The lush coast of Bahía

Costa do Dendê

South of Salvador, squeezed between the low uplands that rise 10 or 20 km to the west and the sea in the east, is an area of low-lying undulating country.

Here old dunes sport scrubby forest cover, cleared grassy pastures remarkably devoid of livestock, and sprawling dusty small-holder farming communities. Here too, big slow rivers have braided themselves into extensive and complex estuaries as they slowly worked their winding paths out to the sea.

This is an area with lots of mangroves, lots of islands and lots of twisting, dark-watered creeks that run seawards and back with the tide, exposing muddy, crab-clicking land at low tide and waters, that though moving through tangled mangrove thickets, on the flood seem asleep.

This area is called the Costa do Dendê, named after the abundance of the oil palm (Elaeis oleifera) along the coastline. Together with the Costa do Cacau further south, it’s ocean beaches and surf also make it a very popular Brazilian holiday destination. After our exciting last day in Salvador, we wanted to explore a few more of these tropical rivers before crossing to the Abrolhos islands and then heading further south.

Tricky river entrances

With shifting sandbanks and strong tidal currents at their entrances, the rivers in this area require thoughtful navigation. Most of these river entrances are quite shallow, meaning that not all sailboats can enter them, some only on certain tides, and all only when conditions are appropriate.

With Yuma’s shallow draft (80 cm) we were free of some of these constraints however and were able to get into and explore a few of them with relative ease.

Recent rainstorms had caused local flooding, resulting in a lot of debris coming down the rivers and being discharged into the ocean. However, unlike the Wet Tropics where such debris may include complete houses, old growth trees, dead cows, old fridges and cars, here it was (luckily for us) mostly large floating islands of water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes).

Friendly Brazilians

We went ashore in a couple of small towns along the way, including Gamboa, Campinho and Maraú, in order to stretch our legs, watch some birds and grab a meal. Invariably we were met by the friendliest of people keen to have a chat with two foreigners sailing through their country.

There were the two ladies at the dock kiosk in Maraú who greeted us like we were faithful regulars each night that we ate there and moaned with us about the loud music that got played there each night.

At Camphino, the riverbank restaurant manager sat with us in a blizzard of mosquitoes to talk about life on the island and her search for the perfect place to live.

Arguably though the best were two brothers (Arthur and Thiago) who ran a tiny kiosk on the beach in Gamboa.

Coffee and marmosets

We had been searching for a coffee one morning and had walked through the whole town but with no success; we could find bars selling cervejas and caipirinhas, no problem, but for us it was a bit too early for either.

Their kiosk was the last one on the beach and they didn’t sell coffee either, but without hesitation they pulled out a thermos flask of sweet coffee that they had brought to get themselves through the day and poured out cup after cup for us.

When asked why they didn’t sell coffee their response was simple, ‘We don’t get many people like you’. And so, over a few coffees, we spent a lovely time in their (and Google Translate’s) company comparing life in Brazil and Australia.

Re-invigorated after the coffee and our time with these super-friendly brothers, we then walked to Morro de São Paolo through a bit of forest, where we saw our first Black-tufted marmosets (Callithrix penicillata)!

Rio da Serra

We were particularly keen to explore the Rio da Serra, upstream and south of Campinho, as on satellite images this river appeared to be surrounded by extensive areas of Atlantic Forest which we thought would make for good walking and birding.

However, similar to the forest around Baia de Todos-os-Santos, access proved to be remarkably difficult, because much of it appears to be privately owned or occupied or it was just physically hard to get into.

Nevertheless, we managed to do a few ‘walks’ (or better, bush-bashings) in low scrubby dune forest and scored a few lifers (that is, new bird species for us) along the way.

An added bonus of this river was that we managed to find a quiet and beautiful anchorage without noise and music! We promptly stayed for a few extra days just to enjoy this Brazilian rarity.

Costa do Cacau

From Costa do Dendê we sailed further south to Costa do Cacau (Cacao coast) and the town of Itacaré.

Even though the name of the coast had changed, to our foreign eyes, it looked equally gorgeous with paradisiacal beaches, islands, forest and mangroves.

The entry into Rio de Contas to the anchorage at Itacaré is a particularly tricky one, being very narrow and shallow with shifting sandbanks and strong tidal currents.

While we had studied and timed our entry carefully, it was still a bit of a relief when a local dinghy came out to guide us safely through the entrance, into the river and to an anchorage in the bend opposite the town. Here we were welcomed by a few Tucuxi dolphins!

A lovely town

Itacaré proved to be a delightful surf and beach town, with a friendly vibe and good coffees and ice creams; a place which had a Byron Bay (coastal town in Australia) vibe going. The big difference between the two places?

The birds on the beaches and in the parks: black vultures (Coragyps atratus) in Itacaré versus bin chickens (i.e. Australian white ibis, Threskiornis molucca) and silver gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) in Australia.

It would have been an easy place to stay for much longer, were it not for a good weather window to sail out to, and to stay at, the offshore Abrolhos islands. Such weather windows are not so common at this time of the year, so after only two nights we left Itacaré and its beautiful surroundings behind and pointed Yuma south.