11 March 2010; Boca de Valeria, Brazil.

I had decided to arrive early at the anchorage, two hours before the official arrival time as past experience had shown that Boca is always a challenge for the tender operation. Especially when having to make the tender pier acceptable to our standards. When the Amazon is low, the locals have a floating pontoon with a catwalk that they move along with the receding river. When the river gets higher that pontoon disappears and the ships are left to fend for themselves. Thus I arrived at 6 am sunrise time, and lowered a tender with the chief officer in charge. His mission was to see if we could reach the village by sailing over the now inundated shore line and find a place where our tenders could somehow safely dock. This tender was loaded with wood, carpet, upholsterers and Carpenters. With a sailor on the bow to do soundings, a look out, a tender driver and the chief officer in command, expedition “Baby-Prinsendam” proceeded slowly towards the church square of Boca de Valeria.

The chief officer comes from the Dutch island of Terschelling so messing around with boats is not unusual to him. He discovered a narrow but deep thoroughfare towards the church square in front of which the Amazon had created a sort of natural harbour. There was a little dock, for the canoes and with the aid of our ships carpenters, sailors and upholsterers; it was made fit for our tender operation. The carpet that we used was later donated to a local, who no doubt is now the proud owner of a front room decked out with Prinsendam corridor carpet.

The Expedition tender about to invade Boca de Valeria. The sailor forward is standby with a stick to take depth soundings. Each tender has a depth sounder but the sensor is not located at the bow, hence the manual stick operation.

As the little channel was deep but narrow we had on each tender an officer to navigate through the creek and ensure that the boat would stay in the channel and turn at the appropriate moment. The tender driver has a dead angle from his steering location so it is difficult for him to see where to make the next turn through the grass. Who says that making a cruise on the Prinsendam is dull? One day the ship is plowing through ice in the Antarctic and a few days later you are on a tender plowing through Amazon grass in Boca de Valeria. This time no penguins to look at but cows grazing in the water.

Cows in the water, as seen from a tender passing by.

One aspect of Boca that was not so evident today were the flying pigs. These are not real pigs but jumping Amazon dolphins which are pink. The pink skin color is caused by bauxite in the water that through drinking gets into their skin. When they jump out of the water, it just looks as if a pig is flying by. However they were there today but not jumping. Maybe the current was too strong or too much debris, I do not know; but apart from a few sightings, they kept very quiet.

Where the little boat is, is normally the shore line during the Amazon dry-season. Now there was 20 feet of water.

With the Amazon rising, the water loosens up a lot of dead and alive trees from the shore and it all comes downstream with a considerable drift of 2 to 4 knots. That means that we have to be very, very careful with the tenders so that they do not hit a big trunk at full speed. Same thing, when it was time to retrieve the tenders. The chief officer kept them clear off the ship until the water was free of flotsam and jetsam and then hooked them in for hoisting up.

We were on our way again by 2 pm going Northbound to Manaus. We will be there tomorrow together with the Royal Princess at the same dock. She was at anchor at Parintins, where we will be in a few days. She left at the same time from that place and so she sailed about 20 miles ahead of us as Parintins is further up river than Boca de Valeria. It is my intention to creep closer to her during the night, so I will be about 30 minutes behind her by the time we dock. While going up stream we passed the deepest part of the Amazon around 16.30 and the echo sounder measured 123 meters under the keel. That is quite a bit for a river.

At midnight we will switch pilots and then the schedule should work out for approaching Manaus at 08.30 and coming alongside around 0930 for a timely arrival.

Downtown Boca de Valeria. When the Amazon is at its highest the water comes to the church doorstep.

All photos courtesy of Chief Officer Ane Smit.