10 March 2010; Santarem, Brazil.

The current did not get any better (that is less) during the night. Instead it only became stronger. The minimum observed was 2.8 knots and the maximum, for a short time, 5.1 knots. That meant that by doing 20 knots through the water, the ship made on average only 16.5 knots of speed over the ground. And I did have the ship going full out. The Amazon is a very wide river and thus it can be safely done to run sea speeds. However it is not as wide as the open sea and therefore the chief officer and I are on the bridge in turns to monitor the activities of the pilots and the officers. The chief being on the bridge during 1800 – midnight period and me from midnight to 0600. Not directly involved in the navigation but keeping an overview to ascertain that if a mistake would occur it would not create an error chain with dangerous results. So until 6 am I was watching the speed log with great interest but the current never ever did relent to something acceptable, acceptable in order to arrive on time. By 6 am. it was quite clear that we were going to be late, quite late. The Amazon was showing it strength and there was nothing that I could do about it.

The good thing was that I knew about it early. I could alert everybody and ensure that the late arrival would have the least impact possible. After sending my emails I went to bed for a few hours as I needed to be clearly focused for the docking. When I awoke I saw that the Hotel manager had made the necessary arrangements. All the ships tours were re-scheduled for the afternoon, and the shuttle bus times re-arranged. I had also decided to delay the departure time of the ship by an hour, so people could stay out until sunset and optimize shore time.

The town only has two cargo docks (Bauxite and lumber) and thus the view from the ship is not really exciting. Therefore we ran shuttle buses to Santarem centre.

In the end we docked 2 hours late. During the final approach we had to go slow due to the numerous ferries at the town docks and then there was the delicate balancing act of getting the ship alongside. It was blowing wind force five in the stern; there was two to three knots of current from the bow and the problem was they were not opposite, but angled, and thus they did not cancel each other out. So gently, gently was the word while coming sideways towards the dock and staying just clear enough while the chief officer directed the lines ashore. Once they were tight, I could make the final adjustments to make the Security Officer happy with a good location for his gangway. Our official arrival time was 10 am and we had the gangway out at noon time. Santarem is located on the equator and as it was a sunny day; the temperatures were accordingly 95oF in the sun and 85oF in the shade. Going up the Amazon is an expedition.

With all that wind and current I spent some time figuring out how to get the Prinsendam off the dock again, as the town does not have any tugboats, in the tug—-tugging sense. They are all push boats that push barges up and down the Amazon. It looked like that with angling the ship, I would be able to get the wind just on the port side of the funnel to push me a little bit off, then get the bow off the dock to let the current in between the dock and the ship and push the Prinsendam bodily away to open waters. It worked out very well in the end and once the ship was clear I just watched the natural movement of the ship on wind and current and the Prinsendam decided that she wanted to turn over the port bow. Rule one of ship handling is that you always work with the ship and the elements if you can safely do so. So if the ship likes to turn over to port, then you will let her turn over to port.

The separation of the waters. We will see it again when approaching Manaus.

Santarem is not located on the shores of the Amazon itself but at the mouth of the river Tapajos. Just before entering the river you can see a clear cut difference between the brown water of the Amazon and the black water of the Tapajos. The latter is much more Acidic and thus darker. That is why we had to turn around and sail back past the town and back into the Amazon. That can be quite exciting as well as you have to make a 100o turn with 4 knots of Amazon current pushing you towards the shore. However the pilot made a nice turn and I only needed to watch and regulate the ships speed.

We left by 7 pm and by 8 pm we were on the way to our next destination, the Indian village of Boca de Valeria. The place is not that far up the river from Santarem so I am going to be early. Last time I was there we had to build our own tender platform first before we started tendering. Now with the Amazon going up in water level 10 centimeters a day (until May) getting a good and safe tender dock arranged might be a challenge.

I did not want to keep this one away from you. This is a dock photo from last year. While sailing on the Amazon you come across these floating fields of grass. Here is one caught around the bollards of the headlines.