Anchor south of Itaqui, near all the pilot boats and tugs. Good holding in mud. It is possible to tie the dinghy near a sloping ramp and climb the slippery steps to get ashore.
If wanting to berth in Marina Aven, most boats will need to wait for high tide. Ilha Medo, 1 mile west of the Marina, has mooring buoys where you can wait.
Marina Aven dries out completely at low water, however, the bottom is soft mud so most boats won't have a problem. They have dock space for four yachts and (rain?) water, showers and toilets are available. The marina bar/restaurant is very welcoming and serves good food.
An estimate of the coordinates is about 02 30.35 S 44 18.97 W. It's not possible to contact them in advance to check for availability so just turn up and hope for the best. That said, VHF was being installed in January 2018. Only Portuguese is spoken.
Last updated: January 2018.
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We had a planned stop at Marina Aven, Sao Louis, early January 2018. Before going to the Marina we went to the little island Ilha Medo, 1 mile west of the Marina. Here we found a mooring buoy where we waited for high tide. Our draft is 1.60 m, and we had no problem in getting into the pontoon.
We were met by very nice and welcoming locals at the Marinas floating bar, where drinks and nice food is served. The Marina dries out at low tide, but the bottom is very soft and presented no problems for us. The Marina was about to install VHF when we were there.
Clearance has to be done in the commercial part of the harbor, which is a 20-minute bus ride(on bus 502 towards Itaqui). This is where you clear out too.
We went to the historical center of Sao Luis, where we had a fantastic week living at Casa Frankie, a very beautiful and inexpensive pension/b&b right in the center of the historical part close to the main bus terminal. Here we had a great welcome by the owners Patricia and Frank.
Our whole stay has been a wonderful experience which we would have regretted missing had we just passed on our way north. We highly recommend having a stopover at Sao Luis.
Anita and Kurt, S/Y Loa.
We had an unplanned stop at Sao Luis in May 2017. We stayed at Marina Aven for 5 days. It’s very small and dries out completely at low tide so only really suitable for catamarans. It cost 50R$ per day with water and electricity extra.
There is a restaurant/cafe at the marina which serves delicious lunches and the lady who runs it is very friendly and helpful. She doesn’t speak any English and we don’t speak any Portuguese so we relied on Google Translate.
There are a very basic shower and toilets. We couldn’t get hold of them either by VHF or phone (I don’t think they have either) but they had space for us when we arrived.
We entered at night finding shelter north of Itaqui port, near Ilha Irma de Dentra; about 8 meters, mud, good holding but rolly as the wind versus tide play with the yacht in funny ways.
In the morning we were instructed by “pilot station”, ch. 16 and 14, to anchor south of Itaqui, near all the pilot boats and tugs.
Miki Barzam of SY Two Oceans