Brazil Eco Adventure Tours
Rainforest - Hiking & Biking - Wildlife

After sighting Mount Pascoal on April 22, 1500, Gaspar de Lemos, captain of the supply ship of Cabral's fleet was sent back to Portugal with the letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha communicating the official discovery of "Terra de Vera Cruz" to King D. Manuel I.

To expand on Cabral's discovery and to determine the limits of the land Cabral had discovered, Gaspar de Lemos (some historians say is was Gonçalo Coelho) was sent back to Brazil on May 10, 1501, and returned to Lisbon on September 7, 1502. He was accompanied by the Italian seafarer, navigator and cartograph Amerigo Vespucci and the following findings are credited to this expedition:

Baía de Todos os Santos (Salvador) on November 1, 1501, Baía da Guanabara (Rio de Janeiro) on January 1, 1502, Angra dos Reis (Ilha Grande) on January 6, 1502, Ilhabela on January 20, 1502, and the Island of São Vicente on January 22, 1502. Ilhabela at that time was named São Sebastião Island because January 20 is the feast day of that saint.

Ilhabela registered high pirate activity from 1553 on, during the initial period of colonisation of Brazil. Portuguese caravels that passed by here heading toward the ports of Santos and São Vicente were a great attraction for pirates from all over. English and Dutch privateers used to take advantage of Saco Sombrio's calm waters to hide their ships and wait for commercial vessels to go past Castelhanos Bay.

Throughout the whole colonial period, the flow of slave ships heading for the archipelago was intense, since cultivation on the island's farms was based on slave labour. The extremely fertile soil and the abundance of waterfalls to turn water wheels, made Ilhabela an excellent site to build sugar mills. In the late 17th century there were already 5 mills producing sugar and another 17 producing "aguardente" (a type of sugar cane brandy).

Ilhabela is notorious for being the largest graveyard of ships in Brazil. The strong winds blowing onto the south face of the Island, cause waves of up to 5 meters, casting the ships onto the razor sharp rocks hidden under the water's surface along its wild coast. Out of the dozens of wrecks reported since 1894, the most notable case is that of the Spanish transatlantic steamer Príncipe de Astúrias.