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.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
En route to Macapa
Last evening I uploaded a few pictures taken in Grenada. None of them have been edited, so eventually I will delete some when we arrive back home. I took over 250 pictures in Grenada, most taken from the bus on our tour.
There is one picture of a lady with her head covered with a white cloth. She was on her way down to the river to do her family washing and when she saw me taking a picture she quickly covered her face with the cloth. Many in this poor area of Grenada have no municipal water source, so do as so many others in like circumstances and wash in the local streams. Just previous to meeting this lady, the driver had stopped on a bridge over the stream and pointed out to us some rocks in the stream that were quite white. The whiteness was the result of soap residue from scrubbing their clothes. Later we saw another lady on her way to the stream with a plastic clothes basket of dirty clothes balanced on her head. We met a couple from the ship who had gone river rafting on this same stream. I didn't have the heart to tell them they had been in wash water.
We are on a heading of 123.8 degrees which parallels the coastline. We are just 8 degrees above the equator (you'll have to ask Dave how many miles this is above the equator). At 10:00 AM the ship officers and crew conducted a ritual to initiate crew members crossing the equator for the first time. They had a king and queen, a judge and a jury comprised of senior ship officers. Surprisingly there were fewer than 30 crew members who had not crossed the equator previously. Each had their crimes detailed - three ladies from the Spa were accused of substituting crude oil for exotic oils and were declared guilty. They had to kiss a raw fish, be subjected to green slime plastered all over them and then thrown in the swimming pool. For the most part it was clean fun, so to speak.
The mouth of the Amazon sits on the Equator. Before we can continue our journey 900 miles up the Amazon we are required to stop at Macapa, the first town at the mouth of the Amazon and obtain clearance to proceed. Like the Columbia River, there is a sandbar at the mouth of the Amazon which is created by the silt carried down from the interior. The ship is timing this passage at high tide and even so will have less than five feet of clearance over the bar.
Once we enter the Amazon, the ship will shutdown the desalinization plant which procuces our fresh water because the silt would gunk up the filtering equipment. Which reminds me that on two occassions as we left a port the engines were suddenly shutdown because of a warning light which indicated engine overheating. I met the captain last evening and he said this is nothing unusual after the ship has been in the Alaska area. Apparently sea critters take up residence in the cooling intake pipes and reduce the flow of water which cool the engines. I suggested he should call RotoRooter. The look on his face gave me the impression he either didn't know about RotoRooter service or thought I was crazy. I don't know what they do, but the engines in both cases were started up again in about 15 minutes.
Ruth and I decided the heat and humidity would be too much for her, so I canceled her ticket for the canoe ride up the tributaries of the Amazon. It is to last about 5 hours and she simply cannot stand heat and humidity for more than an hour or so.
Outside temperature is 84 degrees. Sea temperature is 78.8 degrees. Our heading is still 123.8 degrees. We have traveled 413 miles from Grenada and are 822 miles from Macapa. We are scheduled to arrive at Macapa at 10:00 AM Friday morning. Current position is 08 degrees 28.26' N 056 degrees 04.51' W, which is about the same longitude as Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
There is one picture of a lady with her head covered with a white cloth. She was on her way down to the river to do her family washing and when she saw me taking a picture she quickly covered her face with the cloth. Many in this poor area of Grenada have no municipal water source, so do as so many others in like circumstances and wash in the local streams. Just previous to meeting this lady, the driver had stopped on a bridge over the stream and pointed out to us some rocks in the stream that were quite white. The whiteness was the result of soap residue from scrubbing their clothes. Later we saw another lady on her way to the stream with a plastic clothes basket of dirty clothes balanced on her head. We met a couple from the ship who had gone river rafting on this same stream. I didn't have the heart to tell them they had been in wash water.
We are on a heading of 123.8 degrees which parallels the coastline. We are just 8 degrees above the equator (you'll have to ask Dave how many miles this is above the equator). At 10:00 AM the ship officers and crew conducted a ritual to initiate crew members crossing the equator for the first time. They had a king and queen, a judge and a jury comprised of senior ship officers. Surprisingly there were fewer than 30 crew members who had not crossed the equator previously. Each had their crimes detailed - three ladies from the Spa were accused of substituting crude oil for exotic oils and were declared guilty. They had to kiss a raw fish, be subjected to green slime plastered all over them and then thrown in the swimming pool. For the most part it was clean fun, so to speak.
The mouth of the Amazon sits on the Equator. Before we can continue our journey 900 miles up the Amazon we are required to stop at Macapa, the first town at the mouth of the Amazon and obtain clearance to proceed. Like the Columbia River, there is a sandbar at the mouth of the Amazon which is created by the silt carried down from the interior. The ship is timing this passage at high tide and even so will have less than five feet of clearance over the bar.
Once we enter the Amazon, the ship will shutdown the desalinization plant which procuces our fresh water because the silt would gunk up the filtering equipment. Which reminds me that on two occassions as we left a port the engines were suddenly shutdown because of a warning light which indicated engine overheating. I met the captain last evening and he said this is nothing unusual after the ship has been in the Alaska area. Apparently sea critters take up residence in the cooling intake pipes and reduce the flow of water which cool the engines. I suggested he should call RotoRooter. The look on his face gave me the impression he either didn't know about RotoRooter service or thought I was crazy. I don't know what they do, but the engines in both cases were started up again in about 15 minutes.
Ruth and I decided the heat and humidity would be too much for her, so I canceled her ticket for the canoe ride up the tributaries of the Amazon. It is to last about 5 hours and she simply cannot stand heat and humidity for more than an hour or so.
Outside temperature is 84 degrees. Sea temperature is 78.8 degrees. Our heading is still 123.8 degrees. We have traveled 413 miles from Grenada and are 822 miles from Macapa. We are scheduled to arrive at Macapa at 10:00 AM Friday morning. Current position is 08 degrees 28.26' N 056 degrees 04.51' W, which is about the same longitude as Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
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