23 October 2008, Going back to Sea.

We made good speed during the night, however as we had to slow down a few times for shallow patches, fishermen and other ships; we did not go as fast as I hoped we would. Still good progress was made and by mid morning we were at least two hours ahead of schedule. We passed Santarem by 2 am. and later on the guests could see during daylight the part of the river, that we had passed northbound during the night. It was one of the more scenic parts as well, where the tropical rain forest reaches all the way to the water.

We carried immigration officials with us all the way up and down the river, so that the ship would arrive pre-cleared in each port along the route. These gentlemen also made it possible that the ship was cleared for open sea before we reached Macapa pilot station. Normally you have to go at anchor again to get cleared for your next port, in our case Bridgetown Barbados, but now it was done on route. A good thing as well, as I was not in the mood to sit another six hours at the pilot station which we had to do when coming to the Amazon a few days ago.

Thus we put the brakes on for a few moments, opened the shell door and said goodbye to the pilots and the officials. Macapa is right on the equator and by 17.25 we entered the Northern Hemisphere again. From Macapa to open waters it was 174 miles and we did those ourselves. We had received the latest charts from the Brazilian navy, indicating the newest shallows, and for the rest it is just good seamanship and common sense to get out of the river safely. Northbound we found that all the necessary buoys were missing, so I had discussed the outbound route with the pilots while they were on board, and they had plotted a course out without needing buoys. Thus as long as our GPS is working we will have no issues. As we have three of those, I was fairly confident that one will work when needed. Near the bar, the nearest land is 50 miles away, so apart from GPS, there is not much else we can use for position fixing. No radar bearings, no visual bearings, nothing, only the echo sounder to tell you how deep it is. In the old days there must have been more buoys there to guide the ships in, and you also could take a pilot much further out, but with the arrival of the GPS the pilots do not want to come out that far and as explained in a previous blog most of the buoys have disappeared.

If all goes well, we will be going over the bar tomorrow morning around 2 am., and back in the North Atlantic Ocean by 4 o’clock.