Ilhote do Cardoso (Farol de Santa Marta)

In the early hours of 13 March 1911, at around 2 a.m., the steamship Catalão ran aground opposite Ilhote do Cardoso, between the Cigana and Cardoso beaches, south of the Farol de Santa Marta lighthouse. Captain Lúcio Duarte Valente blamed the accident on the ocean current and the fog of that night. Built in 1889 by the English shipyard Stephenson Robert & Co., the packet ship measured 100.06 m by 12.06 m and was of 4,000 tons. It had belonged to the Companhia Transatlântica Argentina, but was by then owned by the firm Darisch & Cia., of Rio de Janeiro, and was making its first voyage under the Brazilian flag. It was sailing from Buenos Aires bound for Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Pará, with a cargo of alfalfa, jerked beef, groceries and perfumery and, in its holds, about 800 sheep and 190 oxen and cows. Most of these animals ended up being landed on the beach.

The ship was also carrying the embalmed body of the daughter of a colonel surnamed Fragoso, who had served in the Military Household of former president Afonso Penna, and the coffin washed up on the beach. Three crew members were left in Laguna by the captain without being paid their wages. In the region, news of a grounding used to travel by the Tubarão River until, after the wreck of the Catalão, a telegraph line was installed between the Farol de Santa Marta and the centre of Laguna.

Broken in two opposite the islet, the submerged remains formed a reef, and on days with a calm sea the outline of the ship can be seen from the surface. There is no consensus on the identity of these remains, which may also belong to the Aldabi, a ship that sank at the same spot in 1937. Many large fish, sea urchins and lobsters have been seen around the islet. Despite its name, Ilhote do Cardoso is not actually an island, and it holds a natural pool in its interior.