Fishing for Sea Urchins

I've been wanting to eat a little off the land for a long time. I tried it when we lived in Atlanta, but didn't ever get too much cool stuff. Mainly greens that you normally wouldn't eat. Okay. Dandelion greens. That's pretty much all I ever found, mostly because I was terrified that I would eat a false something or other and die. Or kill my husband. I'd never live that down. And another thing that I was missing, that is a favorite of Toby's is protein. I'm not much of a hunter, and fishing in Atlanta was tough to come by.

But here! Here there is an ocean right in front of me, begging to be fished! So next week, I'm going to try to catch a sea urchin. I figure, since they just sit there, the catching part should be relatively easy. The cooking, or lack of, I guess, seems pretty simple too. I'll give it a try with maybe two the first time, and if husband and I like them, I think maybe we'll have sea urchin every now and then. Sound good?

I've checked the tidal chart, and next Thursday I think I should be able to swim around early enough in the morning that not too many people will be watching. It's not illegal or anything, just weird I think. Lunch is our big meal, and we normally have soup for dinner, so I'm not sure when I'll serve them. Probably cooked in butter with toast? Sound good, Bobby Flay?

Cross your fingers that they taste good.

New Crab.

I wish I had taken a video of this weird little guy. I saw him snorkeling (incidentally, the same time I saw the octopus), and later on the voyage I saw a crab shell. Pretty guy! This was all at Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco.

Those lighter dots sort of in the middle are eyes...Or, based on the shell below, maybe they're not. And for sure those little wrap arounds in the front are the claws.

Brazilian State Flags: Para

A little backstory on these posts. We've lived in Brazil for about a year now. I can hardly name 5 of the 26 states (and 1 Federal District), much less pick out which flag goes with which. But as a designer, I love flag design and was interested. And I would also love to learn the names and locations of all the Brazilian states. Flags and information found here on Wikipedia. 

I SAW AN OCTOPUS!!!

We were at Porto de Galinhas, a nice touristy city a little south of where we live. I was out snorkeling and saw an octopus! Yowza! I see some cool stuff out there, but this was probably the coolest. He was white and smooth when I caught him swimming, and he got scared and swam down to this piece of seaweed. Once he was down there he immediately got National Geographic on me and turned textured and speckled brown. It was amazing. I had to dive down to get the picture, so I missed the picture of him really textured looking. It was amazing. Then he spread out like this, my guess is to look big and scary. He was about 2 feet all spread out. Then he swam away. So I went to swim away and swam through his ink that he squirted earlier that I hadn't noticed! (the whole sighting was like 15 seconds, so the ink was still hanging in the water. Or at least I think it was ink, looked like oil?).

Also, my sister in law noted how this may be a special octopus, we can't find the 8th leg. Only 7. Let me know if you see 8. I don't.

 

Brazilian State Flags: Minas Gerais

A little backstory on these posts. We've lived in Brazil for about a year now. I can hardly name 5 of the 26 states (and 1 Federal District), much less pick out which flag goes with which. But as a designer, I love flag design and was interested. And I would also love to learn the names and locations of all the Brazilian states. Flags and information found here on Wikipedia. 

Little puppy Sophia

I have a really hard time catching a good picture of her. She's constantly moving when she's awake, and she gets really bad red-eye in pictures too. So most of my photos of her are when she's sleeping. But she's sweet that way. She's learning to be a little Brazilian dog. She swims in the ocean very well, we went to a waterfall the other day and she sort of liked it. She digs in the sand like a champ. Little Maria Sophia.

Ilha de Itamaraca & Fort Orange

We had some of my childhood friends as guests during New Year's. They had done a ton of research before they came, and had so many touristy places to visit on their list that we'd never even heard of (or, I guess I hadn't heard of, Toby knows the area a lot better). One of the places was Ilha de Itamaraca, an island. There is an old dutch fort there, Fort Orange, a small beach, and a little town. We ended up never making it to the small town, but instead went to a little lake, called Blue Lake, which was great! It had a zipline (and the shakiest structure I've ever been on holding it up), and around the lake there was a little snack bar, and maybe a little hotel, I forget. The zipline was R$5 (so, like USD$2.50) so we all did it. Affordable fun. After a full day of sweating and salt water, the lake was reeeefreshing. A good place to visit, but we'll have to see the downtown too sometime to get the full impression.

Brazilian State Flags: Mato Grosso do Sul

A little backstory on these posts. We've lived in Brazil for about a year now. I can hardly name 5 of the 26 states (and 1 Federal District), much less pick out which flag goes with which. But as a designer, I love flag design and was interested. And I would also love to learn the names and locations of all the Brazilian states. Flags and information found here on Wikipedia. 

You got a hole in the road?

If you live in Brazil, you just fill it with stuff. This one actually has a sign. 'Operation "tapa" Hole'. I didn't know what the world 'tapa' meant, so I just now google translated it. It says it means slap. Haha, Operation Slap the Hole. That's right, they just don't like them here. Holes. I don't even know how holes this big get in the roads in the first place.

Holes tend to stay for a long time. For the first few months (like 4?) we lived here I walked past a leaky hole on the way to the grocery store every day. It ran a consistent stream of water for like 4 months. Then for like two weeks there were guys in the hole fixing it. It's still a little bit of a hole, but they fixed the leak.

But where I was getting, normally, if there is a hole (I guess this one was big enough to warrant a sign) they just shove some stuff in it until it's tall enough to stick out of the top. Like palm branches is a normal thing. It's so people don't see the hole and drive into it. Makes sense, right?

Porto de Galinhas holiday visit

We had a bajillion guests over the winter holidays, so we took a few more trips to Porto de Galinhas for touristing. We're getting pretty used to the tourist stuff, shopping and the normal trip out to the reef- which, let me stop myself mid-sentence, has changed. They used to have a wonderful conservation program set up; you had to watch an informative video before going on the reef, only a certain number of people were allowed at a time, and only for an allotted amount of time. All that is gone. Even the structure that held the information is gone. I have no idea why. Oh well. Back to the subject, I've been going more off the tourist track while I snorkel lately. I've been playing around with the waterproof camera, checking out the bottom sides of boats, stuff like that.

Brazilian State Flags: Mato Grosso

A little backstory on these posts. We've lived in Brazil for about a year now. I can hardly name 5 of the 26 states (and 1 Federal District), much less pick out which flag goes with which. But as a designer, I love flag design and was interested. And I would also love to learn the names and locations of all the Brazilian states. Flags and information found here on Wikipedia.