Salvador de Bahia Porto da Barra

I saved a girl from drowning today. Well, from potential drowning at any rate. How’s that for a dramatic first sentence?! There I was, luxuriating in the silken turquoise waters of Porto da Barra (which I steer well clear of at the weekend as it is the most popular, and therefore the touristiest, beach in the area and often ridiculously crowded) As the beach is a small bay partially protected by a long jetty wall the waves are usually almost none existent and it’s like floating in an enormous salty bathtub. Yum.

So there I was bobbing along like a good little English duck conversing with my friend about the level of corruption in Brazilian politics when a strange gurgling spluttering noise behind me made me turn around, and, about 3 meters away to my right, was a Brazilian girl with long dreads her face half under the water, her long arms waving around like a giant sea urchin out of the water. Her eyes were great pools of white, her eyeballs partially rolled back into her head as she struggled to keep her head above the water. An image of a deer that I saw last summer, its legs caught in a barbed wire fence, flashed through my mind. The deer looked just as desperate. I didn’t even think, just swam over as fast as my fastest breaststroke would allow (I seem to have unfortunately forgotten how to do front crawl for some reason over the years), hoisted her up by her waist and swam the necessary meter or so to get her back into chest level water. Lucky she was so skinny and so tall as it was pretty difficult to swim one handed whilst hoisting someone up with the other. Lucky good ol´ adrenaline kicks in when you need it too! It was all over in a few seconds but felt much longer. You may ask why my friend, who is a 6ft strapping capoeira teaching local, didn’t go to her aid. Well, firstly I was closer, and secondly he, like a surprisingly high number of beach dwelling Latin Americans doesn’t know how to swim. He later told me that he thought that the girl was messing about úma brincadiera´. Thought whether this was to cover up any embarrassment of failing of manly pride I’m not entirely sure! 

Anyway, I got this girl safely back to waist deep water and she (after coughing up a lot of water) started hysterically rambling thank you, thank you, I was drowning I thought I was going to die (to which I was kinda embarrassed - I mean any decent person would have done the same right?!) I didn´t know at the time what the verb was drowning, but made an educated guess which my mini dictionary confirmed! just goes to show - every day is a school day :) The girls boyfriend then came running over, splashing through the water (also long dreaded - he must be able to sit on his - with an impressive number of intricately designed tattooes) to see if she was ok. I felt like saying he should keep a closer eye on his missus! Then without any comment on my part he said it was lucky I was there as he didn´t know how to swim either. Humph. I could have used some Rescue Remedy. Drama, drama, drama. You know that feeling when a big burst of adrenaline wears off and you feel a bit shaky as realisation of what just happened begins to sink in? Well that was me. Talk about a nice quiet day at the beach!!