BOA VIAGEM

BOA VIAGEM
C 1998 JoJo

I was only four when the event I’m relating took place. My family and I were having a picnic on Boa Viagem beach in Recife, Brazil. The day had been a magical one, filled with discovery and delight. My sister Doreen and I had built numerous sand castles accompanied, as always, by vociferous arguments as to whose castle was better.

It was a hot, tropical day but there was a delightful, scented breeze blowing in from the ocean. The shore was lined with palm trees whose fronds swayed gently, while the waves crashed onto the shore.

Each incoming wave brought with it small crustaceans that were swept up onto the beach. As the wave receded, they would instantly set about burrowing themselves back into the sand. Doreen and I stood at the water’s edge, buckets in hand, looking out for them. As soon as any appeared, we’d drop to our knees and hurriedly dig them out of their burrows and carefully place them in our buckets, along with their companions. Later they’d be cooked on the open fire Father would build, having first sent us out on a mission to pick up all manner of driftwood. These small crustaceans made excellent eating and were served in melted garlic butter which Mother always made a point of bringing to all our beach picnics.

We ate at 5.30. The food seemed to taste so much better on Boa Viagem than it did at home. Being out in the fresh air all day, frolicking on the beach and engaging in so many activities always put a keen edge to our appetites.

Recife is located a few degrees south of the Equator, so the sun always sets promptly at 6.00 p.m. As darkness fell, we sat around the camp fire, singing songs. Doreen and I carried the melodies, while Mother sang contralto and Dad improvised a rich bass.

After darkness had set in, we were to behold a sight of such astonishing beauty and perfection that it became indelibly imprinted in my mind and can never be forgotten.

The moon was full that night, and it rose over the crystal clear horizon like a huge, majestic golden ball. From where we were sitting, it was framed on both sides by imperial palms. Just as it was halfway up over the horizon, as if on cue, a small fishing boat sailed directly in front of it, and was instantly bathed by the vividly bright moonlight.

The fishing boats in Northeastern Brazil are called jangadas and the brave fishermen who sail them, jangadeiros. They consist of balsa wood logs, lashed together with rope to form a raft. There is just one mainsail which is secured to a flexible bent bamboo mast that has a boom attached to it. The mast is threaded through a hole in a secured platform at the front of the raft.

Jangadas are steered by a single large oar held by the navigator, who stands at the stern of the raft. When the balsa wood is dry, the Jangada is so light it can be carried into the water by just two men. However, at the end of a fishing trip, the wood is waterlogged and heavy. The fishermen remove it from the water by placing horizontal logs underneath it, rolling it up onto the beach where it can dry out before the next day’s fishing.

A great many jangadeiros lose their lives because there is nothing to protect them from being swept off their tiny rafts when they run into a bad storm at sea.

As the jangada slowly sailed by, the jangadeiros were clearly visible, standing on the raft, laughing and talking to each other. In the hushed silence of the night, their voices drifted across the water, clear as a bell.

Although I was only four, I was dumbstruck by the extraordinary tableau I saw before me. It was perfect in every detail and when it was over, my heart ached with a sense of loss because I knew I’d never see anything remotely as beautiful again.