Today was our first daylight outing to the northern coast of South America as we made our way down the mighty Orinoco River. We started off in true expedition style, up at 4:30 am and in the Zodiacs by 5:15 am. We headed directly for a narrow channel spotted on the charts, exactly the surroundings and habitat one looks for on the wide rivers. As the sun broke through the dense jungle we were immediately gratified with views of over-flying large Amazon parrots, neotropical cormorants, herons, and black-bellied whiling ducks—this compounded with the symphony of multiple bird calls.
All Zodiacs drifted nice and slow through the channel which yielded a great array of birds. Views of northern caracara, yellow-headed vultures, common black hawks, and a great number of smaller riverside birds (as shown in the picture of a masked cardinal).
Making our way down, we ran into a couple of fishermen rowing small dugout canoes on the edge of the channel, trolling a very thick line. We pulled up next to them to ask what they were fishing for. They answered “catfish.” Our next question was about the size of their line? There was a smile and the fishermen said, ¨They are really big ones. Last night one was tied off on a branch, this morning we went to check it and the branch was broken of the tree!”
We stayed in the channel for about two hours, enjoying every moment of our first daylight adventure. We returned to breakfast and the ship continued its journey to Cuidad Guiana where we needed to clear the ship into Venezuela. In the afternoon we enjoyed a fantastic presentation by Jacob Edgar and Drew Gonsalves on the influences of music from Trinidadian culture.
We ended our evening with the amazing gastronomic surprise on the back deck: Captain’s welcome cocktails and dinner. We enjoyed yellow-fin tuna sushi or lightly grilled. The spread of seafood was so well displayed on tables that it looked like art work.
