Laje do Alagado

Laje do Alagado is the natural buoy of the classic 3,800 m Swim Alcatrazes race, in open sea: swimmers pass Ilha do Farol and round the rock slab before heading back to the main island.

Alcatrazes protects 259 fish species, among them some that are threatened or play a notable ecological role, such as the garoupa, the tubarão-martelo, the cação-anjo, the raia-viola and the raia-manta. In the region, budiões tend to let divers approach and are larger than at other dive sites. On a visit to the Refuge you can see the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and fish that swim at the surface, such as the ocean sunfish (Mola mola) and the hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini). The Refuge has the largest frigatebird nesting colony in the South Atlantic and is a feeding, breeding and resting area for more than 10,000 seabirds.

Military training closed the region to navigation from 1998 to 2008 and kept access restricted until 2016. On August 2 of that year the Alcatrazes Refuge was created, covering 67,409 hectares, about 40 km off the coast, in open sea. The archipelago officially reopened to the public on December 16, 2018. In the region, weather and sea conditions for navigation and scuba diving tend to be better from November to May. Bryde's whale and several species of dolphins can be seen in the archipelago year-round. The humpback whale and pelagic seabirds, such as albatrosses and petrels, on the other hand, tend to be more common in autumn and winter.