The Amazon

3780 miles long, this is the 2nd longest river in the world (only the Nile is longer) but it is the widest and the most voluminous in water flow. 20% of all the fresh water spilling into the world’s oceans comes from the Amazon. Its outflow is larger than the next 10 most voluminous rivers combined. More amazing is the fact that the Amazon contains more species of fish than the Atlantic Ocean! Even in the dry season, the Amazon averages between 4 and 6 miles wide! The water from the Amazon can be found 200 miles out to sea where fresh water can be dipped from the ocean because of the strength and volume of the outflow The river has thousands of tributaries with 17 of them over 1000 miles long. The Amazon toils to tear down the Andes Mountains where it arises and its success in that work can be seen in the silt-laden, reddish waters from its mouth to its outlet at the sea. It is said that the particle burden of the river is so finely ground that it will never “settle out” if left to stand. In many places the river reaches 7 miles in width so that a boat afloat seems to be on an ocean In other places, the river must squeeze itself through much constricted narrows where the width is only 100 ft. wide During the rainy season, the river swells to engulf many miles of forest and streamside! The Amazon is a prodigious river indeed.

Yet in some ways, its very size made sailing on it disappointing to us, the explorers on board the Clipper Adventurer for this exciting trip. The enormous width of the river precluded animal or bird sightings from our 400 ft. ship which had to keep to the identified channels to avoid running aground on the many sandbars and silt build-ups. So, until we could get off the ship and into our Zodiacs pushing our way into tiny tributaries of the great river, we really might as well as have been at sea.