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This island is located
at 37 km away from the coast, and can be reach by boat
from Itanhaém in about 2 and 1/2 hours. It is definitely
the best diving spot in Southeastern Brazil. The waters
are of a cobalt blue color all year long. The island is
part of a Marine State Park and therefore, disembarking, fishing, hunting and underwater fishing are
strictly forbidden, even though the observation diving
is allowed and fishing and underwater fishing are also
allowed but at least at 1 km away from the island. Many
schools of tropical fish, small sharks (locally known as Cações), manta rays. Whales can be easily spotted and
dolphins always escort the boats, making their own show
on the waters for the travellers. There's a rocky islet
next to the island, named Parcel do João Ilhéu. The
island itself is a rocky island which is covered by
endemic plants and trees; it is the refuge and nesting
place of many marine birds and the snake called
Jararaca Islander (Jararaca lhôa), cousin of the
common Jararaca that lives in the continent, even
though the islander one is much, definitely much more
poisonous and dangerous.
Millions of years ago the sea
level was far close to the horizon, that means, far lower than
it is located today. The Island as well as the other ones nearby
were simply mountains that may have belonged to a huge and
mysterious forest. Then all of a sudden, the sea level began to
raise. It even seems to have reached the Sea Mountain Range
(this can be easily proved - anyone digging in Itanhaém's rural
areas can find thousands of shells buried under the forest).
This sudden and unexpected behavior of the sea level, trapped
the snakes forever in the island. Then, many years later, the
sea level began to go down again to its actual place. The
isolationism of the snakes made them evolve in a different way
of their cousins from the continent. All of them are
hermaphrodites, that means they have both sexes and can develop
a certain one when the surrounding areas are inhabited more by
one sex than the other one. This is an intelligible solution
nature has found to fix the problem of... living trapped in a
island. The Discovery Channel has recently aired worldwide a
documentary on this island and its famous inhabitants, our
friends, the Jararacas.
The Island is nowadays
a Marine State Park, therefore it is forbidden to step
on it, as well as fishing, hunting and underwater
fishing. Some gards have recently caught many foreigners
specially from Europe, who are illegally trying to
capture the snakes for experiments overseas. The Navy
has decided to install a fully automated lighthouse
since there were terrible accidents involving the snakes
and the Navy officers. The island and its blue majesty
can also be spotted from the heights of the Sea Mountain
Range by the ones traveling on the Immigrants Road (Rodovia
dos Imigrantes) en route to São Paulo.
Looking at the Big Queimada
Island from the coast, makes us think of an immutable eyewitness
of time...always standing there in the middle of the ocean,
ethereal mountain, domain of the gods wind and sun.
Note: some of the
pictures were taken from the web. If any of them belong
to you and/or are copyrighted, please send us an e-mai
and we'll take them out of our servers immediately. If
you have pictures of the islands and would like to help us,
we encourage you to send your pictures to
editor@itanhaemvirtual.com.br Thanks in
advance!
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