17 October 2008, The Amazon Bar and going to Macapa.

Entering the river turned out to be more of a challenge than we had expected and had bargained for. I had hoped to be early at the bar, so I could ride the high tide in, but the strong adverse Guyana current that we had battled for the last two days in the North Atlantic Ocean put a stop to that. The ship just made it to the bar when it was supposed to be high tide. However Mother Nature had decided that the Amazon outflow was stronger than the regular balance and by the time we reached the bar, ebbing had set in.

The flooding tide is normally considerable and can be felt up to 250 miles up river from the Amazon estuary. The ocean pushes more and more water up the estuary where it becomes more narrow all the time. The water has no other place to go than “into the funnel” and thus flows stronger. It can give you a quite a bit of extra speed and also means there is more water over the bar and more water depth to work with. With the ebbing tide, the Amazon water gets an extra momentum as the receding ocean water leaves space for the river water to flow unhindered. That together produces a very strong flow down stream and we were going to enjoy all of it; by going against it of course.

The ship had been running flat out with 20 knots all the way from Grenada and when we neared the shallow area, I slowed the ship down to maneuvering speed and then to even less. This had to do with squat. Squat is the settling of the ship in the water. If you see a speed boat leaving from the dock and the throttle is pulled fully open, the back with the motor is digging itself into the water. With a big ship it is the same. Thus with a regular draft of 8 meters, the Veendam settles up to 4 meters deeper into the water at the stern when going full out If I would go over the bar with such a combined draft, the ship would certainly hit the bottom. So we slow down, to about 12 knots or even less as that takes most of the squat away.

Our first impression that something strange was going on, or had happened before, was the fact that the light vessel that normally indicates the position to bar approach was missing. It was completely gone; although the harbor master of Macapa had indicated the day before that it was in position. However with GPS we could pinpoint the location without a problem. Thus we sailed slowly over the bar, carefully watching the echo sounder. During the course of the night we got more and more current against us and we observed a maximum adverse current of over 5 knots. That is a strong current and it slowed us down considerably, especially as we were already going slowly because of the shallow water. The shallowest spot we crossed over gave us just 2 feet under the keel. Although such shallow water is not pleasant, it is not worrying. We know that even with the lowest, low water, we will still have enough clearance to proceed, as the minimum depth of the area that we will go through will always be more than the ships draft. We do not gamble with such things.

The Amazon estuary. It shows the brown outflow of the river far into the open ocean

Once over the bar; we entered deeper water and then we had the next thing. The buoys that marked the preferred channel to use, where also gone, all ten of them, leaving only four which just indicated the extremities of the sand banks, not the correct contours. Thus we had to slow down again, watch the echo sounder with eagle eyes and steer away each time we saw the depth decreasing. When we finally made it to deep and safe water, in the Amazon proper, we had lost a lot of time but safety comes first.

Our destination was Macapa Clearing station 170 miles up the Amazon. Here the ship is cleared by the Brazilian authorities and here also the pilots come on board. Those first 170 miles up the river we pilot the ship ourselves as the charts are reliable and the water is deep. For the guests the arrival at Macapa was also an important moment as Macapa is located right on the equator and thus we went here from the Northern half to the Southern half of the world.

Mecapa pilot and ships clearance station. The town of Mecapa is located a bit further to the right. All ships entering the Amazon have to drop anchor here, and wait to be cleared by the authorities. Note the muddy water.

This time it took the authorities nearly six hours to clear the ship. Time that I could ill afford as I had already lost time by having to go over the bar so slow and with going against so much adverse current. Needless to say, when they did finally clear the ship, we put the pedal to the metal to get to our first port Santarem as soon as possible. Why it took six hours ?, I do not know. All the ships paper work was in order, they just took their time.

When I saw that all the buoys from the channel were missing, I informed the harbor master in Macapa and my message created quite a stir. The agent advised that he at once flew out trying to find his buoys back and also to see where his lightship had disappeared to. If the buoys are not back by the time we go out of the Amazon again, I will simply follow the opposite course from coming up and I know that I will be safe.

When I came on board and introduced myself to the guests the first evening, I advised them not to see the Amazon visit as a cruise, but as an expedition. It seems that my words are coming true.

Tomorrow we are in Santarem, what time we arrive; we will find out when we get there. According to the pilot there is “plenty current” and that does not help at all.