Thursday – 12 March 2009 – At Sea but still in the Amazon
Yesterday was extraordinary. At 6 am we entered the Breves Narrows, a narrow passage deep in the Amazon Delta system. For 7 hours the 9 deck ocean going cruise ship had a river cruise in a narrow channel, and then until dark continued in the 250 mile wide main channel of the Amazon, not entering the Atlantic Ocean until 3 am. At 8 am we are now 120 miles out to sea and still in the coffee with milk brown water of the Amazon. I expect the water will turn blue again late today, just in time for the tedious "Queen Neptune" ceremony for the one or two guests who haven't crossed the Equator at sea before. We are now at 2 degrees North Latitude.
The transit through the Amazon system yesterday passed the remarkable town of Breves, a large settlement complete with huge statue, wide main streets, and at least three "high street" areas of retail shops. The rest of the all day river passage was in heart of darkness country where very isolated squatter fisherman shacks provided housing for the subsistence fishing families. As we approached each, canoes of women with babies or very young boys and girls paddled almost directly in our paths, only to slide along our port or starboard sides. I finally figured out that they were positioning themselves for the E-ticket ride afforded by our bow waves. We observed this with hundreds of canoes, and with kids that appeared to be expert paddlers although not much older than toddlers. Occasionally there appeared a missionary school or small cemetery plot which I pointed it out as "the dead center of the Amazon" . This caused equally dead stares from some of the other guests onboard who apparently had less developed senses of humor.
This fantastic Amazon experience was a complete surprise to all the guests as it was not in the published pre-cruise Silversea itinerary. Had it been, we all agreed that the less than half full ship would have been sold out, reminding me of the equally extraordinary cruise up the Greenland coast to Dinko Bay on Silver Whisper some years ago where 120 guests out of a 400 guest capacity experienced the origin of most Atlantic icebergs 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Silversea HQ is its own worst enemy—still.
We will be "at sea" today, arriving at Devil's Island, French Guiana—my 125th country*, but who's counting—tomorrow morning at 9 am.
*126th country if I count Easter Island. See last Fall's trip journal at http://cbu-sa.blogspot.com.
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