Winter 2022 - The Amazon Expedition: Why the Amazon?

Outside the mouth of the river, the sediment filled
waters spilling into the ocean are chocolate brown.

Finally on the Amazon River the water is calmer.

Multi-coloured riverside cliffs

Near Santarem, the clear Tapajos river
meets the silty Amazon

Santarem, Brazil

You seldom seem to be able to hit the waves straight on but when you do, the bow is not the best place to be sleeping. The ship rises up slowly and then suddenly falls into the trough and the collision with the sea sounds like a cannon going off. Gym usually is having a great dream that ends when the bow falls down and with it, he falls back down to the bed after having been suspended above it for a millisecond. No big deal, he braces himself for two more bangs and then goes back to sleep. He has learned from many cruises that the big waves always come in threes. Mrs. Gym has learned to always have seasickness pills on hand. 

For two and a half days after leaving Port of Spain, the seas were very rough and then just after entering Brazilian waters, the sea flattened out and changed colour to more of a brownish hue, as the finer particles of the millions of tons of sediment from the Amazon, spread out over the Atlantic. The smoothing of the sea showed us how the power of the Amazon triumphed over the wind-driven waves of the ocean. This meant Mrs. Gym could get back to normal.

The Insignia entered the mouth of the Amazon in the early morning on November 23, 2022. That day is also the date that Gym Jr. was born. That evening Gym Jr. got a WhatsApp for his parents wishing him a happy birthday. 

Gym has always wanted to explore the Amazon. Why is that? One reason may be the bedtime stories his father told he and two of his brothers when they all shared a room together. The stories were about a fictional character named, "Three-Fingered Joe". I think Three-Fingered Joe was sort of a combination of Humphrey Bogart and Gym's uncle who had lost two fingers on one hand, in WW2. This colourful character would steam up the Amazon and fight cannibal tribesmen and all manner of deadly beasts. Then, after Gym reluctantly grew out of bedtime stories, he attended university, where he studied hydrology, geomorphology and meteorology.  A greater respect was gained for the Amazon because it is the river of rivers. And then recently, the Amazon Basin has also been in the news for its loss of the rain forest habitat, Gym wanted to see what was happening for himself. These jungles are a massive carbon sink and due to the process of photosynthesis, they are an oxygen generator. For Gym, all these reasons were probably equally significant. He was happy as he finally was aboard a  ship sailing up the storied river. For Mrs. Gym, the steadiness of the ship had improved markedly.

Twenty-four hours after entering the mouth of the river, the Insignia anchored at Santarem. In the morning, Gym and his lovely wife were scheduled for a 2-hour drive into the interior, for an afternoon hike around in the Rain Forest. That day trip is the subject of the next posting

Stay Tuned!


 

Sunset over Santarem taken from Gym’s stateroom balcony