5 & 6 October 2009; Curacao and Boa Vista --
The flight from Great Exuma to Curacao was our longest overwater leg of this journey to Brazil. An hour or so out of Exuma, we flew over the western part of Haiti and Uncle Bob pointed out an inland lake whose surface is 310 feet below sealevel. That is lower than Death Valley and even lower than the bottom of Salton Sea, which was dry before a leaking irrigation canal filled it to above its present level early in the 20th century. Much of Haiti is mountainous and unsuited for agriculture; the rest that we saw is pretty barren. It's no wonder that the people who live there have an average monthly income of a few dollars.
I have been to Curacao previously (see earlier post of late April 2007); it is a possession of the Netherlands -- not independent like Aruba and Bon Aire. The architecture and color of the buildings is very suggestive of Amsterdam. In the center of the city (Wilhemsted) is a canal that connects a harbor inland to the Caribbean. As we dined on the terrace of our fancy hotel, we saw a large cargo ship being towed out to sea down the canal.
The canal has a swinging pontoon bridge that crosses the canal so pedestrians can walk across to the other side. To drive to the other side involves a long route around the inland harbor, so it is preferable to walk (or take the ferry) across the 100 meter wide canal. When Grumpy was here a couple years ago, the pontoon bridge was being totally rebuilt, so this is the first time I had seen it. Foolishly, Grumpy did not take a picture of the bridge while it was daylight; it is a very unusual (to me) construction, with a series of flat "boats" strung out along the length of the bridge to support the weight of the bridge above. Each "boat" is double-ended so they can go either direction with minimum drag. The end "boat" is powered and it is the one that swings the bridge open or closed. It takes several minutes to swing the bridge open or closed and to secure it before pedestrians are allowed to start across.
We left Curacao airport early in the day -- before breakfast (most of the places supply breakfast too late for this pair of ex-farm brothers!) -- and climbed into the clear morning air on our way over Venezuela to Boa Vista, our point of entry into Brazil. Our route from Curacao took us toward the South American shore and then turned easterly to follow that shore until we intersected it at about Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Our route also took us over the area where Angel Falls is located. Naturally, we "had" to take a peek -- cloudy conditions allowing. Our technique, developed over two previous attempts to sight the Falls, is to fly to a point directly North of the Falls and then navigate due South, flying above the canyon out of which the river flows that produces the Angel Falls phenomenon.
Having those previous experiences, it was almost easy to spot the Falls even though the clouds were uncooperative. We knew exactly where it was and where we were, flying above the clouds, so when we were right beside it, I spyed it through a hole in the clouds and took several quick photos. I'll have to see how they look blown up and cropped, and maybe "lightened" a little, to see if they are as convincing to anyone besides Uncle Bob and myself.
Here is one, just to show you the visual handicaps under which we labored to spot the Falls! With a cooperative pilot flying the airplane and a more or less wide awake photographer handling his $600 camera, it should have been better; the photographer forgot to place the zoom lens in telephoto mode!! :<( Too bad; there won't be another chance. But, a few minutes later, as we continued on course for Boa Vista, Grumpy spotted several high water falls emanating from cliffs, similar to Angel Falls. 
So, if the reader is not impressed with the photo of Angel Falls, let him (or her) feast their eyes on this telephoto shot of this lesser falls. By comparison, since Angel Falls is 1000 meters, Grumpy estimates this one as about 300 meters (1000 feet). It appears to have a discontinuity about 100 feet down from its top. The predominate dark green of the jungle gives a sharp contrast, but not much detail of the ruggedness of the terrain here.
Boa Vista is on the Rio Negro (which flows into the Amazon at Manaus. We landed here at midafternoon, went through Customs, Federal Police (to verify liability insurance on the plane), Brazil Aeronautics (for permission to operate the US registered Mooney in Brazil), and Health (to be sure we had no communicable diseases -- the injection nurse didn't ask for my Yellow Fever proof of inoculation this time!). All of this took a long time but there was a coffee shop handy so we relaxed in between waits with a cup of genuine Brazilian coffee!
We stayed in a very nice hotel in Boa Vista, not far from the river front where we dined on fresh fish caught from the Rio Negro. We had a table next to the railing where we could look down about 30 feet to the surface of the river. In flood season, the surface is within four or five feet of the bottom of this deck! I forgot how deep the river is at this point, but I do know that cruise ships can navigate it without fear of sandbars and the like. It is a fairly slow moving river here but strongly colored opaque by the "tea" formed by decaying vegetation upstream in the jungle out of which it flows.
Unfortunately, the internet connection at this hotel was unsuccessful. Later I was to find out why.
The flight from Great Exuma to Curacao was our longest overwater leg of this journey to Brazil. An hour or so out of Exuma, we flew over the western part of Haiti and Uncle Bob pointed out an inland lake whose surface is 310 feet below sealevel. That is lower than Death Valley and even lower than the bottom of Salton Sea, which was dry before a leaking irrigation canal filled it to above its present level early in the 20th century. Much of Haiti is mountainous and unsuited for agriculture; the rest that we saw is pretty barren. It's no wonder that the people who live there have an average monthly income of a few dollars.
I have been to Curacao previously (see earlier post of late April 2007); it is a possession of the Netherlands -- not independent like Aruba and Bon Aire. The architecture and color of the buildings is very suggestive of Amsterdam. In the center of the city (Wilhemsted) is a canal that connects a harbor inland to the Caribbean. As we dined on the terrace of our fancy hotel, we saw a large cargo ship being towed out to sea down the canal.
The canal has a swinging pontoon bridge that crosses the canal so pedestrians can walk across to the other side. To drive to the other side involves a long route around the inland harbor, so it is preferable to walk (or take the ferry) across the 100 meter wide canal. When Grumpy was here a couple years ago, the pontoon bridge was being totally rebuilt, so this is the first time I had seen it. Foolishly, Grumpy did not take a picture of the bridge while it was daylight; it is a very unusual (to me) construction, with a series of flat "boats" strung out along the length of the bridge to support the weight of the bridge above. Each "boat" is double-ended so they can go either direction with minimum drag. The end "boat" is powered and it is the one that swings the bridge open or closed. It takes several minutes to swing the bridge open or closed and to secure it before pedestrians are allowed to start across.
We left Curacao airport early in the day -- before breakfast (most of the places supply breakfast too late for this pair of ex-farm brothers!) -- and climbed into the clear morning air on our way over Venezuela to Boa Vista, our point of entry into Brazil. Our route from Curacao took us toward the South American shore and then turned easterly to follow that shore until we intersected it at about Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Our route also took us over the area where Angel Falls is located. Naturally, we "had" to take a peek -- cloudy conditions allowing. Our technique, developed over two previous attempts to sight the Falls, is to fly to a point directly North of the Falls and then navigate due South, flying above the canyon out of which the river flows that produces the Angel Falls phenomenon.
Having those previous experiences, it was almost easy to spot the Falls even though the clouds were uncooperative. We knew exactly where it was and where we were, flying above the clouds, so when we were right beside it, I spyed it through a hole in the clouds and took several quick photos. I'll have to see how they look blown up and cropped, and maybe "lightened" a little, to see if they are as convincing to anyone besides Uncle Bob and myself.
Here is one, just to show you the visual handicaps under which we labored to spot the Falls! With a cooperative pilot flying the airplane and a more or less wide awake photographer handling his $600 camera, it should have been better; the photographer forgot to place the zoom lens in telephoto mode!! :<( Too bad; there won't be another chance. But, a few minutes later, as we continued on course for Boa Vista, Grumpy spotted several high water falls emanating from cliffs, similar to Angel Falls. 
So, if the reader is not impressed with the photo of Angel Falls, let him (or her) feast their eyes on this telephoto shot of this lesser falls. By comparison, since Angel Falls is 1000 meters, Grumpy estimates this one as about 300 meters (1000 feet). It appears to have a discontinuity about 100 feet down from its top. The predominate dark green of the jungle gives a sharp contrast, but not much detail of the ruggedness of the terrain here.Boa Vista is on the Rio Negro (which flows into the Amazon at Manaus. We landed here at midafternoon, went through Customs, Federal Police (to verify liability insurance on the plane), Brazil Aeronautics (for permission to operate the US registered Mooney in Brazil), and Health (to be sure we had no communicable diseases -- the injection nurse didn't ask for my Yellow Fever proof of inoculation this time!). All of this took a long time but there was a coffee shop handy so we relaxed in between waits with a cup of genuine Brazilian coffee!
We stayed in a very nice hotel in Boa Vista, not far from the river front where we dined on fresh fish caught from the Rio Negro. We had a table next to the railing where we could look down about 30 feet to the surface of the river. In flood season, the surface is within four or five feet of the bottom of this deck! I forgot how deep the river is at this point, but I do know that cruise ships can navigate it without fear of sandbars and the like. It is a fairly slow moving river here but strongly colored opaque by the "tea" formed by decaying vegetation upstream in the jungle out of which it flows.
Unfortunately, the internet connection at this hotel was unsuccessful. Later I was to find out why.
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