Last day in Ilha de Santa Catarina. The challenge was to pick a nice beach—no point in wasting a sunny day—but not one of our favourites, otherwise we would never leave the island, too painful.

I like Santa Catarina. It’s big, relaxed, pretty safe by Brazilian standards and “easy” because we made all the typical mistakes during previous trips and we learned from them—pro tip, don’t ever try to take the bus, you’ll never get to the beach before sunset.

“So, where do we go?”

“Brava?”

Feng—whose favourite pastime is to stare at maps—found two new beaches in the north, Praia Brava and Praia da Lagoinha. We had skipped them on the weekend because they could be packed as the northern tip of the island is typically the “tourist side,” even though there are no Argentineans this year.

Praia Brava was hiding behind a really, really high hill. The car made it.

It was a relatively small beach, it didn’t take me long to walk from one end to the other. As usual, I found plenty of fishes, most of them still alive (!) washed up on the sand, as well as a few bluebottle jellyfish—hadn’t seen them since Australia.

Waves were strong but the colour of the water was amazing, from clear to deep blue. That would be this beach’s best asset.

However, I wasn’t a big fan of the atmosphere. There were mostly condos by the beach—someone even tried to sell us one—and I felt I was intruding when I walked to the nearest and only coffee shop. Cameras in the streets, manicured lawn, security guards… some kind of private paradise, far from the relaxed and friendly atmosphere in most of the island.

We took turns with Mark’s bodyboard then he offered it to a kid—like I said, last beach…

We drove to Praia da Lagoinha and it was quite disappointing. Smaller beach, same posh atmosphere, nothing special by Santa Catarina standards.

Still sad to leave but I’m glad we didn’t discover a perfect beach on the last day—it would have made things harder!