Day 54 - 11/29/23 - At Sea to the Amazon River, Brazil - Day 1
When I checked on the hot water situation in our stateroom yesterday, there was hot water around 7:15pm, but by 10pm it was once again gone and still only barely lukewarm at 7am. However, around 9:15am a plumber came by and the water was once again hot, and I mean very hot. Also it appeared that the air conditioning fan was now blowing cold air and the room temperature was dropping from 24ºC to 22 which was a welcome relief.
The interdenominational bible study was a sharing time today and we had some interesting testimonies. Richard Watkins gave another of his excellent presentations on Parintins: Festival and Folklore at an unusual time of 9:30am. His presentation was essentially about the Boi Bumba Festival held there. As a result of the presentation, we decided to book the HAL excursion to the presentation which we also saw back in 2019. There's really not much else in the little town but the presentation and we extensively walked the town in 2019.
That change put everyone on the half hour starting time for the start of the crossing the equator ceremony where "pollywogs" (those who have never crossed the equator) are tried by King Neptune and his Queen, and sentenced to bow to the fish (a large and ugly looking black fish. Afterwards they have to be "treated" by the medical staff (slathered with colorful fondue type cream) and then convicted by the jury (Senior Officers). If convicted, they have to set on the edge of the pool and bake in the sun; if pardoned, they can jump in the aft pool and wash off the substance. At the end of the ceremony, all can jump in the pool and wash off. What was surprising in this ceremony was that there were two imposters: a pirate and King Neptune himself. They also had had to be tried and convicted. And all became "shellbacks". Even more surprising was that the wife of the Staff Captain dragged him into the pool fully dressed. And a good time was had be all. The next day we all received certificates of having crossed the equator. I've lost track of how many times we've crossed the equator. It will be four times on this voyage.
In the afternoon, Jeremy gave a presentation on Santarem and Parintins which are our next two ports of call. Throughout the rest of the day I was emailing with our tour operator in Manaus regarding what to do with the schedule given the ship's change in schedule. Plus I was dealing with questions from tour participants. In the end, the operator decided to switch the excursion days and do the city tour on arrival on 12/4 partially in the day and the rest at night. He's trying to get the Opera House open that night especially for us. Our water excursion will now be during the day on 12/5 and there's also the possibility of a night alligator excursion on12/5 depending upon how late tenders typically operate. That excursion is up in the air as of this writing.
Our evening entertainment was the Singers & Dancers performing a vintage HAL show, CLASSIQUE. It was so good we stayed for the second show as is our custom when a show is really good. After the show, we walked a few laps around deck 3 in a very bright moonlight. It was quite pleasant to walk in the night air.
Tomorrow is another sea day with a great coffee chat scheduled along with Oi Brasil lectures.
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