Day thirty, Monday 28th February, More Rough Seas

Now the captain promised us better weather today. He lied! The sea was described as rough to very rough today, not quite “A perfect storm” but enough to make the ship go up and down like a seasaw all day. Humph! I am not liking it at all! Seasick pills are being chewed as I type.

Today was dedicated to charity fundraising, the charity being an orphanage in the Philippines. The first of the fundraising events was quite novel. It is basically a line of coins started at the lowest level on the staircase. Passengers add their loose change and foreign coins and the line of coins climbs up the stairs. The aim was to get it to the top floor (level 9) and back down again. Well, by 13.30 this afternoon, it had already gone all the way up, and then back down to level 3. So it was sent back up the stairs doing another circuit, I’m not sure how far it got, but there is definitely a load of money there. Apparently all euro’s and pounds will be donated to the orphanage, and the foreign coins and notes to the RNLI. We’ll find out later how much was raised.

As for the rest of the day - most of the normal entertainment was cancelled in favour of the “Country Fair” this afternoon in the Neptune Lounge. There were loads of raffle stands and fundraising games. Our favourite was the living fruit machine – 3 guys stood behind the bar with a bag containing fruit each, and one stood in front of it – he was the arm of the fruit machine- you lifted it and swung it down, and the three guys each pulled a piece of fruit out of the bag - 3 matching fruits and you won a prize. Brilliant fun. Although I nearly wrenched the guys arm off doing my “spins”. Trying to get ping pong balls into brandy glasses also kept our attention, but we didn’t win.

Peter did win a copy of the ships DVD in a raffle though, which is actually good, because there are clips in there that we haven’t managed to film or picture.

The final event of the occasion was the auction. There was a fantastic wall flower display made by one the staff, several photographs, two paintings by one the passengers, a painting by Peter of Boca Do Valeria, and a ship’s chart showing the route of this cruise signed by all the senior officers. The last item was expected to be the chart topper and raise around £500. As it happened, although everything sold well, Peter’s picture went for the largest amount of £420, and the map only managed £270. (How smug are we!). And all for a good cause. We will find out later how much the whole event raised.

More pics from the Amazon, except they are from the towns. The first four are of the Opera House and surrounding building in Manaus – the area bears no resemblance to the rest of the city, which is teeming with people. The last three are Parintins, the last place we visited on the river. If you remember, this place does not have a dock big enough for the ship. It was also the place we liked best – a cleaner, more attractive and more restful environment. You can play “where’s Peter” on two of them, but they do only show a back view.