Open boat in Gurupa

We have already had a warm welcome and thorough tour of Gurupá, and yesterday it was our turn to open the Arctic Sunrise to the people of Gurupá.

The pontoon on the dock of the  town was already crowded with people who wanted to visit the ship when the first inflatable arrived to shuttle them there.

Since the river is to shallow by the port, the ship was anchored a bit further away and our inflatable boats shuttled  to and from the ship all day.

On deck they learned about the ship and its crew. Many people were curious about how many people live on board, how fast the ship goes, where its coming from and where it is going to.

In the hold of the ship there was a video about Greenpeace actions around the world, and the campaigners explained everything about the Amazon campaign and this "Peace in the Forest Tour". At the back of the hold we had a youth corner, where children and youngsters made beautiful pieces of art out of bark, seeds, leafs and twigs.

Three women from the Women's Association of Gurupá joined the handcraft corner and worked with the kids, teaching them to make pieces of art out of cardboard and pebbles. Some kids stayed the whole day! One of them was a 10 year old boy who turned out to be a great poet.

After the open boat we were invited for a refreshing dive in a small creek, just a few kilometers outside the village.

Somehow we all fit in to the back of a pickup truck that took us over bumpy dirt roads to a beautiful little beach. The water was quite shallow (knee height), because it was low tide. Even though Gurupá is more then a 100 km away from the coast, even the water level of the creeks still change with the tide!

Three boys, who were already there when we arrived, watched us for a while. Then one of them came up to us and gave us beautiful necklaces he made by splitting the stem of a closed water lily, with the flower hanging in the middle.

We headed back to the ship just in time to see the sunset over the river.

Unfortunately we didn't have a radio with us and the ship wasn't sure when to expect us back and it looked like we could be stranded on the dock for a while. But our first mate Hettie loves to swim and it wasn't long before she was in the water swimming the 600 or so meters to the ship to tell them to send a boat to pick us up.

The locals seemed surprised to see a gringo woman swimming out to the ship in the middle of the wide Amazon river, but of course she made it and didn't even accept a ride when one of our boats was heading to shore to pick us up.

Merel and Tracy
Captao Dario

Posted by Amazon Team at November 9, 2003 12:00 PM