It was the mystery of autumn 2018. On the beaches of Brazil’s northern coast the Atlantic returned “pacotes de couro”. What does it mean? Bathers, even in places far from each other, found packs of stocked leather hides on the shoreline, in a state of deterioration such as to suggest a long stay in the water. There was no guess on their origins: no one claimed them, much less has been known of shipwrecks or boats in difficulty that have freed part of their cargo at sea. Today, the mystery comes up again, because sightings began again in Brazil at the end of June.
Pacotes de couro
And the findings were not even a few. As metropoles.com reports, the first was on June 28 in Praia de Serrambi, in Pernambuco. The following day pacotes were found in Aver-o-Mar and Boa Viagem, both near Recife, and in Praia da Conceiçao (Pernambuco). Finally, on June 30, they appeared in Praia da Piedade, Grande Recife.
The arcanum
Today as in 2018, the origin of these leather packages is unknown. The online portal Portal T5 tells about the establishment, two years ago, of a technical commission on the discoveries.
Final report of 2019 just said that it was material to be considered polluting if abandoned in the environment. The newspaper itself draws the parallel with some “unexpected” oil losses in the seas of Pernambuco: investigations in 2019 found their origin in the wreck of a German ship that (almost needles to say) wrecked in 1941. Sooner or later the mystery of the pacotes will be solved too. Who knows.
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