Course Correction

Errata

The position I recorded on my last post was incorrect.

My source is a special channel on the TV that gives information called the Captain's Log. Apparently it has not been updated for at least a day. The captain just came on the horn to let us know he had brought the ship closer to the land so we could observe the outflow from the Amazon some 230 nautical miles south of us. The water from the Amazon is distinctly lighter in color and makes a very marked line between it and the bluer Atlantic. We are just on the border between French Guyana and Brazil at Point Orange, 30 miles East of us. The water from the Amazon is being carried north by the Guyana Current.

We will approach the mouth of the Amazon about midnite. Even if it was daylight we would not be able to readily discern the mouth as it is some 50 miles wide as we enter the river. Sometime around 2:00 AM he will slow the ship to about 10 knots as he crosses the bar because the faster the ship travels the deeper it settles in the water. He anticipates he will have 4 to 6 feet under his keel as he passes over the bar. He must stop at an inspection station and obtain permission to continue and at the same time will pickup a river pilot for the rest of our time on the Amazon.

He warned us to keep our balcony and other outside doors shut once we enter the Amazon as there are all kinds of creepy, crawly things that are attracted to the ship by its lights. There are moths and flying cockroaches with a wing span of 4 or 5 inches that would love to greet us in bed in the morning. I think Ruth was taking a nappy during his chat with us.

He said we will be able to see some of them in the morning as they cling to outside lights. I will certainly take pictures of them to let you see the dangers we are going to encounter on our exploration of the Amazon.