Day 60 - 12/05/23 - Manaus, Brazil - Day 2

 Today was our last day in Manaus and our last DoBrazilRight.com tour.  While there were three major components, there was much more to the excursion.  But first our group of 38 people met in the Explorations Lounge on Deck 5 aft at 7am.  Amazingly, virtually everyone was there well before 7 when I arrived at 6:51. People were anxious for this excursion.  And the 7am meeting time was set by HAL to accomodate our large group.  Promptly at 7 we were ushered down to the tender platform and boarded a ship's tender.  


At the floating pier, we were greeted by our guides from yesterday, Luis, and Daniel.  We were joined by two additional guides, John Paul and Peter.  The group was assigned to either Zaandam #1 or Zaandam #2 speedboat.  Angela and I were assigned to Zaandam #1 and we were soon off to our first stop to swim with the Pink dolphins.  We boated up the Rio Negro to the bridge for a few photos and then for another hour to the location to swim with the pink dolphins.  We were the first to arrive for the day and we had about 45 minutes with them.  But then the real adventure began.





As we started to leave the floating dock, I noted one passenger was left behind.  A wind had kicked up and the captain wasn't able to control the boat and the propeller hit some rocks and sheared the key that joined the engine shaft to the propeller shaft.  With the loss of drive capability, the boat was blown out into the river and the captain vigorously blew the boats horn to attract the attention of the people at the dolphin platform.  Finally a young man came out with a powered skiff and the captain used that skiff to propel us back to the dock where he could effect the necessary repairs.  While he was doing that, a HAL tour boat arrived with a large group to swim with the dolphins, and shortly after that our Zaandam #2 speedboat arrived and saw our predicament.  





In jest, some in the Zaandam #2 boat shouted out that they didn't want to ride in any boat that I was in as they knew of our misadventure 4 years ago on the Amazon when our excursion boat ran out of gas in the dark.  With the dock now containing all of the 3 groups of passengers, portions of the dock began to go underwater.  Our Zaandam #1 guide suggested to me that we take the Zaandam #2 speedboat and leave the group from Zaandam #2 behind to ride on what hopefully would be a "fixed" Zaandam #1 speedboat.  I forcefully explained that was not an option as I didn't want the Zaandam #2 passengers to get upset.  Meanwhile our captain finished the repairs and we then headed out for another try at leaving.  That was unsuccessful, so we returned and he completed a successful repair.  


Of course the adventure was not over.  While the repairs were going on a storm blew over and in our attempt to cross the river, there were at least 7' high waves hitting our starboard side.  So the captain pointed the boat diagonally upriver for a bit and then turned right to head into the waves.  We reached the other side and beached the boat, disembarked it and headed up the village to the Indigenous Village where we enjoyed a presentation and sampled some native food, and had the opportunity to purchase some of their handicrafts.






We reboarded our speedboat and drove a bit more than an hour downriver and back under the bridge to a floating restaurant where we enjoyed a nice buffet lunch.  Afterwards we were driven over to another floating barge and fished for pirarucu which are a delicious fish, and they are very aggressive to eat small fish dangled over the water.  Once they mouth the fish, they fight very hard, and it's quite the thrill to hold on to the fishing pole until the pirarucu dislodges the bait from the fishing rope.  Yes, rope!

We then continued motoring down stream to the meeting of the brown Rio Solimoes and the black Rio Negro.  The two rivers have a sharp dividing line that continues for about 3 miles downstream before the two rivers synthesize together.  What prevents the synthesizing of the two rivers is that the brown river is colder and flows faster and has a lower PH.






We then motored back upstream to the port tender dock and said our goodbyes to our guides and boarded a ship's tender for a one mile tender ride back to the Zaandam.  It was a very good excursion and for me, swimming with the pink and grey dolphins was the highlight of the excursion.  


Tonight's entertainment was the Orange Party which was held in the Crow's Nest.  Much orange was on display and we donned our orange as well.  The music was too loud for our taste so we didn't stay very long.  We then went on one of our nightly bug walks to discover which large moths or other insects were now passengers on the ship.


A night view of the bridge

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 72 - 12/17/23 - At Sea to FLL - Day 1

Image
 All good things must come to an end.  It's now the first of two sea days before reaching Fort Lauderdale and the end of our 73 day cruise.  Given that it's Sunday, our first activity was to attend the final interdenominational church service.  It was good and we celebrated the 3rd Sunday in Advent. A light breakfast followed before we attended the well attended. ASK THE CAPTAIN session.  Captain Smit was his usual charming self and answered many questions from the audience.  A few key questions were asked.  First was about how efficient were we in conserving water on the trip up the Amazon.  Amazingly we conserved around 100 tons of water per day which totally astonished him.  Consumption went from 350 tons to 250 tons per day.  The second question was what was his favorite ship.  Without hesitation, he responded, "MAASDAM!"  It's also one of our favorite ships.  He also added that the Zaandam is his new "Maasdam". His 3 ...
Read more

Day 63 - 12/08/23 - Exiting the Amazon River - Day 1

Image
 We're now in our final two days on the Amazon.  It's a bucket list type of itinerary and we've totally enjoyed it with the variety of stops and nice excursions.  And the very good news was that we were actually able to reach Manaus despite the record low water conditions.  The river was muddy all day and we had sun with broken clouds.  In his noon announcement, Captain Smit said, "This is the Captain speaking from the bridge with the latest nautical information and weather.  We are on the Amazon and it is HOT!"  The latter was said half jokingly, but all too true. Our morning had a shore excursion presentation for Devils Island (none there but Debbie had lots of photos and information about the place) and the next few ports.  Jeremy followed up with his Port Essentials talk about several upcoming ports. Andy Fletcher was back in the afternoon for his World Stage presentation on Albert Einstein, Special Relativity, Space Time and Weirdness.  ...
Read more

Day 05 - 10/11/23 - Puerto Límon, Costa Rica

Image
 What a day!  We were up before 7am as we needed to meet our shore excursion group at 7:45.  Overnight we left the flat screen TV on the bow camera and it gently introduced the day's light to our windowless cabin.  As we ate breakfast, we watched our arrival in Puerto Límon (named after the tree of the same name). After breakfast we gathered up our belongings and joined our group led by Beth in the 5th floor Ocean Bar.  Shortly after 8am, we received Jeremy's announcement over the PA system that the ship was cleared to disembark passengers.  This is our first time in this port, but we've visited Costa Rica a number of times on the Pacific side.  We made our way off the ship and walked the long pier to the port exit where we easily found our small excursion bus. Ricky, the proprietor, was there to greet us.  He had driven 6 hours from the other coast the previous day to do this tour.  He's a jovial person, ready to share information.  The...
Read more