The tour bus picks groups up from the larger hotels at around 8.30 AM. From there, we make our way to Angra dos Reis where our boat departs from. It’s about a 3-hour journey with a quick rest stop to get some snacks and drinks at a petrol station. Once everyone has boarded the boat at the pier, it’s a one hour sail to the first swimming spot – Ilha de Cataguas. The boat anchors a couple of hundred meters from the island and then you can jump off the boat into the turquoise water. They provide noodle water floats if you’re not comfortable swimming in the sea. The sea is quite calm here but it is deep so you should be a strong swimmer if you choose not to use a water float.
After about 30 minutes of swimming, we then leave for the next stop – Lagoa Azul. It takes about an hour to get to this prime beach location. The boat anchors quite close to the shore among several other tour boats anchored in the area. Once anchored, you can jump into the water again. You can swim towards the beach area as well which is fairly close. From the boat, you can see some fish swimming in groups. The boat has snorkeling gear available for rent for 30 BRL1 each if you want to get an underwater look at the sealife. These waters are not that deep and it’s possible to dive down to the seabed. At this location, we stay for about an hour before heading to our lunch stop in Ilha Grande.
We sail for about 30 minutes to Japariz beach arriving at around 3 PM. The guide takes us to the buffet restaurant and tells us to be at the pier at 4 PM to head to the final stop on the way to the mainland. However, the weather changed and it started pouring down. We waited on the beach for another hour and since the rain didn’t stop, we couldn’t head to the final stop and instead went straight back to Angra dos Reis. We arrived at the pier at around 8 PM and then it was a 3-hour bus ride back to Rio de Janeiro.
