The key lies in how you enter the water… Slip over the side ever so gently and swim quietly toward them—always approach from the front, so that the mother can see you coming and assess the level of threat.

Ever vigilant of potential orca attacks and protective of her young calf, she will prioritise caution and cut short the encounter if she senses danger. However, she is weary from the constant stress of shielding and nourishing her hungry calf and yearns for a moment of rest. Get it right, and there is a good chance she will remain stationary, permitting you to draw closer.

Laying 3°50’25” S and 32°24’38” W, the 21 islands that compose Fernando de Noronha’s archipelago are much older though, with an estimated age of 30 million years. The hot spot is located on the South American Plate, which moves west-south-west at a rate of 45mm per year and in subduction under South America. Judging by the effect of the West Africa mantle plume, it is responsible for a series of volcanoes that extend west and away from Noronha, including the Rocas Atoll.

— “Moro num país tropical, abençoado por Deus e bonito por natureza …” (“I am born in a tropical country, blessed by God and beautiful by nature…”) So goes the famous song by the popular Brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor.

In July 2019, I took a domestic flight from Sao Paulo to Campo Grande, where I hired a car at the airport. On the pleasant 300km drive to Bonito, I passed endless fields of transgenic corn and the green pastures of zebu cattle farms.

The archipelago entails 21 volcanic islands and is located at 360km (224mi) from the closest coast of Brazil (Natal). Spreading over a total area of 26 squ km, it is located in the Atlantic Ocean near the Equator (3° 51′S, 32° 25′W). The main island, the only one which is inhabited, is about 10km long (6m) and up to 3km wide (1.8mi). The archipelago gained international media attention after the terrible accident on 1 June 2009 of Air France Flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris, as searches were conducted by the Brazilian Air Force from the archipelago.

Straddling the Equator, it is the highest summit of the Galápagos group. Over the last 700,000 years, the six volcanoes of Isabela Island—Cerro Azul, Sierra Negra, Alcedo, Darwin, Wolf and Ecuador—have evolved into gigantic calderas. Following successive rises and falls of magma, the rim of a volcano collapses into the crater. With a diameter exceeding 10km, Sierra Negra is by far the largest of the island’s calderas.

My dive buddy Simon’s left arm shot out, index finger extended, and he clenched his right fist and stuck it on the side of his head. I quickly scanned left and right, peering through my mask into the milky blue water. “Where?! Where?!” my brain implored. “There!!!” my eyes answered.

Swarms of doctor-, handle- and butterflyfish could be on anything of it and seemed to dance around us effortlessly. Moray eels, with bodies as thick as a person’s arms, were not peering out of their residential holes with only their heads as one usually finds them, but meandered out in the open virtually defenseless between the sparsely colonized rocks. Mostly flat, sharp barnacles were growing on the outcroppings; beautiful pink-colored coralline algae covered the jagged volcanic rock.

 

All things connected—the lush green forrests, tiny quiet villages on the water’s edge, deserted beaches, wooden schooners anchored in the bays, and the attractions of the deep azur ocean. Arriving on the island—after you have just transferred from either busy Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo—is like stepping onto another planet as soon as you step off the boat.