Posted: Sep 30, 2005 04:31 pm EDT
ExplorersWeb team members have returned from an enigmatic journey with the Amazon Queen. A story on that is to follow, but till then - let's check in with the ship, continuing her slow voyage south along the muddy banks of the Amazon river. Here's the latest, from yesterday and today:

The tigrio

"Do you believe in omens? You know, precursors of things generally bad about to happen. I don't ...really, yet there was a day last week when I was sure our voyage was doomed to fail.

It began when a fisherman said he had a "tigrio" cub to show us. The "tigrio" is an Osolot, or wild tiger cub. The cub was real cute and my daughter fell in love with it immediately. She held it closely to her face and very gently rubbed its head.
Sadly it died in her arms.

The fisherman seemed disappointed as having lost what he tough was a possible sale. I was upset because he had set us up with a kitten he knew was in ill health, probably because the mother cat had been killed, but more over because my daughter now held a dead kitten in her arms thinking she had done something wrong. I saw the fisherman off the boat with a strong look directed eye to eye.
He knew with out saying how I felt.
This was the beginning of my day that deteriorated moment by moment."

Treacherous currents

"Later that afternoon, fed up with the heat and small motorized wooden boats that wedged themselves tighter and tighter against the hull of the Amazon Queen I decided to leave the section of the Rio Nanay know as Bella vista, "Beautiful View", and tied the off on a newly formed sand island about 100 yards from the mouth of the Rio Nanay and the Amazon.

I was told by several residents of the area the currents were treacherous in this area and that several boats had sunk during the past month having become trapped in the the swirling eddies and strong currents of the two rivers. Never the less, where we tied off it was quite and close enough to the bank to be outside the main current.

While Lelia and I stood on the bank near the Amazon Queen I noted people running towards the point this sand bar where the current was most turbulent. A swimmer, a young girl about 16 was caught in the current and was being pulled in the direction of the whirlpool. A man tried to swim out but had to ultimately be rescued himself."

"Where was she"? There, there...

"I grabbed to life jackets, and life preservers and was shouting to my ships outboard motorman to start the engine on the "Amazon Princess" out John boat. I could see the girl frantically trying to stay above water as she was pulled swiftly toward the transition of waters.

Jose pulled and pulled on the lanyard of the Johnson outboard. It seemed like and eternity until it finally fired up. I took the throttle, yelled for Jose to sit down and turned my wrist with all the force possible giving her full power.
"Where was she"? There, there....
We drew closer every second. The Princess leaped over the spiraling eddies and slammed down hard as we flew over the waves. I could see people out of the corner of my eye all yelling and pointing and shouting.

Purple smoke

"Faster, faster...come on Johnson...there she is...
No longer was I racing to save a young girls life, but was again sitting in the door of a helicopter, feeling the rush of wind and the whoop whoop of the blades changing pitch as we descended violently into the jungle mist. Through the trees spiralled billowing spirals of purple smoke as my heart raced.
Faster ...faster...don't loose sight of her.
Don't loose sight of her...don't loose sight of her, ...
I was there...but the waters gave now clue to where she had gone, and showed no remorse and had taken the girl and she was gone."

What we were doing now was just for show

"I spun the outboard around following the current, sweeping back and forth down river. Other boats now arrived and circled the area where she was last seen. I knew that what we were doing now was just for show because she was gone.

In less than 5 minutes I was again on shore talking with Lelia who had call the Coast guard on channel 16 of the marine band radio. They arrived about 40 minutes later and raced up and down the river looking for the girls body.

Later that night I am told they were seen dragging the area for the body. It has been about a week now and her body had not been found."

The night the girl drown, and earthquake

"The night the girl drown, and earthquake, 7 on the scale shook the ground about 400 miles away. It was so forceful that equipment inside the hull of the Amazon Queen jumped and pounded about. Lelia and I though some of the crew had decided to shift cargo inside the hull during the night.

The embankment next to us began to luff off every few hours throughout the early hours. Small trees dropped into the river less than 50 yards from the stern. I purposefully secured the Queen along an embankment less than ten feet tall so we would not be taken under in the event the bank sluffed off.

The next morning on two different occasions passing fisherman were spared their lives when the collapsing embankments fell within 10 meters of their canoes."

The final sword in the heart

"Once again we found ourselves wedged in again amidst the pecky pecky powered wooden boats that came and went at all hours, not to mention the fact that this was the local site where everyone bathed and washed clothes daily. I am not suggesting that 10 or 15 people were there washing cloth and bathing but 50-60 people including the herds of little kids who found the ships lines to be as exciting as jungle vines from which you could swing.

So this is how my day went, but the final sword in the heart came the next day when I went to my friend Bill Grimes, who's vessel " Dawn on the Amazon" was tied off on the bank just in front of where we had been.
"Hey, it's a good thing you decided to move your boat" Bill Said ..."look where your were".
Standing on the top deck of his ship I glanced back to the spot where the Queen had been tied off. It spot was gone. I mean gone. The entire bank about 50 feet back and about 50 feet wide in a half circle had fallen into the turbulent waters of the Amazon.
What a long strange day this has been, and we only have 6,000 miles to go."

Fond regards from the Amazon Family

American Captain Phil, a former Vietnam veteran, is traveling the Amazon river with his wife Lelia and their daughter Syd, 7.

Apart from his work deep in the jungle and his plans to eventually cross 6,000 miles of the river through Peru, Colombia, Brazil and back to Colombia - another interesting detail is the communication tech Phil is using. Whilst the world is abuzz about blogs, podcasts, wireless and satellites - our Amazon Captain has his own ways. Check out the pictures to this story - they were transmitted via not satellite, nor through an internet cafe - but through amateur radio:

- "I must admit there is a unique challenge in being able to transmit by radio, photographs and stories which may rival those of National Geographic... solely for the satisfaction of being able to accomplish this from a wooden ship navigating the rainforest tributaries of the Amazon River," he says.

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