediments to feed on.... These important marine echinoderm invertebrates are coveted world over as a delicacy - sold mostly in Asian markets at USD 80/ kg. They are, however, a fragile marine fisheries stock, and have been menaced in this region. Recently they have been placed under special protection, and their harvesting prohibited. Seafood is all important on any island, and we went to the best seafood restaurant on the island, Raquel's, where we had a rather large 'moqueca' - a seafood stew consisting of piece of a freshly caught 16 kg King Mackerel cooked with calamari, shrimp and plenty of green peppers, tomato, and cilantro.