Day 51 - 11/26/23 - At Sea to Fortaleza, Brazil

After another short night, we found ourselves at sea on the way to Fortaleza which is two sea days away from Salvador.  It's located northeast of Recife and just before the Amazon. While it's a Sunday, we missed the interdenominational service as it conflicted with Jeremy's coffee chat with the singers and dancers and their production head.  With such a long cruise, there are 10 shows they need to learn and perform on this voyage.  Plus they are learning 5 additional shows that will be performed on the Grand Australia cruise which departs two weeks after we reach Fort Lauderdale on December 19.  Essentially they all have a very long contract with two Grand Voyages and a two week break at Christmas to be home before boarding the Volendam in San Diego.

Christmas decorations are starting to now show up around the ship.  Below is the first Christmas tree I've spotted.

Bosco gave a nice presentation on the National Rhythm of Brazil.  Richard Watson followed up with a presentation on Brazil as an Empire which was really interesting.

In his noon announcement, Captain Smit finally addressed the elephant in the room:  Would we make it to Manaus with the record low water levels?  He indicated that he is in frequent contact with the port authorities there and at the moment, there is not enough water depth for the Zaandam to make a port stop there.  That stop is important for two reasons besides the obvious tourist stop.  The ship can take on fresh water as it can't make it from the Amazon River.  Second, it is an important provisioning port.  But he said that the decision has not yet been made to cancel the Manuas stop and it won't be made for a few days yet.  I did hear from someone on my Cruise Critic thread that the Azamara Quest was unable to unload as much waste water as needed to be able to take on a full load of fresh water.  Their guests were being encouraged to conserve water and the laundry services were shut down.  That ship has about 6 feet of more freeboard than the Zaandam, and I can see from Vessel Finder that many cargo ships are stuck at the next port down river from Manaus.  

Our ice cream man is hands down the happiest employee I have ever met on any cruise ship.  He just beams friendliness as he serves ice cream.  Someone composed a short poem that describes the situation.

I spent much of my afternoon updating my blog and our evening was spent enjoying the Barn Dance night in the LIDO pool area.  I even danced a few dances with my wife and it was much to her delight.  The event was very well attended and members of the dance team taught several country dance routines.

Kay, Grace, & Angela

The Ocean Bar Band

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