A two month trip up and down the Amazon, in english

Two Moody’s : a two month trip up and down the Amazon

Itinerario: Itineray 

 

The trip initiated from Belem (Para state) , going up the Para river, going west around Marajo island. This island, realm of swimming buffalos, is as big as Switzerland.

 

The 21 boats are progressing at 6 knots behind the Sao Joao, the boat of the rally organisation.

The boats then entered the “furros” , a maze of channels between the main rivers. These furros are sometimes very narrow and the boats have to motor in a single line.

 

The people living near the river and in the “furros “are called “caboclos”, descendents of early European settlers, with a very variable portion  of Indian blood. They are very friendly.

Palm trees are predominant in the North East but will be replaced by the rain forest as we go deeper in the Amazon basin.

We soon reach mighty Amazon River with a 2.5 knots current against us.

The crews have to be very careful to the drifting vegetal. Thy range from some debris and logs, to a 20m tree, and often floating islands of giant lilies have to be cleared. Current is lower close to the shore, but more debris there? and the trade-off is delicate.

At night, boats are mooring along the shore in depth around d 5m but  sometimes up to 20m.

The anchorage can be tricky when a thunderstorm blows over the 21 boats, but no major accident occurred.

Stops in Boa Vista, Breves, Liverpool (no beatles there), Porto do Moz, Almerim, Monte Alegre, All these stops have good diesel, and shops for basic supplies. GSM networks   are rare as well as cybercafes, and when we are lucky to find one, Internet is very slow.

Up the Amazon for a few days we leave “aguas brancas”(White waters, in fact yellow..)  and turning left after the city of Santarem, finally enter the rio Tapajos, with its dark waters , acid enough to keep mosquitoes away.

Alter do Chao was the last call going upstream. We had a week rest  in the “Amazon Caraibes”, with sandy beaches and transparent waters. This week was an opportunity to organize a 3 days trip in the rain forest, to meet traditional Indians and the giant trees, the monkeys, the parrots but also snakes and mygales, the giant spiders.

Then we turned back east, down to Afua close to the Amazon mouth, which we reached in about a week.

From Belem to Afua, the trip took 6 weeks, for approximately 900 miles, and 150 hours motoring .Afua is the end of the rallye ,and the boats can  decide individually on the their program.

French Guyana has been a stopover for many of the boats heading to the Caribean.

Kourou river wad preferred to the Cayenne harbour Degrad de Cannes. Nevertheless, apart from the visit to the Space Center , the stay in Guyana was not the most interesting, with poor anchorage conditions , and at this time of the year frequent heavy rains.

Most of the boats sailed to Trinidad, were they will spend the hurricane season and perform eventual repairs in the excellent shipyards of this island.

Three chose to winter in Le Marin in Martinique. Most had time for a short cruise in the southern part of the Caribbean : Tobago, Grenada, Union Tobago keys, Bequai, St Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Barth..

Five boats sailed back to Europe, with a May-June passage between Caribbean and Azores, and a last meeting was held in famous « Café Sport » in Horta . This passage has been carried out in 17 days in average.

Three were heading to the France Atlantic coast and two crossed to Gibraltar and the south coast of France

 Bomberos: Lifeguards

 Key factors for the success of this trip are support, safety and security.

This is organized around the “Sao Joao”, a 25m Amazonian boat. On this boat, apart of the 3 persons from rally organization, we have 6 “bomberos”, 4 policemen, an experienced Amazon pilot, 4 crews for handling of the boat, and a cook.

The state of Para is strongly backing the project

 

The role of the bomberos is to deal with all problems occurring on water with the boats.

They can dive to clear  propellers from weeds or branches. They can also free an anchored boat from “morere” ( floating islands of local lilies ): in that case they put on their wet suit ( not because of the cold water but because of the snakes) .

 They can take proper action in case of incursion of undesirable animals, likes shakes (we did not see any) and monkeys (one boat received a visit when anchored in Alter do Chao).  In narrow passages between sand banks, the bomberos, with their “lancha” (speedboat) will moor a buoy to mark clear waters.

The role of policemen is to ensure security. In this troubled area (remember Peter Blake) , showing guns is enough for a complete security. In the towns were we stopped, local authorities were very present for logistics. At night the Sao Joao will come alongside the “trapiche” (pier) and be the head-quarter for shore activities, including for instance keeping dingies  in a safe environment.

Gente: People

During the Amazon trip the boats have been stopping each night, allowing most of the time ,the crews to go ashore and meet local people. Each time they encountered a warm welcome, the rally often being the only tourists visit of the year for the smallest communities. Our visit was the opportunity for dance demonstrations and tasting of local food. Communication was not easy since Portuguese language is only spoken there,  but with a  little effort on both side a minimum of conversation was possible. 

 

Som : Sound

Music is everywhere in Brazil, of course Samba and Bossa Nova, but each region has is own sound tradition : In Nordeste we have furro, in Amazonas  we have Carimbo and Calypso.

 All have one thing in common: the noise  level!!!  Boats , cars, cafés, compete to deliver the maximum of decibels. The peak is reached during carnaval period where trucks loaded with 10 000 watts sound machines drive the streets of the Brazilian cities followed by a dancing crowd.

 

Comida: Food

Amazon offers an immense choice:

• Fruits: Açai, Acerola, Cupuaçu, Bacuri, Maracuja, Castagna do Para; as well as pineaple, mango , passion fruit,
• Vegetables: everything you can dream of plus more that you will not experience elsewhere in the world
• Meat and Poultry : Buffalo, Zebu, Pork, Duck , local traditional dish is Pato no tucupi: duck with wild spinach,
• Fish: pirarucu, piranha, peixe amarelo, filote all fresh water fish of course
• Cheese:  local buffalo cheese tastes like mozzarella ,
• Drinks : beer of course , but also caipirinha became the favourite drinks (cachasa, lime juice, sugar and ice).This drinks takes a green colour and was much acclaimed for St Patrick party aboard Minnie B, from Belfast..

 

Agua: Water is everywhere:

• Under our hull with mighty Amazon which can reach flow up to 3 knots, aguas brancas carry all kind of vegetals and animals. It is OK to swim pur not always since some locations are infested by piranhas, the carnivore fish. This is not a legend, a fisherman showed a bad wound on the hand caused by these nice animals. 

·    Pouring down from the sky. Fortunately the squalls are violent but short. Quantity of water is impressive, you can really check if your boat is waterproof. You can also fill up easily your water tanks. With proper “watercatch” gear you can get up to 100 liter per squall.

 

Floresta: Forest

In most of the area the populated land is very narrow between the river and the forest.

Forest has traditionally been much exploited but recent regulations have slowed down cutting and many sawmills have been closing down. Main danger for the forest now is the soybean expansion especially in the region of Santarem, but exports substantially contribute to the Brazilian trade balance.

Reserves have been set up in order to protect the primary forest and in several opportunities we have been able to enter the maze of trees, lianas and mosses  accompanied by local guides.

 

 

Camarada:  Fellow boats

21 boats took part on this expedition: Two British, Two Belgian, Two Swiss and 15 French.

All of them were series boats age ranging from brand new to 25 years old. 4 Catamaran and 17 monohull.

 The list below gives an idea of the type of boats in the rally :

Amel Super-Maramu,   Halberg Rassy 45, Northwind 50, Sun Odyssee 452, Moody 49 , aluminium racer Azzuro 42,  Fabulo 37 single handed racer (with a family of 6 aboard), Ovni 365,Ovni 395, Ovni 445 , Ovni 455, Daphnie 40 lifting keel strongall design,   Bavaria 40,Oceanis 393, Moody 376, , Sun Odyssee 40, Prout Event 39 cat, Lavezzi 40 Catamaran,  Dean 441 South African built cat, African Fastcat 445, Galileo 41 aluminium catamaran,

 

Crews were mostly couples; four boats had children aboard, one dog on a 44’ cat.

Of course habitability of the cats has been much appreciated during this voyage, but one of cats weaknesses has been very obvious in this river environment.

 Mooring conditions  are though in the Amazon( lot of current, nasty squalls, mooring depths over 15m) and the cats had a hard time due to their “dunnage”?  and found themselves in uncomfortable positions in the mangrove.

Monohulls with shallow draft were more at ease in these conditions (Ovnis of course and also the M376 with her 1,40 keel)