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Our History

 

Betúlia was born in the state of Goiás, in the heart of Brazil. She was 14 years old when she saw the ocean for the first time, and had no idea the importance that large body of salt water would play in her life. She was almost 16 years old when she entered an airplane for the first time on her way to her older sister Magda, in Long Island, NY, where she arrived on a dark and raining October
day. She would never, in her life, forget the splendid sight of the autumn colors and the taste of freshly pressed apple cider.
She left her sister’s nest at 18 to live and travel in different parts of the country, and eventually moved to California where she studied at the International Tour Management Institute of San Francisco. She has worked as a Tour Manager across the United States, in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Africa and across Europe. For a short period of time she was the owner of an art gallery and a restaurant. Latter she began working on board expedition cruise ships. In 1991, Betúlia flew from Geneva to Gibraltar where she was to board the M/V Caledonian Star. On board the ship she met Anders, who would, in a not so distant future, become her love and her husband.

Anders was born and grew up in Sweden. After highschool, Anders went to sea and later studied to become a sea captain. His adventures began when, at 25, he built his own sailboat, Kami, and for the next three years he sailed her around the world single handedly. Back in Sweden, he began working as second officer on Stena Lines. One day the phone rings and a friend asks if he would like to work on an expedition cruising ship. He answers yes and after a few months on board, and while in Gibraltar, there comes on board the new assistant expedition leader, who was born in Brazil and had grown up in the United States of America. A cute girl, with a very different name.

M/V Caledonian Star sails around the south and West Coast of Africa with Anders on the commanding bridge and Betúlia taking out the passengers to different adventures.
Pretty soon Betúlia and Anders begin exchanging looks and sighs... and after that they become a couple.
That was in 1991 and today, 2008, we sit here and write this together.

After getting off M/V Caledonian Star the couple travels to Sweden for a visit and Anders asks Betúlia to marry him and she says... yes! They settle down in Sweden and buy Wikstroms boatyard and marina in Ulvesund, on the West Coast of Sweden. In Ulvesund, Anders combines hobby with work at the boatyard and the marina grows and changes for the better while Anders takes care of piers, motors and boats. Betúlia opens Café do Brasil in the marina, roasting her own beans that arrive directly from Sao Paulo, and coupling fragrant coffee with mouth-watering home baked gourmet cakes.

In the year of 1996, they fly to the village of Parintins in the Amazon, where three-month-old Alma waited for them.
So they become three.

In 2000, they rent the boatyard and Marina for one year and leave Sweden on board their sailboat, S/Y Concreta, with Brazil as their final destination. While on the island of Itaparica they found their second paradise, the first one being the apartment they had build at Ulvesund Boatyard and Marina right on the waterfront.
S/Y Concreta sails back to Sweden and our time and lives become divided between Brazil and Sweden. During the warm months of the year, Anders works with boats and Betúlia runs her Café do Brasil and translates books of Henning Mankell into Portuguese. During the winter months, they rebuild and renovate houses in Brazil.
In November of 2003 Anders sails to Antarctica with Ola Skinnarmo´s expedition that latter becomes a documentary and a book.

Alma begins school and life gets a bit more complicated. The family has to make a decision to live in Brasil or Sweden. Well, Brazil is warmer, greener, more relaxed, and less expensive to live at. So we chose Brazil and now invite others to come and visit us here on our little farm by the sea. So come and do that!

We think it will be a pleasant experience for you, for we chose to live in the best and most beautiful part of Brazil and that’s what you will also do.

Many people have already been here and when they leave they say it was better than expected and prettier than it was presented in our homepage, which maybe means our homemade homepage is not that good but on the other hand it means that our place is great.

You are welcome to come and see for yourself.

tairu@boibrasilien.com