In Between Dominica and Brazil

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1/26/12

Yesterday and today were a return to ship life, and today was really sunny and warm! You have to love the beautiful warm Caribbean. Last night I ran into a group of people I didn't know who were really bored and wanted to watch a movie so I showed them the ones on my computer. We picked out The Graduate because I had never seen it, and we found an empty classroom and watched it on my computer with the Jambox speakers. It was lot of fun and a good way to meet new people. Things are starting to set into place and get rolling with classes, which is good. I’ve just been doing reading homework, going to class, eating and sleeping. We reach the Amazon on Saturday and then travel up it for several days until we get to Manaus, Brazil, but right now we are in the middle of the ocean with nothing in sight but the glassy turquoise water.

The waves have been a little large and I am fighting the seasickness as best I can, it just depends on how hungry I am, how dehydrated I am, how much the ship is rocking and if I have global studies. When I have global studies (at the front of the ship in a dark, hot room), I get so sick feeling that I have to run to my room and nap it off before I get too sick, but other than that I am doing great and have yet to get too sick.

Earlier I ran into my new friend Brynn and she invited me to come play games with her and some people in a classroom. The entire ship played a massive version of Family Feud tonight and I had already agreed to join my roommate’s team and get to know her friends, but I went and played games with the others first. Here I met some new friends and saw some old faces. Sara was there and some of them I recognized. I met Mike the skinny guy with short hair and a lip ring from CSU, Meg the red head, Lizzie the short brunette from CU, Eleni the Greek curly brunette from Texas, and Evan the short haired blonde from Pittsburg. We played spoons (card game) for a while and even played a version of spoons where you had to run and go find them amongst the desks, which was quite the silly sight to see. After tiring ourselves out we decided to share random facts about ourselves, and I told them that I broke my jaw on chocolate and used to breed beta fish; they wanted to know all about how fish breeding worked. I learned that Meg used to work as a party person who dressed up like the Little Mermaid and other princesses for birthday parties. Evan is a potato farmer. Sara broke her jaw by getting hit in the face with a rock.

When it was time for Family Feud I went to the room I was supposed to meet my roommate in and it was a bunch of people I did not know. I came in and said hello and they all kind of acted as if I wasn’t there and went about their conversations except for one girl who greeted me kindly. I felt pushed to the side and could tell that this group had bonded over being Texan while I was the only one in the room not from Texas. I was supposed to join them and their team for Family Feud, but I wasn’t excited. I had been offered to be on a team with my new friends, but I had to say no to be polite and join my roommate who I also wanted to get to know better. I had even helped them all come up with family names. They were the Bottoms and their names were, Harry, Sandy, Bikini, Baby, and Apple. So funny and I could have been part of it. Oh well.

After a while of listening to the Texan group talk I went with them to the Union and we all grabbed seats amongst the other five hundred students. Ashlyn was our scribe and I was always out numbered on what to vote for by the rest of them so I just sat and watched. It was a funny game to watch as everyone turned in silly answers that were read aloud. In the end my group of new friends (the Bottoms) won the game and all got little certificates for it. We all laughed about the names over snack time that night and I decided that I had finally found the people I wanted to spend my time with and I was going to stick with them! These were the people I wanted to experience countries with, get to know and stay up late talking and playing games with. They had all already bonded over their experience in Dominica together, so I knew I was going to have to wiggle my way into a place in the group, but they seemed accepting of me already.

1/27/12

It was reading day today, so no classes just studying and reading. On the ship we do not have weekends or regular days off. There are A days and B days which alternate everyday at sea except for the four reading days and four reflection days that we get in the semester. It has to be this way because we do not have class while in port, just some teacher-led trips, so they have to fit in all of our class hours somehow. Today for reading day I slept in and hung out with Other Brynn and got to know her and others while reading for classes. It’s funny; to distinguish between Other Brynn and me they started calling me Brynnalin. With my new friend group we all got together today and started planning a trip together in Brazil! I am so excited for Brazil!!

1/28/12

It has been rumored that when you first start taking your malaria pills you have really crazy dreams. Well, last night was my second night on the pills and this is the dream I had. Somehow I was on the first deck, which is a below-sea-level deck we cannot get to and contains the engine room. The first deck had a rubber outside deck at the front of the ship that was half in and half out of the water. This entire deck was floppy and wiggly and splashing in and out of the water at the front of the ship. We were in the Amazon heading upstream in the brown water, and I was almost falling over the edge as the deck moved with the waves. Then suddenly there was a pod of orcas swimming at the ship headed right in my direction. They looked scary and seemed to be after me, but then I saw that there were baby orcas leaping towards me and I got really excited and wanted to take a picture. So, sitting on the deck half in the water I tried to get some good pictures right as a baby orca breached onto the deck sinking it further almost causing me to tumble in. They surrounded the deck and continuously leaped onto it to try and knock me in. I was snapping a few last pictures and scrambling backwards when the captain started yelling at me from a higher deck, very angrily saying that I was not supposed to be down there and waving at me to go back inside. So scrambling and almost falling in the water from the flexible deck and orcas I ran inside and hid in my room for a while, where I then woke up. What a strange dream.

Global studies was better today. I sat in the middle and drugged up on Dramamine first which helped, but I still didn't feel great so I took a nap after class again. Other classes were super interesting! I learned a lot about the Amazon that I would have never known otherwise! Some interesting facts for you:

-An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of water that has a free connection to the open sea, but whose water is diluted by fresh water coming from a source of land drainage such as a river.

-The Amazon estuary is 190 miles long. 18% of all river water in the world is discharged in this estuary.

-The Amazon River dumps 46 million gallons of water a second into the ocean. This is more than the seven next largest rivers in the world combined.

-The mixing zone of ocean water and river water happens on the continental shelf way out off the coast forming the most extreme estuary plume in the world, visible from space. This mixing adds lots of nitrates into the ocean. Because freshwater is less dense then saltwater the brown freshwater just sits on top of the ocean water (highly stratified) until it gets to the mixing zone where it becomes vertically homogenous.

-Bull sharks have been found to swim up the Amazon River 100 kilometers.

-A tidal bore is a rush of salt water that goes up the Amazon in one big wave which can get up to 4m high. People like to surf this dangerous bore and the longest ever surf rides have been recorded on this wave. This happens because the mouth of the Amazon funnels down to a point and the rush of water is amplified at a certain time of year when the moon and sun are aligned.

The ship actually entered the Amazon estuary today! It was so strange to look at the water at different points throughout the day. The water went from the Caribbean crystal blue to a darker grey blue, eventually turning a slight brown stirring color that looked like extremely polluted water. As we kept going all hint of blue disappeared and the water became pure clay brown. It was so alien and unlike anything I have ever seen before. I felt like I was sailing the brown oceans of Jupiter. Perfectly mixed light brown water for as far as the eye could see in all directions. It was strange because I’ve always thought of the ocean as the deep blue, but if you were to jump into the deep blue you would be able to see into the depths below. This entirely changed that perception of the ocean because the water was such a thick soup of Amazon silt that the water almost looked more like wavy solid ground and was certainly not the kind of water you could look in and see what was swimming by or coming up from the depths.

At where we were during the moment of these thoughts, the brown water spans over 100 miles from one side of the estuary opening to another so we could not see any land, or anything at all. It was also very clear that the ship was entering a river as all of the water flowed in the opposite direction the ship was heading and the ship no longer rocked side to side as there were no longer waves, only strong currents. The ship is actually going 940 miles up river against this current in order to take us to the capital city of Brazil, Manaus.

While looking and thinking about the water today I met an HSU Alumni who is the Geology teacher on the ship. His name is Rob Thomas and he did all the closing ceremony speeches for last year’s HSU graduation. He was a very interesting man to talk too. We talked about Humboldt when he went to school and how Humboldt is now. We discussed the budget crisis and all of the crazy things the California Universities and HSU have been doing to deal with it. He was a very knowledgeable man who clearly held a lot of important ideas and opinions that people want him for and he said he has shared with HSU’s president. He actually helped bring a university out of collapse based on some of these ideas, so he knows what he is talking about. Mostly I think we just enjoyed talking to each other about HSU and reminiscing about a place we both love and miss because it is held close to our hearts.

After eating some dinner I went to a seminar about what animals you can see in the Amazon. The list included; 14 species of herons, parrots, 5 vultures, 30 hawks, 11 swallows, 12 toucans, 2000 bird species, two toed and three toed sloth, piranha (don’t worry about them they do not eat humans), boto (pink dolphins), giant otters, capybara (the world’s largest rodent), black caiman, titi monkey and many other species of monkeys. I hope I get to see it all because who knows when I will be back.

My roommate (Ashlyn) later invited me to pub night up on the pool deck. I hesitated because of the last experience with that friend group, but said yes. Pub night is just a night where they serve alcohol up on the pool deck and people socialize and eat. On the ship, anyone 18 and over can drink because that is how it is in all the countries we are traveling to. However, everyone is limited to three drinks a night, which is either cans of crappy beer or small glasses of cheap wine, not worth the money. Anyhow I went up to the pool bar with her and decided to splurge a little and try a cup of swirled soft serve ice cream, which tasted delicious after what seemed like so long without it. I tried to join in the conversations, but once again there was a circle that I was excluded out of. So looking around at the rest of the scene I decided these were not the people I felt like hanging out with; yacht club boys in pastel shorts and button up shirts trying to drink and be cool to get the attention of the ladies and girls way over dressed for the occasion in heels and short dresses.

I was about to leave when one of the servers leaned over the bar and whispered to me, “Hey I’m making a fresh batch of cookies! If you want you can pay for them in advance now and I will make sure you get three warm gooey cookies fresh out of the oven as long as you tell no one else.” I got so excited! The closest thing to cookie dough I was going to get on this trip and I just got offered it! Of course I said yes and proceeded to sit down observing the silly interactions until my cookies were ready. I slipped away with my warm cookies without anyone noticing and enjoyed them as I walked. The melted chocolate got all over my fingers. Best treat ever! That made my night.

1/29/12

The coolest thing happened last night! As usual I was being the typical Brynn insomniac, not sleeping and writing emails and getting distracted. When my computer finally died, I plugged it in to charge and laid down only to find that I had so much energy I could not sleep. So I grabbed my camera and went to explore the completely dead ship. There was quite literally not a single soul to be found except for the occasional stewards who have the night shift of cleaning public areas. I wandered all decks of the ship trying every door and exploring areas I was probably not supposed to go, getting good pictures of all the different main areas and then discovered an outside viewing deck at the front of the ship I didn't know existed! I went up and there were a couple people who were going to stay up all night and watch the sunrise over the Amazon. I decided it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and was the first time we would actually see the shores of the Amazon, so I had to join.

We stayed up all night chatting, observing the giant moths, bugs and bats that were attracted to the ship by the light and watching little lit towns go by in the blackness. We made bets about when sunrise would actually happen until 6:30am when the sun finally rose. We were so excited and so hyped up for the moment, but to our dismay the morning was cloudy and we couldn't actually see the sun. That being said, we watched anyways as the colors changed from dark blues and grays to pinks and yellow reflecting on the clouds in a beautiful palate of colors. The first view of the Amazon was stunning. There were dense green shores on either side of the massive brown river that expanded into the distance and seemed to form the walls, a green prison, for this massive river system. Having accomplished our goal, and after taking lots of pictures, we ate breakfast at 7am and I went and slept until 2pm when I had class. It was such a fun and amazing morning and night.

There was land on both sides of the ship all day, varying in distances from shore to shore. Sometimes the forested banks were so near that I could see every tree and vine towering in the air and other times the green line was so far in the distance it became a blurry green line across the massive expanse of brown flowing water. After my class I went to one of the outside decks and the air that hit me was no longer the cool ocean breeze. The air was thick, humid, and warm, smelling of fresh, clean, rich, earthy air, purified by the dense trees and plants to either side of the river. The smell was so rich and good and clean. It was a smell like I have never smelled before, seeming untouched and unpolluted by mankind. Large bugs, larger than any moth, butterfly, or cricket you have ever seen flew around and landed on the ship everywhere. There were moths resting on the ship, bigger than my hand! Everything is so foreign, new and amazing indicating to me, we are officially in the Amazon.

Right before dinner the true weather of the Amazon decided to unveil for us. I could see the dripping clouds over the riverbanks and within seconds it was not raining, it was not pouring, it was only what I can describe as fire hosing over the ship. The water came down so fast and so hard, in the biggest droplets you have ever seen, that in a matter of one or two minutes, anyone standing outside was completely drenched and the water flowing around on the deck was an inch deep running over my sandals. People jumped around and danced in the rain until just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped and cleared away. The sun was now setting over the jungle, for my first Amazon sunset. The colors were absolutely beautiful, but what was most stunning was the colors of the fiery orange sun as it hovered between the seemingly black forest and the pile of grey clouds above it. The contrast of orange and black was unlike anything I had ever seen, absolutely stunning and admittedly much better than the sunrise earlier.

I enjoyed dinner, cultural pre-port (where we learn about the culture of the area from someone who lives there or has been there before) and late night snack time with friends just chatting and having fun for most of the night until I headed to my room. Upon getting on my computer and typing for a little while a screen popped up that said all of my programs were going to shut down and the computer turn off in 30 seconds and then it started counting down and just shutdown. I waited and brought it back up freaking out about the fact that my computer was acting this way and I did not have a way to back it up. It seemed fine for now, so I tried to download the day’s photos. In attempting this, a screen popped up telling me that my 250GB hard drive was now full. Well crap! Now what? I have no external hard drive and I need to save pictures and use this computer for the rest of the trip. I will have to find another external one way or another. So feeling uneasy about my computer I shut it down and went to sleep.

1/30/12

Today was Brazil day, which means no classes and we port in Manaus tomorrow!! I am so incredibly excited to explore the Amazon and get off this ship and actually go see all this beautiful rainforest that has been surrounding us. There were lots of different talks and seminars going on today about Brazil, but the only one that really interested me was the “Music and Dance in Brazil” talk that the two Brazilian students on board and the music teacher were going to give. At this I learned about samba, bossa nova, and capoeira. The male student from Brazil demonstrated capoeira with the onboard class he had been teaching, which is a fight dance. This was really fun to watch. Then the girl student from Brazil demonstrated samba dancing. Together they then played on guitar and sang two popular songs from Brazil in Portuguese. I think “Ai Se Eu te Pego” is going to be one of my new temporary favorite songs. They were great fun to watch and listen to. I wish I could dance like them.

Next up was a language seminar so I stayed and learned how to say a few common phrases in Portuguese. Yesterday I learned about what foods to try, how friendly everyone is and what the culture is like. It was all very interesting and exciting, but only made me want to get off the ship more. I spent most of the day outside watching the Amazon, typing emails, taking pictures of towns we passed, reading school stuff and just generally being lazy. I also watched a silly older movie called Money Talks for the first time with Anna Sophia. It has a much younger Charlie Sheen in it. As we passed little towns I had to bring my camera outside and let it adjust to the hot humid air for a half hour before I could use it because the lenses would fog up so bad. Eventually I was able to use it and I got pictures as we passed little towns full of people running to the river banks to wave at us and watch our massive ship pass by. There would also be people chasing us in their little boats to get a closer look, their little boats rocking and almost tipping in our brown wake as we plowed up river.

I ate dinner with my group of friends once again all discussing our plans for Brazil and finalizing our group plan to hang out in the jungle for a day together. When we were finished eating we headed to the Union to get some good seats for the mandatory logistical pre-port, but while waiting we decided to have some fun. We decided it would be fun to cast our entire group in all of the main Disney movies. It was really funny going around deciding or letting people pick who they would be and then seeing them pretend to be the character. Out of the ones I can remember I ended up being Flounder from the Little Mermaid, Meeko from Pocahontas, and Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. Not sure how any of these fit me, but I think it’s because I like animals and I like some of these characters.

Pre-Port was just the basic warnings about what to be careful about in terms of people, diseases and health and everything else you could want to possibly know about safety in another country. Just some random facts for you, I have now been on the ship for two weeks and I am currently four hours ahead of California or three ahead of Colorado.

After hearing all of the necessities, including being warned about pickpockets and malaria, and getting super psyched for tomorrow, we all went to snack time. We sat at a round table booth and shared pictures of our pets, family and friends while listening to all sorts of songs we all knew from high school or parties, singing along to them, laughing and having lots of fun. I am so excited that I am having so much fun with this awesome group of friends. It’s starting to feel like we’ve known each other for a lot longer than about a week.

I am so unbelievably excited to swim with the Amazonian freshwater dolphins tomorrow!!! Once in a lifetime chance and they are endangered so this may be my only chance. They are going to look so strange and pink!

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