Cruising

Yesterday the Marco Polo left Belem and headed out to sea.  Once there it turned North(ish) and cruised slowly for most of today before turning west and sailing up  northernmost branch of the Amazon ‘s delta exits towards Macapa.  This meant that we crossed the equator again and sailed for some time in the northern hemisphere.  
 It also meant that we back out in the gently rolling waves of the sea, which is green near the mouth of the Amazon.  There is a point though, where the water from the Amazon, which is a milky tea colour meets the sea.  The two types of water don’t mix, and a line is formed where the water is brown on one side and green on the other, this line stretching to the horizon on both sides out across the sea.  A bit like the wedding of the waters on the Amazon itself, but bigger, and with more impact.  We watched as our ship crossed the line and moved from the green water to the brown.
Once into the Amazon river, the ship headed south again towards Macapa, sailing on in the dark.  It was here we were joined by hundreds of birds.  We have not been able to identify them, but they seemed to be a type of duck, which made a lot of noise and flew round and about the ship, the noise and the birds continued for hours, and we spent a long time watching and listening.  We are loving all these new encounters with wildlife. 
Tomorrow is Santana.  (Don’t say it out loud, every time he hears it, Peter starts singing “Black Magic Woman”).    We’ve not been here before, and we are really looking forward to it.