Amazon Cruise 6

Sunday, November 25  --  At sea (on the river)

Sleep late, eat some, go to a lecture, crochet or knit, talk to people, sit on the balcony watching the rain forest roll by and the sun set, eat some more.

Today's lecture on animals of the Amazon was full of slides of beautiful birds as an intro, then piranhas, pink dolphins, caymens, anacondas eating things larger than their heads, river otters attacking most of the previous beasts, etc. interesting, but a bit grim in spots.

I forgot to report this yesterday. The Captain on the PA system as we were leaving Parintins, "Hello. This is your disembodied voice from the Bridge." Love it.

Monday, November 26  --  At sea (on the river)

See yesterday's first paragraph.

We picked up our last river pilot at Macapa last night about 8:30. A small but zippy boat brings him out, and he boards us via a rope ladder...unless the boat is tall enough for him to hop across to our tender port. We are headed to the vicinity of Belem on the south bank near the mouth of the Amazon. I say vicinity because we have evidently missed the correct tide to let us dock at Belem, so we will dock (or maybe tender) at a place called Icoaraci about an hour away from Belem. It's no bother to me as I hadn't planned to go ashore here anyway.

I finally finished crocheting a shawl for myself (unless someone offers me a whole pot of money for it). It's really bright rainbow colors, and mostly I've been working on it in one of the lounges where lots of people pass through. I made a little sign that says "DONE" and tomorrow i will spread it out on a table by my favorite chair for people to see who had asked about it during the past weeks.

The first program we went to today was an interview and Q&A session with Captain Dag. It was a fine program as he is an excellent speaker. I may have mentioned earlier that the Prinsendam has been sold to a German company and is currently leased back to Holland America until the end of its current cruise cycle in June. There were several questions relating to that which were interesting. Also of interest, Captain Dag will retire at the end of Prinsendam's last cruise. He has been working at sea since he was 17 and feels 63 is a good retirement age. He will be missed by many, passengers and crew alike.

Today there were two lectures as on most sea days. One was on Orion and the other was on lighthouses. The Orion guy was a better lecturer, but his innumerable slides of the night sky were difficult for my aging eyesight. The other one had almost too many photos of lighthouses, most along the east coast of North America but also a bunch of places around the world. It was fun recognizing places I've been, and in some cases, their lighthouses.

We spent most of today out past the bar of the Amazon en route from Macapa on the north side to Belem (Icoaraci is a bit more inland) on the south side.of the river. For most of the day the water was still silty brown, but we were getting more wave action.

For tonight's Gala Dinner Margaret had lobster and I had a piece of beef tenderloin at least 1.5 inches thick that was so tender I could cut it with /either side/ of a regular table knife or even my fork. Yum.

Tuesday, November 27  --  Belem, Brazil (Icoaraci)

I stayed on board today since Icoaraci will require almost an hour's local tender ride from our anchorage, and Belem is about another hour's bus ride from Icoaraci although Holland America is running a free shuttle bus. This unfortunate situation is the result of low water levels at the end of the dry season combined with the timing of the tides which is off schedule with our "touring" times we would need to be at Belem.

Margaret left before I woke up to tour up another tributary river and trek through more jungle. She reported that the tender and bus rides were truly about an hour each. Of course she got rained on. There is a wide difference in attitudes relating to the rainforest between this coastal state and that of Santarem. The latter wants to protect their rainforest while the former wants to make money off of it. However, on the whole she enjoyed the tour.

So we leave the Amazon River, and around midnight should be crossing the Equator for the last time on this voyage.