Qualla: Lagoa dos Patos

Lagoa dos Patos: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harrisonabreu, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the International Space Station, it looks like a tear in the coast of southern Brazil, a long dark sheet of water angled against the green of the land. The Lagoa dos Patos, the Ducks' Lagoon, is the largest lagoon in all of Brazil and the largest coastal lagoon in South America. Stretch a measuring tape across it and you cover an area slightly smaller than Jamaica. It is also the largest choked coastal lagoon in the world, meaning it is nearly sealed from the ocean, the entire vast body breathing through a single narrow inlet at its southern tip.

Read more: Lagoa dos Patos on Qualla

Image: Harrisonabreu | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lagoa dos Patos: An Inland Sea

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulo rsmenezes, CC BY-SA 4.0. The numbers strain the imagination. The lagoon covers roughly ten thousand square kilometers, occupying close to a third of the entire coastal plain of Rio Grande do Sul. It runs northeast to southwest behind a sandbar about five miles wide that separates it from the open Atlanti...

Read more: Lagoa dos Patos on Qualla

Image: Paulo rsmenezes | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lagoa dos Patos: Where Salt Meets Fresh

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The lagoon's character is a tug-of-war between river and ocean. Most of the time fresh water dominates, but under the right conditions, when southern winds blow hard, lagoon levels drop, and spring tides surge, salt water can push astonishingly far inland, penetrating up to two h...

Read more: Lagoa dos Patos on Qualla

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Lagoa dos Patos: Dolphins at the Door

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scheridon, CC BY-SA 3.0. At the narrow mouth near Rio Grande, the wildlife turns spectacular. The Lagoa dos Patos estuary hosts the largest known population of Lahille's bottlenose dolphin, a southern lineage of the species, and these dolphins patrol the inlet where lagoon water trades places with the se...

Read more: Lagoa dos Patos on Qualla

Image: Scheridon | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lagoa dos Patos: Life on the Shore

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paulo rsmenezes, CC BY-SA 3.0 br. People have always gathered at this water. The lagoon's largest and most fertile island, the Ilha dos Marinheiros, the Sailors' Island, sits near the eastern shore and belongs to the municipality of Rio Grande, its piers reaching out into the shallows. Ringing the lagoon are town...

Read more: Lagoa dos Patos on Qualla

Image: Paulo rsmenezes | CC BY-SA 3.0 br