27-29 August 2001

We are currently onboard the regional river boat Comandante Savio, sailing west up the Solimoes river [the Brazilian name for the Amazon river]. In a few days we'll enter the Jurua river and sail south along its thousands of curves until we reach the mouth of the Xerua river, our destination, on 5 or 6 September.

But this also depends on the situation of the water. The water level on the Jurua can drop dramatically at this time of the year...and the river has a lot of rocks, so we will have to stop sailing at night.

We have 18 people on board including our volunteers from nine countries (and me from the 10th - Portugal!) and five crewmembers for the ship. Tomorrow we will stop in the small village of Tefe to pick up Sze Pang Cheung, also known as Kon Tau (Bald Head), our volunteer from China.

By boat, from Manaus to our point of arrival on the Xerua, the distance is 1039nM (Nautical Miles), about 1910 km.... the distance from Portugal to Belgium.

Since we left Manaus last Monday we've been sorting out cabins and hammock space, setting up and testing the radio and satellite telephone equipment, and solar panels, and organising the medical storage and "hospital" (which is also my cabin).

A log raft spotted while on route.

We've also set up a watch schedule, so we are always on the lookout for floating objects, mainly logs that could do serious damage to the wooden hull of the Comandante Savio.

Wake up call is 07h00, but most wake up earlier with the sun at 06h00. We are actually quite spoiled. Marilene, the cook, takes good care of us, under her motto "you folks better eat now, as you won't always have nice food in the jungle!"

We have two insect-free zones where people can write messages without getting totally bitten by the multitude of insects. One has been named "Piranha Internet Cafe".

Sometimes the Comandante Savio slows down, since the route along the Amazon that we took last year, is now a sandbar in some places.

We stopped briefly in the small town of Coari, small but booming because Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, gets oil out of this region. We had to offload four drums of kerosene for our helicopter, which will join us in September. In this region you do not always have fuel available and you need special permission from the Federal Police to transport and store aviation fuel, because we are close to the Columbian Amazon and, as such, to the drug smugglers.

Coari is at the mouth of the Coari river and, unlike the Solimoes, which is a "white" river, it is clear and clean. We take the opportunity to take on water for the non-drinkable water tanks. While we do this and drift slowly with the current, we feel the water calling us and soon most of us are swimming.

It's actually quite amazing the work that has happened in the short time since Greenpeace moved into Manaus - as I drifted to sleep last night I was remembering our first expeditions in 1999...

That's all for now,
Manuel

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