Liz's Journal - Fernando do Noronha to French Guyana

Page 5

When we left Fernando de Noronha we went to Natal still further up the coast of Brasil. The Natal Yacht Club has a small bar, swimming pool and a sitting area. Outside the building by the parking lot there is a tree that has tiny red seeds which I collected and used to make bracelets and other arts and crafts.

There was this one boat called Summerpack, on it lived a lady who was born in the Peruvian Amazon Jungle and from her I learnt how to make nets using fishing line or yarn. I made hanging baskets which my mom uses to hold vegetables and fruit.

When we left Natal for French Guyana we had the most amazing sail.

We were just sailing along when all of a sudden we changed direction we realized that we were sailing though huge whirlpools, that were being created by the outwash of the mouth of the Amazon rivers. I say rivers because there are many outlets in what is called a delta. Another strange thing happened when our echo sounder read that the sea was only 270 ft deep and we were 162 Nautical miles offshore.

A few days later when the water was flat and we were moving along nicely dad found that these huge bubbles were coming up all around us. Dad sent out sound waves through the water to alert whatever to our presence. Dad thought the bubbles were from a submarine blowing ballasts, then he thought it was a school of whales using a bubble curtain to trap fish. It turned out to be the air resurfacing after being sucked down in the turbulence of the currents.

After all that excitement, we were relaxing on deck with a few drinks watching the sunset when things started jumping out of the water. With a quick glance through the binoculars we figured out that they were jumping Tuna. So we relaxed on deck, a cold one in our hands as we watched the Tuna and the sunset giving us a wonderful show.