Cabo Frio

We left Rio and headed north to visit a place not to far up the coast. The interesting thing about this is that our entire trip takes us south with an eventual landing in Buenos Aires but the first leg of the journey took us in the opposite direction. Cabo Frio which means "cold cape" is a place where many rich Brazilians and other nationalities own vacation properties. It is about a hundred nautical miles up the coast from Rio and is accessible by car. However, the best way to get there is by boat and we saw some pretty comfortable looking boats parked in Cabo Frio. It reminds me very much of southern Florida because the boats we saw there were not your average cabin variety, water-craft, they were boats that the rich and famous float around on. Sure there may be slums in Rio but in Cabo Frio they live like this:

The sunglasses look cool but I can't see shit

And he's not a Dolphins fan

A weekend away from the rat race in Rio

What is better than one boat?

double hulled speedster!

nice shack!

weekend at Bernie's

The place has history too. The entrance to the harbour is protected by an old Portuguese fort.  Forte Sao Matheus protected this 400 year-old settlement from the Spanish, English and French. Just inside the harbour mouth there is an Island that was used by Japanese whaling boats in the nineteenth cuntury. The boats would drag their catch into the harbour mouth and up on the beach of the island, to render the oil from the whales that they harvested in the southern Atlantic. Now people go there to sun on the beach and to fish on the sand bank.

We chose to tour the area via a big schooner that took us out of the harbout to a good swimming spot and then took us back into the harbour to check out the town. Later in the tour we viewed the numerous waterfront mansions that are displacing the ugly fish canneries and industrial buildings that used to line the harbour. Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the fort or the shopping venues near the waterfront. I did find out why the call it Cabo Frio though. The water is a little bit frio but honestly nothing a Canadian can't handle.

The Chapel of Our Lady of Guia is a shrine on the hilltop
above the Franciscan convent in Cabo Frio

The water was chilly but not by Canadian standards.
Unfortunately the water was to deep to see any fish.

pretty nice looking condos on the beach in the new part of town