Easter in Icoraci

First -- the 3 musical notes - G then C then E, outlining a cheery C chord. Then -- “and a very good morning ladies and gentleman. This is Cruise Director Chris…” and on he went with his morning announcements, coming through a speaker on my cabin ceiling, waking me up as he frequently does.

On this day his message was lengthy. He painstakingly described, with repetition, the process by which passengers would be transported from ship to shore. The ship was anchored out in open water, in an inlet that was part of the Amazon delta area.

Many passengers had paid for excursions to the large city of Belem and scenic areas near it. But first they had to take “tender boats” from the ship over to the small town of Icoraci, where chartered buses would take them on an hour’s ride inland.

A tender boat is slightly smaller and faster than a lifeboat, with a huge capacity difference -- a tender holds about 75, the life boat holds 150. The tenders are used when the water is too shallow for the ship to dock, and this happens frequently on the present itinerary of small Brazilian places.

Tender rides are fun, but it’s a long process. It takes time for people to get down these makeshift aluminum staircases from the hatchway down to the water and into these boats bobbing up and down, and more time for them to get off at the shore.

Plus the ride itself, which in this case was 20 minutes. Obviously 1200 passengers can’t all leave at the same time, so there’s a complicated system of yellow tickets, purple tickets, numbered tickets etc, prioritizing and organizing everybody, deciding who rides first, etc. Basically, excursion people are first, later on the non-excursion passengers, and lastly, crew.

Many hours would pass before I could get off the ship on this day. Feeling a little creative and antsy, I wandered around with my camera.

Out on the deck, watching the tenders coming and going, I noticed two distinct colors to the water, one brown, one blue. It was as if two bodies of different waters were colliding, without being able to mix. The borders between the blue and brown sections were distinct, and constantly shifting.

Tenders coming going, blue and brown water

Boats are suspended from hooks (called 'davits') seen in the upper left. Hydraulic arms extend the davits out over the water, hydraulic cables do the rest.

Briefly I had the incorrect notion that it was the Amazon colliding with the Atlantic Ocean. Fresh water with salt water. But later the travel guide corrected me, saying it was the Amazon colliding with one of its own tributaries. The Amazon is muddy, the tributary clean. Also, The brown Amazon water is colder, the blue water is warmer, and somehow that keeps the waters from mixing.

Wandering further around the ship I found a rehearsal going on in the Main Showroom. It was a cast show called Street Singing, which they do once per cruise. It features 4 of the ship’s cast, acting as young guys hanging out on a street corner in Bronx or Philadelphia or wherever, doing lots of intricate harmony work, also lots of energetic choreography. The show also spotlights two guys from the orchestra, dressed in street clothes -- a “street sax player” leaning on a lamp post most of the time, and a percussionist doing an amusing and energetic performance on garbage cans and hub caps on the left side of the stage. It’s just these 6 people, performing along with pre-recorded tracks -- I suppose the presence of the rest of the orchestra would ruin the “street” feel of the show.

Young Will Farnham has one of the coolest jobs on the ship, presiding over the sound in the Main Showroom.

In the early afternoon I finally got on a tender, in a torrential downpour which started up in a split second. And after a few minutes, it completely ended in another split second.

It was Easter Sunday, pretty much unnoticed on the ship -- no jelly beans or chocolate bunnies, no egg coloring, no Judy Garland and Fred Astaire on Fifth Avenue, no Easter bonnets, no new suit of clothes from my mom and dad…

...but in the little town of Icoraci, a waterfront stroll took me to an interesting and artsy sculpture of a cross, set up at a scenic spot. It was a permanent fixture, but very appropriate and attractive for this particular day.

Despite the intermittent rain, the waterfront area was pretty active, with many cafes, lots of young people and families enjoying themselves in a reasonably upscale area. I ran into some crew people in one café, had some bad pizza and good beer, kept taking photos.

Obligatory Cute Brazilian waitress photo

Soccer in the sand, Veendam in the distance

On the tender boat ride back, I got a good photo of the typical Holland America demographic.

That night I had a Name That Tune contest to do. I used a number of trick titles like Annie’s Song, The Boxer, Weekend in New England, and Jamaica Farewell. Despite my best efforts, one team clobbered the competition with a near-perfect score. The only thing they missed was the Whiffenpoof Song.

They won coffee mugs with the Veendam logo on it. Whoopee. There was a recent delivery of these mugs, 8 big boxes of them, so we now have over 300 of them to hand out. Seems like a lot, but they go fast with all the trivia contests on the ship.

Back in the cabin by 12:30 AM, a fairly early night. I turned on the cabin TV, checking the movie menu for the next 24 hours. There’s been a pretty regular rotation for the past 5 months, and once again, for about the tenth time in those 5 months, Channel 35 was running “Troy” with Brad Pitt, alternating with Tom Hanks’ “Castaway”.

I love the “Troy” movie. First of all I was quite familiar with the storyline, having read the Greek Mythology stuff back in college. But the moviemakers took small liberties here and there, to tighten up the plot, and made the whole thing very compelling on film. Gods, patriotism, courage, greed, selfishness, love, honor, Immortality, brutal combat with swords and spears, and of course the pesky question What the Hell Am I Fighting For ?

They used a lot of British and Aussie actors. There’s something about the proper King’s English that gives a lofty and important tone to everything said by these ancient Greeks, even the villains, and especially the heroes. It also worked great in “Gladiator” with Russell Crowe and Richard Harris. Yes, yes, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my gig here on the Veendam. Easter is over, Duke won the NCAA tournament, Tiger is back golfing at the Masters, baseball is underway. The only April Fool joke was an announcement by Cruise Director Chris about bunji jumping from the ship’s funnel….

….and there’s only 27 days left. The end of this 6-month contract is near, and it’s further proof of how time flies, as if there wasn’t enough proof already.

At this point you’re certain that you’ve succeeded, the paranoia dissipates, you feel more relaxed on and off the job. You get a little closer to the handful of people that have really turned out to be friends, and you step back from the others. You evaluate everything -- you see what went well and what didn’t, what was and wasn’t important, what you should do to finish with a flourish, and hopefully -- with this new chunk of experience under your belt, what you could or should be doing next.