Live from the Wind - From the Amazon to Africa

[Fletcher]

6 - Right river, wrong ship

Today was a case of nothing to see and pleased to have seen it.  I’m referring to almost endless rain and to the gigantic and largely featureless Amazon delta which went on for miles and miles and hours and hours.  We finally spilled out of the river and into the Atlantic by the northern passage which took us past the city of Macapa where our two river pilots jumped ship.

 

It wasn’t meant to be like this.  Today should have been a great day of sightseeing from the decks of the Wind.  On the original itinerary, which we  booked and paid for, we were to have sailed through the Breves Narrows which, according to some, is the highlight of any Amazon cruise.  The river meanders tightly, the jungle scenery is reputedly sublime and scores of little communities line the riverbanks.  Instead we got the channel used by container ships and bigger cruise ships.  And most of it at night.

 

The reason for this administrative horlicks is that the Wind now exceeds the length of 160 metres allowed by the Brazilian authorities.  The Cloud would still be allowed to negotiate the Narrows as it is just under that length and so too would the Wind until they extended the rear end for the zodiac platform. The irony is not lost on me: a classic cruise ship like the original Wind is OK but an expedition ship like the converted Wind is not.  How bonkers is that? I was informed by our expedition leader Iggy that the cruise was planned before the Wind was extended and it was all a bit of a surprise and of course a major disappointment to us, the paying passengers. And a humiliation for Silversea. There is another cruise ship in the area, the Hapag Lloyd vessel Hanseatic Inspiration, and that is going through the Breves Narrows as I write this blog.  It also sailed past Manaus as far as Iquitos in Peru which is also something beyond the wildest dreams of the Wind. Frankly, our ship just isn’t Amazon primed.

 

There were other losses to our Amazon and Brasilian itinerary - a lagoon filled with giant lily pads; the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Sao Luis, a ravishingly beautiful Portuguese settlement; and one of the world’s weirdest landscapes near Barra Grande.   All these were dropped and to make up the time we stayed an extra day in Manaus and we have an extra day in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia.  Not a good trade if you ask me.  None of this makes any sense at all.  

 

We are currently sailing non-stop to the huge city of Fortaleza which isn’t expedition cruise territory but I guess we need to buy some petrol and victuals before we head out across the Atlantic.  This has meant we have had virtually six ‘at sea & river’ days before Fortaleza and another five sea days lie ahead of us.  What we booked was therefore not an itinerary at all.  It was just a wish list.  I think we all got a measly  $250 per person in compensation to be spent on board.  On African visas.  

 

Despite a few enjoyable hours spent wandering around Manaus and four hours in zodiacs along the river, this so-called Amazon cruise has been underwhelming and will soon be entirely forgotten.  You pay a big premium for an expedition cruise.  On this occasion  Silversea has not gone the extra mile for us but I am hopeful they will pull out all the stops for our landings in West Africa.  If you are thinking about an Amazon cruise I hope this might help you to make your choice.   As far as Silversea is concerned, it’s a case of the right river, the wrong ship.

 

I’ll be back in a few days to tell you all about our visit to Fortaleza.

 

[drron29]

What a shambles. Poor planning. No one knew that the Brazilian government was going to limit the length of ships for the Narrows? It certainly was one of the highlights of our Amazon cruise on the Cloud when she still was a classic fleet.

[mklions]

What a great review Fletch, and I very much look forward to your next instalments!

We also recently sailed the Amazon river on the Viking Sea ( San Juan to Manaus) and enjoyed our cruise immensely, we were extremely lucky with the weather which obviously makes a big difference.
We only experienced a few hours of rainfall during our cruise sailing up the river which in a rain forest is a very rare occurrence.

One of our biggest niggles however was at nighttime on the ship, as after dark all outside areas were closed off due to the influx of a multitude of flying insects.
This became quite apparent why, as in the morning we watched the ships crew sweeping up hordes of insects that had arrived through the night. Some of the moths and butterflies were as big as small birds!
Apparently it’s the ships lights that attract them.

So eating and drinking alfresco in the evening was a no no ,and so unfortunately was sitting on the balcony, which was a shame in such pleasant outside temperatures.

 

The stops and tours delivered by Viking were very good and highly recommended. 

 

Carry on with our skiing ( spending the kid’s inheritance)

 

We will be joining the Silversea Wind for the Dakar to Lisbon leg of this voyage in just over two weeks time so we are really looking forward to the ships reviews and meeting up with you all.

We have sailed with Silversea previously on the Spirit and the Cloud but not on the Wind, and never on an expedition cruise.( Although I question why our journey is classified as an expedition cruise?)

Thanks again Fletch for your excellent blog!

Mklions.

[Fletcher]

Thanks @mklions Insects have not been an issue on board.  A few mozzies and moths but nothing like the invasion you describe or the blizzards of insects we experienced on the Irrawaddy.  The issue here on the Wind is the rain - torrential last night and pretty grim this morning.  Hey ho.

[Lirio]

1 hour ago, Fletcher said:

Thanks @mklions Insects have not been an issue on board.  A few mozzies and moths but nothing like the invasion you describe or the blizzards of insects we experienced on the Irrawaddy.  The issue here on the Wind is the rain - torrential last night and pretty grim this morning.  Hey ho.

The rainy period or strong convective activity in the Amazon region is between November and March, while the dry period (without great convective activity) is between the months of May and September. The months of April and October are months of transition between one regime and another.

[Fletcher]

7 - Fortaleza woes

Fortaleza was our first time on dry land since we left Manaus last Monday.  We didn’t want to go to Fortaleza which is just a huge Brazilian city with big beaches, high rise buildings, a lot of squalor and a reputation for street crime.   But it was always on our itinerary as the ship needs to fill up with stuff and clear immigration formalities before we head across the Atlantic.  We wanted to make the most of what little it has to offer.

 

But before I tell you about our visit to Fortaleza here’s a little amuse bouche.  We have another cruise booked, on the Dawn, later this year.  Because we have been messed around quite a bit on this current cruise - not only the itinerary but our cabin as well - we thought we’d see how Silversea behaves and consider our options.  At the moment I think we are about 70 percent on the side of bailing out.

 

Anyway, we were chatting to this guy on the Future Cruise Booking desk.  He wears a suit and tie and seems very keen to help.  We said we already had this Dawn booking.  He said he’d look it up, apply the discount, and see what else he could do.  He could get us an upgrade, on board credit, all sorts of lovely stuff.  And the next day we were presented with an offer which came in at about £3000 more than our existing booking.  I said we’ll stick with that.  He said, yes, that’s a good idea.  He looked a bit crestfallen.

 

Back to Fortaleza.  That’s something I hope never to say again because we will not go back to Fortaleza. The tour today was the absolute pits.   It was billed as a nature walk.  So we drove for half an hour through some scruffy areas and came to a stop near a sand dune which rose up beside a four-lane highway.  Some people climbed it. I asked our resident ophiologist, the charismatic Greg, why people were doing that.  He said they were channelling their inner Sean Connerys.  I loved that.

 

We drove around a bit more, past many high-rise blocks which filled our local motormouth guide with pride, and came to the nature walk, a mangrove swamp right in the middle of the city.   This was muddy and vaguely on the underside of whelming.  We saw perhaps three birds.  After half an hour we got back on the coaches and did another tour of the high-rise buildings.  I should mention here that there is only one building in Fortaleza worthy of serious scrutiny and that is the theatre, as impressive in its way as the opera house in Manaus.  Sadly, the theatre was not on the itinerary.  Nor was a pretty beach area.  Instead we were taken to a shopping mall and told to shop for 30 minutes.  We declined the offer and waited until the others maxed out their credit cards on knick-nacks from China.  We returned to the ship.  What a waste of time this was.

 

We knew Fortaleza would be rubbish.  And it lived up to all the hype.   We wouldn’t have minded so much had São Luis and Barra Grande remained on the itinerary.   But Silversea nixed them.  And having monitored a recent cruise with the Silver Nova,  I believe that the people on that ship had a far better, far richer experience of this part of Brazil and the Amazon than we have had on this so-called expedition ship.  We now have five sea days to get to Africa where I learn there is barely a 50-50 chance of making our first landfall at Tokeh Beach in Sierra Leone.  Are we downhearted?

[Lirio]

51 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

7 - Fortaleza woes

Fortaleza was our first time on dry land since we left Manaus last Monday.  We didn’t want to go to Fortaleza which is just a huge Brazilian city with big beaches, high rise buildings, a lot of squalor and a reputation for street crime.   But it was always on our itinerary as the ship needs to fill up with stuff and clear immigration formalities before we head across the Atlantic.  We wanted to make the most of what little it has to offer.

 

But before I tell you about our visit to Fortaleza here’s a little amuse bouche.  We have another cruise booked, on the Dawn, later this year.  Because we have been messed around quite a bit on this current cruise - not only the itinerary but our cabin as well - we thought we’d see how Silversea behaves and consider our options.  At the moment I think we are about 70 percent on the side of bailing out.

 

Anyway, we were chatting to this guy on the Future Cruise Booking desk.  He wears a suit and tie and seems very keen to help.  We said we already had this Dawn booking.  He said he’d look it up, apply the discount, and see what else he could do.  He could get us an upgrade, on board credit, all sorts of lovely stuff.  And the next day we were presented with an offer which came in at about £3000 more than our existing booking.  I said we’ll stick with that.  He said, yes, that’s a good idea.  He looked a bit crestfallen.

 

Back to Fortaleza.  That’s something I hope never to say again because we will not go back to Fortaleza. The tour today was the absolute pits.   It was billed as a nature walk.  So we drove for half an hour through some scruffy areas and came to a stop near a sand dune which rose up beside a four-lane highway.  Some people climbed it. I asked our resident ophiologist, the charismatic Greg, why people were doing that.  He said they were channelling their inner Sean Connerys.  I loved that.

 

We drove around a bit more, past many high-rise blocks which filled our local motormouth guide with pride, and came to the nature walk, a mangrove swamp right in the middle of the city.   This was muddy and vaguely on the underside of whelming.  We saw perhaps three birds.  After half an hour we got back on the coaches and did another tour of the high-rise buildings.  I should mention here that there is only one building in Fortaleza worthy of serious scrutiny and that is the theatre, as impressive in its way as the opera house in Manaus.  Sadly, the theatre was not on the itinerary.  Nor was a pretty beach area.  Instead we were taken to a shopping mall and told to shop for 30 minutes.  We declined the offer and waited until the others maxed out their credit cards on knick-nacks from China.  We returned to the ship.  What a waste of time this was.

 

We knew Fortaleza would be rubbish.  And it lived up to all the hype.   We wouldn’t have minded so much had São Luis and Barra Grande remained on the itinerary.   But Silversea nixed them.  And having monitored a recent cruise with the Silver Nova,  I believe that the people on that ship had a far better, far richer experience of this part of Brazil and the Amazon than we have had on this so-called expedition ship.  We now have five sea days to get to Africa where I learn there is barely a 50-50 chance of making our first landfall at Tokeh Beach in Sierra Leone.  Are we downhearted?

I have no idea why Silversea chose Fortaleza. It is a windy beach city, which is nice for kite surfing or wind surfing, does anyone in the cruise would do that?  And the beaches aren’t very beautiful. There are great beaches at about 200 km, but does it worth visiting them as day trip. I consider that it is not a good idea at all.

I am sorrow you didn’t have great days in Brazil. Should you ever come to Brazil again, there are great things that deserves visiting. I would be pleased to tell.

[highplanesdrifters]

Oh my. All rather disheartening. 

[jpalbny]

Yes, these "new" wonderful discounts are not very helpful, when the base price has skyrocketed. A few months ago, I had a look at whether the $4000 off would be of any use if applied to my currently booked cruises. In all cases the price I'm already paying is much better than the "new" discounted price.

 

Bummer of an excursion. Hope that the offerings get better in Africa.

[DavyWavey70]

I’m so sorry to hear that you aren’t really enjoying yet another cruise. The Amazon was very high on my list before but has been moved down the list now. The Wind also,  I’d always thought to be a bit too small for me.  I’ll still look forward to your daily updates though. I Hope things improve. 

[Port Power]

@Fletcher, you need to go higher up the food chain for some recompense.  Usually guest services can email reservations with a request for future OBC if they agree your cabin or cruise has been impacted.  Better yet, have your TA write to SS.  

[Fletcher]

8 - All At Sea

There are some baffling behaviours on this cruise, mainly to do with eating patterns.  I don’t mean some people are eating beef wellington and pinot noir for breakfast and Corn Flakes and tea for dinner.  I mean which restaurants are busy and which restaurants are not.

 

On all our previous Silversea cruises one of the most popular, fully-booked dining venues has been The Grill.  On the Cloud last year it was often hard to get a table.  We like to eat there every other day because I think the food is the best - or least worst - on the ship.  We never use the hot rocks because I don’t like the smoke, the spitting fat or the wearing of bibs.  We find that the chef can cook a fillet or a rib-eye to our liking and the prawns are also rather tasty. And messy - where are the finger bowls?

 

We’ve now been on the ship for nine days and The Grill has never been remotely busy.  The weather has always been tropical balmy without life-threatening insects or much rain.  Last night there were only three tables taken, one of them by a woman on her own who finished her meal by 7.30pm.  It was eerily empty, like a Blackpool cafe on a bleak February day.  The maitre’d, from Belarus, looked a little depressed.  Maybe if you are from Belarus that’s your natural look.

 

Our favourite venue for dinner, ambience-wise, is the back deck of La Terrazza, though the food is chronically inconsistent.  In various Terrazzas I have been served a mud bath called osso bucco or lasagne.  La Terrazza, like The Grill, has been very busy on every Silversea ship we have been on.  But not on this cruise.  The other night we dined with a couple we have befriended and we were the only people there.  It was like having our own private yacht.  We told them we have emptied grand salons in our time.  We enjoyed the privacy and the chef even managed a decent pasta dish.  On stone cold plates of course.

 

Downstairs in the Restaurant is where almost all the 150-odd passengers choose to have their dinner.  No one is dressed up to the nines, merely sixes and sevens.  It’s a pleasant enough room where the other night I had correctly cooked foie gras served with stewed tinned strawberries, followed by juicily pink lamb chops served with barely raw bits of broccoli, carrot and cauliflower, the unholy trinity of veg beloved of every chain pub in Britain.  Have they never heard of pommes dauphinoise?  And today we discovered this is perhaps the best place for lunch.  Everything was unusually lovely.

 

We bumped into the Equator at 3pm, going north.  Some weird pagan ritual was held at the pool deck when ophiologist Greg smeared himself in chocolate sauce and invited passengers to lick it off.  Sadly, a planned dip in 13,000 feet of water was abandoned because a giant squid was spotted roaming around, pursued by a sperm whale called Dick.  Or maybe it was just too much of a swell.   So the Captain turned the fire hoses on anyone who had signed up for the dip.  As you can tell, on these sea days the team try desperately hard to keep us amused.  So there is volleyball and ping-pong and a lot of dandy games.  What ain’t we got?

 

[MikeD1000]

Thanks for the comments on restaurants/  Please keep them coming.

 

Mike

[Fletcher]

9 - Never get out of the boat

In Fortaleza we got ourselves a new expedition leader. Her name is Lea and she seems like a typically competent, forthright, down-to-earth Aussie.  At a stretch she could morph into Lee Ermey, the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket.

 

Yesterday Lea gave a briefing about what we might expect from our two stops in Sierra Leone.  Quite a few passengers on the Wind seem a little on the old side of elderly, a little uncertain on their pins.  I’m sure some of them at the briefing wondered if we could simply turn left and head for Barbados instead of this terrifying place called Africa.

 

Lea started off by saying the last time Silversea came to Tokeh Beach they couldn’t land.  The surf was just too high.  She had photos to prove it.  In one picture the zodiac platform was about six feet above the water and in the next picture it was entirely submerged.  The beach itself seems like a death trap.  She has apparently hired some local lads to help out when the waves hit the arriving zodiacs and flip them over.  She said we had to sit this way, swivel that way, and try not to drown when you are thrown into the foaming tumult.  Oh, she said as an afterthought, you need to prevent your camera from getting wet.  She recommended wearing swimmies.

 

And that was only the beginning.  If you survived the beach landing you were into Saving Private Ryan territory.  Lea said we had to leave all valuables on the ship because the natives were lining up to rob and murder us.  Someone asked if they took credit cards.  There was a charming ambiguity to that question.   If you were alive after all this you would enter a beach resort behind a security cordon.  I had an urge to tell people there are apparently crocodiles at the far end of this beach.  Lea didn’t have the nerve to mention that.

 

Today, Wednesday, Lea gathered us for a briefing about Guinea-Bissau and the Bijagos Archipelago which is the main reason I am on this cruise.  I have long wanted to go there.  From Lea’s briefing, these rarely visited islands look like a total bliss-out.  They do have one distinctive wildlife attraction - saltwater hippos which Lea failed to mention.  They were, you might say, the elephants in the room.

 

The skies have been disappointing in the mid-Atlantic.  No sunsets.  This is the best I could muster today.

Edited April 24 by Fletcher

[Port Power]

Lea was on Wind when I did the Antarctic cruise in December / January just gone.  I first met her on Coral Expeditions in the Kimberley.  She is a marine biologist, but so knowledgeable over a wide area of nature.  Competent but also very engaging.

 

And I’ll now cross Sierra Leone off my bucket list. 😆 🦛

[highplanesdrifters]

12 hours ago, Port Power said:

And I’ll now cross Sierra Leone off my bucket list. 😆 🦛

 

Was it knowing that "salties" now referred to both crocks and hippos? 😃

[mklions]

Hi Fletch,

Great reviews as normal, l enjoy your typical British humour and your honesty when describing your experiences on the ship.Are you still on the Wind when we join the ship at Dakar?

Mklions.

[Port Power]

On 4/25/2024 at 9:33 PM, highplanesdrifters said:

 

Was it knowing that "salties" now referred to both crocks and hippos? 😃

It was more the “friendly locals” and world class surfing conditions! 🏴‍☠️

[Fletcher]

10 - We discover Africa

It has been five whole days and a bit since we left Fortaleza and the continent of South America.  Five whole days.  That’s less than ten days which makes it seem a lot better than it could have been.  It’s not been dull.  It’s been samey. The same heat.  The same overcast skies.  The same routines.  The same disgruntlement over the Amazon itinerary.  I think Silversea can look forward to a ton of letters about that.

 

Three days in to the voyage across the Atlantic the Captain came on the blower to tell us there had been a medical emergency involving a crew member and, as a result, the Wind would steam straight to Freetown in Sierra Leone and drop the unfortunate crew member off for medical treatment.  This would not impact our itinerary at all.  We’d still hit the beach at Tokeh tomorrow morning.

 

I felt rather sorry for the expedition team who were often out on deck, chatting to each other, scanning the sea and the sky for something to engage their attention.  They spent hours doing this, the miles rolled past, there was hardly anything to see except the sea.  One or two birds maybe.   Then yesterday there was a pod of more than 100 spinner dolphins on the port side.  I was in my cabin on the starboard side and missed the excitement.  Today there was a dead whale and a few freighters and container ships.

 

This evening, at long long last, Africa came up on the horizon.  There were hazy mountains, and the rather chaotic geography of Freetown, a former British colony.  A woman passenger, dressed as if for a party at Mar Del Lago, looked ashore and said, “Oh my they have electricity.”  I detected a note of surprise and also perhaps disappointment in her voice.

 

The Wind sidled in and dropped anchor to await the launch which would transfer our ailing crew member to hospital.  We observed all this from the back of La Terrazza.  Dining on carpaccio and saltimbocca  and gazing at all the twinkling lights in the bay, it was perfectly possible, with only the slightest stretch of the imagination, to think you were in Portofino.  Buona notte.

 

 

 

[DavyWavey70]

4 hours ago, Fletcher said:

10 - We discover Africa

It has been five whole days and a bit since we left Fortaleza and the continent of South America.  Five whole days.  That’s less than ten days which makes it seem a lot better than it could have been.  It’s not been dull.  It’s been samey. The same heat.  The same overcast skies.  The same routines.  The same disgruntlement over the Amazon itinerary.  I think Silversea can look forward to a ton of letters about that.

 

Three days in to the voyage across the Atlantic the Captain came on the blower to tell us there had been a medical emergency involving a crew member and, as a result, the Wind would steam straight to Freetown in Sierra Leone and drop the unfortunate crew member off for medical treatment.  This would not impact our itinerary at all.  We’d still hit the beach at Tokeh tomorrow morning.

 

I felt rather sorry for the expedition team who were often out on deck, chatting to each other, scanning the sea and the sky for something to engage their attention.  They spent hours doing this, the miles rolled past, there was hardly anything to see except the sea.  One or two birds maybe.   Then yesterday there was a pod of more than 100 spinner dolphins on the port side.  I was in my cabin on the starboard side and missed the excitement.  Today there was a dead whale and a few freighters and container ships.

 

This evening, at long long last, Africa came up on the horizon.  There were hazy mountains, and the rather chaotic geography of Freetown, a former British colony.  A woman passenger, dressed as if for a party at Mar Del Lago, looked ashore and said, “Oh my they have electricity.”  I detected a note of surprise and also perhaps disappointment in her voice.

 

The Wind sidled in and dropped anchor to await the launch which would transfer our ailing crew member to hospital.  We observed all this from the back of La Terrazza.  Dining on carpaccio and saltimbocca  and gazing at all the twinkling lights in the bay, it was perfectly possible, with only the slightest stretch of the imagination, to think you were in Portofino.  Buona notte.

 

 

 

So pleased to hear that they have electricity. I Think that they might charge slightly less for shoes than Portofino though. 

[drron29]

3 hours ago, DavyWavey70 said:

So pleased to hear that they have electricity. I Think that they might charge slightly less for shoes than Portofino though. 

And I hear the choices are very much reduced as well!

[jollyjones]

16 hours ago, Fletcher said:

 

 

This evening, at long long last, Africa came up on the horizon.  There were hazy mountains, and the rather chaotic geography of Freetown, a former British colony.  A woman passenger, dressed as if for a party at Mar Del Lago, looked ashore and said, “Oh my they have electricity.”  I detected a note of surprise and also perhaps disappointment in her voice.

 

 

Maybe she wasn't so wrong to be surprised?

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c97zx45vp28o

 

[highplanesdrifters]

52 minutes ago, jollyjones said:

 

Maybe she wasn't so wrong to be surprised?

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c97zx45vp28o

 

 

Very interesting, thanks.   Although I dont think I'd worry about ironing my clothes if I didn't have power. Or even if I did have power.😃

[TLCOhio]

Glad our UK expert/friend has made it to Africa.  Had a chance this am to catch up as to your always interesting and honest reporting.  

 

Appreciate all of these efforts and follow-ups, especially the visuals.  Keep it coming.  Sorry the Amazon River was not more exciting.  From our 2015 adventure up and down the Amazon River on the Silver Cloud, it is a "different" area compared to the wider port varieties and experiences in the Caribbean, Med, etc.  We loved that trip but have warned others that it is different than what some others seek and enjoy most.  

 

Looking forward to learning more as to the various Africa stops.  

 

THANKS!  Enjoy!  Terry in Ohio

 

Amazon River-Caribbean 2015 adventure live/blog starting in Barbados on the Silver Cloud for 26 days. Many visuals from this amazing river and Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, San Juan, etc.).  Now at 75,085 views:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2076101-live-amazon-river-caribbean-many-pix’s-terryohio/

[fdnycruiser]

We did an Amazon cruise a few years ago on Regent. The CD told everyone on the first day that they’ll either love it or hate it. I liked it ( not loved) my wife wasn’t keen on it at all. I thought that it was an amazing region, and was glad that we went. Now the tributaries they tell me is the real Amazon adventure. I’ll leave that for others