Today was expected to be a relatively relaxed day with only 30km downwind on the schedule. Besides that, this was the first time that we were going to sleep at 1 place for 2 consecutive nights. This saves a lot of packing efforts and logistic challenges in the morning before we pump up the kites.
The day started with a boat trip to the river mouth, the same place where we arrived the day before.
Because it was low water this morning, the conditions were easier to launch our kites than to land our kites yesterday.
We started with 10km along the sandy coastline of an outer island in the delta and passed some nice shallow floodplanes and sections with beautiful waves.. Thereafter a river runs parallel to the coastline just behind the dunes, so we decided to cross the sand dunes and continue in the river. There the most mindblowing kind of downwinding started.
We travelled downstream through the river in an absolutely surreal scenery: with sandy dunes in our back and mangrove jungle in front of us. This was a combination of the main natural circumstances we encountered this week, both sandy coastlines and forest, resulting in a thrilling ride!
The end of the river was our final destination for today. All the Van Oord colleagues reached the end, even Michiel despite his fear for snakes and crocodiles in the river. Unfortunately we found out that we lost our guide halfway the river After he was rescued by the jetski, we wrapped up our kites and stepped into the boat again to bring us back to the pousada.
But not before we witnessed a spectacular natural phenomenon. The boat anchored just before sunset near a small island in the middle of the delta. For an unknown reason, all the Guara birds in this delta arrive every day during sunset at this island to spend the night. This results in an invasion of thousands large red birds from all over the delta, a remarkable event.
So once again, an impressive day, full of kitesurfing and enjoying the Brazilian environment. Up to the next stage
Tremendous views, even from a photo.