Parcel de Manuel Luís Marine State Park
At low tide, in some places, there is only a meter of water over the coral. You can walk the deck of a tanker that broke its back here in 1984 and look straight down through clear Atlantic at brain corals and sea fans that have been growing over the iron for decades. The Parcel de Manuel Luís sits roughly 86 kilometers off the Maranhão coast, a ridge of granite cloaked in living reef that rises suddenly from the continental shelf. Manuel Luís, the fisherman who found it in the late nineteenth century, was the first person to give it a name. The ships that came after him did not always leave.
A Reef Where the Atlantic Should Be Muddy
The most surprising thing about Parcel de Manuel Luís is that it exists at all. This stretch of ocean sits in the path of the outflow from the Amazon River, which pushes a vast plume of freshwater and silt north along the Brazilian coast. Corals generally do not tolerate that combination - too much sediment, too little salinity. But the Parcel de Manuel Luís has found a way. Its corals grow on a granite substrate at depths of 15 to 45 meters, beneath the surface layer of brackish water, in clearer deep currents. The reef covers about 1,800 hectares of living coral within a 45,937-hectare marine park. It is the southernmost formation of what scientists now recognize as the Amazon Reef System, a continent-scale reef community that runs from French Guiana to Maranhão.
The Corals and Their Neighbors
The species list is a who's-who of western Atlantic reef builders. *Montastraea cavernosa*, the great star coral, with its knobby columns and polyps the size of a fingernail. *Porites astreoides*, mustard-yellow and mound-shaped. *Mussismilia hispida*, a Brazilian endemic found almost nowhere else. *Siderastrea stellata*, *Agaricia agaricites*, *Meandrina braziliensis*, *Scolymia wellsi*, and *Millepora alcicornis* - a fire coral that stings on contact. All of these grow together here, along with every other coral species known from the northeast Brazilian coast. Among the corals live parrotfish grazing algae, sergeant majors in striped black-and-yellow schools, butterflyfish pairs patrolling the coral heads, groupers lurking in the overhangs, and sea turtles cruising the open water. Coral bleaching episodes have been documented here since 1999, as they have on reefs around the world, though the Parcel remains in better shape than many.
The Graveyard Aspect
Two hundred-plus shipwrecks rest on the Parcel de Manuel Luís. Second only, by some counts, to the Bermuda Triangle. The reef was poorly charted for centuries and sits in an area of strong currents and variable tides - a dangerous combination for sailing ships working the South Atlantic trade. The oldest confirmed wreck, the *São José*, went down in 1763. The *Nossa Senhora das Necessidades* followed in 1770. The French *Jeune Almirante* in 1805, the *Venus* in 1814, a Portuguese frigate in 1820. The *Navio do Cobre* - the "copper ship" - sank in 1900 with a cargo of metal that was later recovered by looters. The British liner *Vandyck* went down in 1914 with 200 passengers aboard, sunk by a German warship early in World War I; all the passengers were rescued. The *Uberaba*, wrecked in 1921, had started life as the German vessel *Henny Woerman* before being captured by the Brazilian Navy during that same war. The tanker *Ana Cristina* was the most recent major loss, in 1984, and is the best preserved of the wrecks.
How a Fisherman's Reef Became a Park
The coral reefs along 3,000 kilometers of northeastern Brazil, from Bahia up to Maranhão, were in rapid decline by the late twentieth century from destructive fishing, pollution, and the general pressures of coastal development. The Parcel de Manuel Luís was identified as one of the seven highest conservation priorities along that stretch. The state of Maranhão established the Parcel de Manuel Luís Marine State Park by decree 11.902 on 11 June 1991, with the explicit purpose of protecting the reef from hydrocarbon pollution and overfishing. Initial administration was given to SEMATUR, the state tourism agency. In February 2000 the park gained international recognition as a Ramsar Convention wetland, one of only a few offshore Ramsar sites in the Americas.
Getting There, and Why Few Do
The Parcel lies 45 miles from Maiau Island and 50 miles from Lençóis Island, offshore from the municipality of Cururupu in western Maranhão. Reaching it requires a dedicated dive boat, several hours of open-water transit, and weather good enough to anchor safely over the reef. Recreational diving is permitted but closely managed. For divers who make the trip, the experience is extraordinary - visibility to 30 meters on good days, coral heads the size of houses, and wreck sites where schools of fish move in and out of ironwork that predates the First World War. More recently, offshore oil exploration in the broader Amazon Reef System has raised pointed questions about how much longer the Parcel will remain what it is. The reef has survived two centuries of ships failing on it. Whether it survives the next century of drilling nearby is a less certain proposition.
From the Air
Coordinates 0.91°S, 44.32°W. Recommended viewing altitude 3,000-8,000 feet on clear days; the reef itself is submerged and shows as a change in water color against surrounding open ocean. Landmarks: Lençóis Island lies roughly 50 miles to the south; Maiau Island roughly 45 miles to the southeast. Nearest airport is Marechal Cunha Machado International (SBSL) in São Luís, approximately 150 km to the south. Offshore location means visibility is entirely weather-dependent; clearest conditions from August through November.