{"id":2434,"date":"2026-01-02T20:25:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/?p=2434"},"modified":"2026-01-02T20:25:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:25:58","slug":"2434-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/2434-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 1: The Beach Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"686\" height=\"913\" src=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2444\" style=\"width:465px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.png 686w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-9x12.png 9w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00c9 ver\u00e3o. As praias est\u00e3o cheias de banhistas e, na praia da Princesinha, coberta de chap\u00e9us de sol, j\u00e1 n\u00e3o h\u00e1 espa\u00e7o para mais ningu\u00e9m. No caf\u00e9 que, no inverno, se enche apenas de nadadores de \u00e1guas abertas atrevidos \u2014 e dos seus sacos de roupa espalhados pelo ch\u00e3o debaixo das mesas \u2014 a Vanessa est\u00e1 a ficar louca com tantos pedidos diferentes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2014 If only it were November\u2026 \u2014 she sighs between a double espresso, an Americano, a toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich, and who knows what else, glancing at the two retired friends who, every day, take over the little table just outside the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of them is a lifeguard, his face weathered by the sun from so many years at the beach; the other is a former swimmer, one of the first to cross the nearby coast without a wetsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vanessa was very fond of them and let them stay there playing sueca with other customers or chess, amid shouts insisting that the checkmate wasn\u2019t valid and that the other had tried to cheat him while he was drinking his mazagr\u00e3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vanessa already knows all the swimmers too. She knows who leaves their car keys at the counter, who keeps a bathrobe there to change after class, and who shows up after training to drink a hot gal\u00e3o, catch up with other students and friends, and\u2014who knows\u2014stay on for a lunch of fresh little fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was during one of those comings and goings, delivering orders, that she overheard a strange conversation: some swimmers were going to do a crossing out in the open sea, between two islands. She didn\u2019t quite understand what that meant. Swimming so many kilometers in Ponta Verde Bay in winter already seemed crazy enough\u2014let alone swimming out there, in the open sea, with unpredictable waves and currents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out of curiosity, she checked it out on Maps. When she saw the distance that those people were preparing to swim, she thought it was sheer madness. Still, something about that place began to pique her interest. She remembered having heard, almost by chance, that the previous year some people had gone missing in that area\u2026 and that they had been found alive by swimmers, under strange circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vanessa, who had always had a soft spot for suspense stories, began looking for more details about that incident. And one question wouldn\u2019t leave her mind: did the swimmers preparing for the crossing know about this story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who could they be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what, after all, were the names of the islands?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Chiara Bedini<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c9 ver\u00e3o. As praias est\u00e3o cheias de banhistas e, na praia da Princesinha, coberta de chap\u00e9us de sol, j\u00e1 n\u00e3o h\u00e1 espa\u00e7o para mais ningu\u00e9m. No caf\u00e9 que, no inverno, se enche apenas de nadadores de \u00e1guas abertas atrevidos \u2014 e dos seus sacos de roupa espalhados pelo ch\u00e3o debaixo das mesas \u2014 a Vanessa &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/2434-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Cap\u00edtulo 1: O caf\u00e9 da Praia&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sem-categoria-en"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Clube Swim4fun","author_link":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/author\/geralclube-swim4fun-pt\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clube-swim4fun.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}