BTimmer's Almost Live Grand South America 10/7/23 -12/19/2023

[USN59-79]

3 hours ago, Btimmer said:

Here are some Black Boobie Bird pictures from this morning off the Brazilian coast. They were searching for flying fish disturbed by our bow wake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't know if I should say "Great camera" or Great photographer".  Probably the latter.

Ray

[Btimmer]

Here's a sequence of takeoff pictures from the Rio airport taken from Sugarloaf.

 

 

 

 

 

[Riversedge]

I'm curious if you have done the Grand South America and Antarctic when it was done in January?  We were on the 2020 Grand and we had such good weather and saw a multitude of sealife every day.  We would like to cruise Antartica again but wondering if we should not do it until Jan or Feb.  Have you sailed both times of the year and can you compare?  

[Btimmer]

59 minutes ago, Riversedge said:

I'm curious if you have done the Grand South America and Antarctic when it was done in January?  We were on the 2020 Grand and we had such good weather and saw a multitude of sealife every day.  We would like to cruise Antartica again but wondering if we should not do it until Jan or Feb.  Have you sailed both times of the year and can you compare?  

We did it in Feb, 2016 on the Zaandam and the weather was excellent.  We're doing it again Jan, 2024 on the Oosterdam.

[RuthC]

4 hours ago, Riversedge said:

I'm curious if you have done the Grand South America and Antarctic when it was done in January? 

I've done that cruise three times. Each time sailed early January, such as the 6th or 4th. Doing the conversion to the northern hemisphere, this would have been the equivalent of early July, which is pretty decent weather for temperature. 

[ottahand7]

We were on the January GSA.  Our weather was cool and cloudy for the most part once we got south of Peru.   Our sun returned when we had our first stop in Puerto Madryn in Argentina.  We missed the Falklands but that is mostly a given.  We had extremely high winds leaving Antarctica. I am waiting for HA to offer it again in January to visit some places we didn't get to and maybe see the sun.   I am not saying our weather was horrible it just was cloudy for Chile, Ushuia and the Antarctic.

[Btimmer]

Today in Salvador, Brazil we did an excellent excursion with DoBrazilRight which took us out to the lighthouse, through the old city, to Monserrat for scenic views, and to the Mercado for craft shopping.  Unfortunately one of our group had his phone stolen and there were several other reports of thefts and assaults.

 

Salvador is the city with the most African descendants of slaves brought over by the Portuguese.  Today they celebrated their black heritage with a large parade that we saw the formation of.

 

Part of parade preparations

 

Michael Jackson filmed here and is honored 

 

 

 

 

African gods

Police motorcycles

 

Church of Nosso Sehor do Bonfim

 

Our berth

 

Farol da Barra Barra Lighthouse
 

Angela drumming it up

Edited November 26, 2023 by Btimmer

[Btimmer]

Today in his noon message, Captain Smit said there was not enough water to make Manaus, but he has not made a decision to cancel the port.  It's also a water load and provisioning port so it's an important port.  I saw on Vessel Finder that the Azamara Quest made it there a couple days ago, but that ship has 2 meters more clearance than the Zaandam.

[monarchbb]

5 minutes ago, Btimmer said:

Today in his noon message, Captain Smit said there was not enough water to make Manaus, but he has not made a decision to cancel the port.  It's also a water load and provisioning port so it's an important port.  I saw on Vessel Finder that the Azamara Quest made it there a couple days ago, but that ship has 2 meters more clearance than the Zaandam.

I have been following the best I can re: water levels in the Amazon. I has looked "iffy" for a while. But maybe this week they will have the much needed rain. Fingers crossed.

[FlorenceItaly]

The Quest was not able to unload enough gray water to barge so they were limited on what they could bring on.  They are asking guests to conserve water, reuse towels, laundry closed, etc.  Someone is posting live on the Azamara November 18, 2023 Amazon Roll Call.

[Btimmer]

36 minutes ago, FlorenceItaly said:

The Quest was not able to unload enough gray water to barge so they were limited on what they could bring on.  They are asking guests to conserve water, reuse towels, laundry closed, etc.  Someone is posting live on the Azamara November 18, 2023 Amazon Roll Call.

Thanks for the update.  It's all part of the adventure.

 

[Btimmer]

Tonight Diego Flgueiredo performed an absolutely brilliant guitar concert.  We went to both the 7:30 and 9pm shows.  He's a Brazilian artist now residing in the US in Florida. If he comes to your area, he's a must see artist.

[Btimmer]

GREAT NEWS

 

The Captain just announced we are going to Manaus and will stay two nights in order to do daytime transits over shallow portions of the river.  He thanked everyone for doing a rain dance!

 

Currently we're loading produce in Fortaleza which is delaying our departure.  The ship is moving in the swells at the dock.

[Lenliner]

We hope everyone enjoyed Fortaleza, and came back without getting their Phones, camera's, etc. ripped off. We'll keep our fingers crossed for rain in the upper Amazon!

When we went to Iguazu Falls in Argentina/Brazil, the falls were running very high volumes! 

Storms swell Iguazu falls to near decade-high flow (phys.org) 

"Storms in the southern Brazilian state of Parana sent the flow of water through the massive falls gushing to 24.2 million liters per second Monday, the second-highest volume on record, officials said. The flow was more than 16 times the falls' normal level of 1.5 million liters per second". 

 

[Btimmer]

We received this note this morning about water conservation measures in the Amazon.

[SilvertoGold]

I hope at the end of your days in the Amazon the Captain will let all know how much water was saved. On one of our Amazon trips the Captain seemed quite happy with our 33% savings.

[Btimmer]

Here's the official announcement about our Amazon River changes.  What isn't said here is that we likely will have all tender ports (even Manaus).  The adventure continues.

 

[Btimmer]

 

We're sailing up the Amazon and should reach Santarem by 10am local time (5am PST).  At times there's less than 3 feet of clearance from the keel and ground.  We're about 100 miles from where we went aground for 7 hours on the Volendam in 2019.

 

 

Here's a few pictures from tonight.

 

 

 

 

Duo Rio 

[Btimmer]

Here's the first of what will be many large insects which will be attracted to the ship at night.

 

 

[Btimmer]

Here's some pictures from our Boat excursion to Maica Lake.

Cuteness personified!

[SUESEABE]

A social media post indicated that Zaandam MDR had the return of the Yum Yum Man on recent Gala night on your voyage.  Is he really back?  🙏 Hope so!

[Btimmer]

28 minutes ago, SUESEABE said:

A social media post indicated that Zaandam MDR had the return of the Yum Yum Man on recent Gala night on your voyage.  Is he really back?  🙏 Hope so!

I don't know as we generally don't eat in the MDR.  I'll ask around.

[WriterOnDeck]

10 hours ago, SUESEABE said:

A social media post indicated that Zaandam MDR had the return of the Yum Yum Man on recent Gala night on your voyage.  Is he really back?  🙏 Hope so!

Just on the Gala or Formal Nights, so fewer than a half-dozen so far. And no candied ginger (my favorite) -- there are mints, dried dates, etc. Perhaps they have used all the ginger to make the 50+ gingerbread houses for the Christmas displays going up!

 

We had the Yum Yum man occasionally on the Grand World last spring, so I am guessing it's only on the grand cruises.

Edited December 3, 2023 by WriterOnDeck

[EatonDoolittle]

@WriterOnDeck and @Btimmer, just a musing while you both are here...Yum Yum man, great swag gifts, extra enrichment talks - all to be expected and enjoyed on your Grand Voyages.  

As one who has booked a Legendary Voyage (Amazon, 2025), I wonder if we will see some (I'm  sure not all) of the nice extras.

 

Might an experienced Activity Director or Future Cruise Consultant on board have a speculation?  Or, another cruiser from earlier Legendary Voyages? 

Apologies  for the thread drift, but I wanted the opportunity to talk to a crowd more experienced in the longer sailings. 

[ottahand7]

4 hours ago, WriterOnDeck said:

Just on the Gala or Formal Nights, so fewer than a half-dozen so far. And no candied ginger (my favorite) -- there are mints, dried dates, etc. Perhaps they have used all the ginger to make the 50+ gingerbread houses for the Christmas displays going up!

 

We had the Yum Yum man occasionally on the Grand World last spring, so I am guessing it's only on the grand cruises.

Totally absent on the Grand South America last winter.