And, in the distance, the statue of Christ the Redeemer standing atop Corcovado Mountain, arms opened wide to welcome saint and sinner alike to a city where the sacred and the profane embrace joyously in that slightly mad event known as Carnival. In its dichotomies, Rio de Janeiro is a perfect symbol of Brazil, a land of operatic extremes. Brazilians live for the beach. It's where everyone goes and anything goes. No wonder scuba diving is quickly becoming a national pastime.
Brazil supports three national dive magazines.
After four days of diving there, I left with little doubt that Noronha's lure has much more to do with the sacred than the profane. Outside the Bay of Dolphins we are waiting in our dive boat, masks on foreheads, cameras at the ready, for the afternoon show. They have been doing this, literally, for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. We don't know for sure. We do know they are the oldest and largest residential school of dolphins on Earth.