Pisina Naturais: Swimming With Fish

        Fish, fish, fish, fish…  I saw a BUNCH of fish!!  In Porto de Galinhas, we headed to the main attraction: the Pisina Naturais.  The name Pisina Naturais means Natural Pool in Portuguese, the pools are round shallow holes formed by corals and rocks, the water is really calm and shallow, because there’s a wall of corals surrounding the beach, that way, the waves just splash on the “walls” and don’t go near the coast. 

Since the waves are attracted to the position of the moon, if the high tide happens during the day, the sea-level rises and the corals will all be hidden under the water and you can’t see anything.  So we were very lucky that the water was low around noon and not at midnight. 

We had to go on a Jangada, a small boat with no roof, so it’s technically a board with a sail.  When you sit on the wooden benches on the Jangada, the wind blows all over your face, when the boat rocks, some sea water splashes on your legs. 

So we sailed to the natural pool.  The cool thing is inside the pool: fish.  There were at least a trillion fish in there!!  They were all a little bit yellow with colorful stripes, sometimes, when you’re really lucky, you might see a blue, flat fish that’s near the corals that look like Dori in “Finding Nemo”. 

My dad and I went to explore the bottom of the pool, and we saw some tiny fishes and the blue fish.  The person that steers the Jangada had fish food and gave some to me.  When I dropped some, a BUNCH, I mean literally, a BUNCH of fish zoomed straight to me and fought for the food.  They sprayed water on my face.  But the best thing about the fish was that you could touch them, they swim around calmly and let you poke them and try to grab them, and they’re very slippery. 

After we got out of the fish pool, we walked on corals, we saw a puffer fish with leopard spots, it was really pretty.  We also saw a pool shaped like the map of Brazil, it had navy blue fish swimming in it.  We liked the pool SO much that we went there twice.  Swimming with fish in the natural pool is a super unique experience that I’ll Never forget!