I visited the island of Ilhabela in September 1997 as part
of an expedition organized by the Andisub dive operation from Chile. The
dive operation we used was Colonial Diver. The dive operation was
very professional and the dives where lost of fun,
unfortunately visibility was not very good. The
problems with visibility in the island are seasonal
and mostly caused by the frequent rains during that
time of the year, so you might want to choose another
season to visit.
We did several boat dives on the many wrecks around the
island. These dives had the most problems with visibility
(sometimes less than 2 m), but the wrecks are still very
interesting in these conditions. We also did a shore dive
from the beach just outside the dive operation. This dive
was not particularly interesting, but it was nice because
we could enjoy an ice cold coconut drink right after the
dive. Our last set of dives was a day trip to the Buzios
island. This set of dives was probably the best of the trip
as that island was completely unaffected by the visibility
problems.