Ilha Grande – Angra dos Reis – by Karin (the Mom)

Angra lies on the mainland of Brazil directly opposite Ilha Grande. It is the starting place for many holidaymakers that want to visit the island.

Angra dos Reis as seen from the anchorage

A regular ferryboat service runs between Angra and Ilha Grande. This ferry service is also very popular among islanders who visit the mainland for shopping. If you are fortunate enough to own your own motoring yacht, you have some options. Some motorboats choose to do the 2hr journey from Rio de Janeiro, but many yachts stay in Angra in a huge “parking garage”. The owners reach Angra by road and may even stay in Angra or elsewhere on the mainland, visiting Ilha Grande during the day.

The place to park your motorboat in Angra

For us Angra will always be the ultimate place to shop for provisions. The anchorage area is very close to the shopping Mall and Sophia could probably have rowed the dingy to reach it.

The view as seen from the shopping Mall.Shang Du is the boat right in the middle of the photo.

Not only is it close, but there are convenient mooring bollards in a sheltered enclosure to tie to. The BEST PART though, is that you can take your heavily laden shopping trolley right up to your dingy to unload. No heavy shopping bags and no heavy backpacks that have to be carried over long distances. You can buy as much as you can possibly fit onto your dingy and still transport safely to the yacht.

The plan was that this would be our last point of provisioning before leaving Brazil. Therefore we had to use up all Brazilian money that we didn’t want to hold onto as keepsakes. The girls agreed that this was a great idea and a great place to do it. Since they had some money left they chose to splurge it on a Chocolate Sundae each.

The girls with their Chocolate Sundaes

Shopping here was the only time that we could order Pizza and make it to Shang Du in time to eat it before it cooled down. This was sooo cool!!  Sorry, so Hot!

The one other thing I have to mention, is that the fish life at this anchorage must be very rife. Right through the night we could hear the sound of fishes feeding on a reef coming through the hull. Whether this was a reef below us, or the “reef” attached to the bottom of our hull, we could not tell. What we did know is that of all places the anchorage at Angra was the place that we could hear it the loudest.

Karin J has the job of hosing down the anchor with sea water whenever we weigh anchor. She has just reminded me that Angra dos Reis is the place with the most mud at the bottom. It took ages to rinse the anchor properly.