February 25 – Santarem, Brazil

February 25, 2017 – Santarem, Brazil
Yesterday the sea was a rougher than usual when I woke up so I gave in and put on a seasickness patch. Once we entered the Amazon from the Atlantic Ocean the seas settled down. The water in the Amazon is a cappuccino color. They recently had some torrential rain storms. A friend on the cruise said the water level is much higher than when they came through in December.
While cruising toward Santarem, we passed “islands”. A few had cattle or sheep on them but most were empty. We could see an occasional shack.
The ship got to Santarem at 3pm. Linda and I took the Maica Lake and Piranha Fishing excursion. The group of 120 going on this tour was divided into 4 groups of 30 and we boarded 4 boats. We passed the “wedding of the waters” where a tributary river flows next to the Amazon. The difference in water color was barely noticable. We sailed slowly to Maica Lake looking for wildlife. We were told that the islands we saw were farms that are attached to the rest of the land in dry season. They have moved their cattle and/or sheep to higher ground for rainy season. After an hour or so, we pulled over to the shore and were given a wooden block with fishing line attached. At the end of the line was a sinker, a hook, and a small piece of meat. We were told to drop in the line and let out the line so that the hook would be 1 yard below the surface. Within 5 minutes someone caught a piranha that was about 5 inches long. We all took photos and went back to fishing. I caught a rope hanging on our boat and a large plant growing in the water. On our boat 5 piranhas were caught and thrown back in.
We got back to our ship at 6:50pm and rushed to drop off our gear and wash off the deet before running upstairs for 7pm trivia. (We won. Yea)
Tomorrow we will be at Boca da Valeria.