Abrolhos​—An Eye-Opener

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN BRAZIL

IN THE 16th century, sailors near the coral reefs off the coast of the state of Bahia, Brazil, alerted fellow sailors: “Abra os olhos!” (Keep your eyes open!) Tradition has it that this much-repeated warning became the name of a group of five small islands in the region​—the Abrolhos archipelago.

Abrolhos is located in the South Atlantic, only 50 miles [80 km] from the coastal towns of Caravelas and Alcobaça. However, it is surrounded and isolated by coral reefs. Uncharted reefs as well as violent Atlantic storms would have been enough to deter most sailors from venturing into these waters were it not for a big economic attraction, the humpback whale.

A Wall of Big Hats

“As Manoel, our boatman, negotiated his way through the Reef of Walls, I understood why early Portuguese sailors feared these waters. Multicolored coral columns​—up to 60 feet [20 m] high and 150 feet [50 m] wide near the surface—​loom up from the seabed. Because of their inverted cone shape, they have been dubbed big hats by the locals. Underwater, many of these columns have merged to form immense arches and corridors and even ten-mile-long [20-kilometer-long] walls that broach the surface as reef platforms. These are the walls of the Reef of Walls.

As the sun floods into this underwater world, it reflects off the shoals of fish, the green, lilac, and yellow corals, and the red sponges and algae. We are bathed in multicolored light. Although the number of coral species is small in comparison with other tropical reefs, some are found only here.