Well, that was interesting! Something new to take in...
The river looks huge... what would prevent QE2 from reaching this place?
I seem to remember that Caronia used to venture far into Latin America -- would she have been here?
The mouth to The Amazon is approx 30 miles wide, but then comes the first hurdle, a large sand bar which can only be crossed at high tide. As such QE2 would not have been able to cross this sand bar as her draft would have been too great, also there are several quite tight turns and QE2 does not like maneuvering at low speed.
I've been up to Manaus 3 times, twice with Cunard, on Vistafjord & Caronia and finally with Seabourn Odyssey, where this photo was taken, each time it's size and diversity just amazed me. That's even before you see the vast number of creepy crawly's that are attracted to the ships lights at night!
The bridge is just up river from Manaus and cruise ships don't normally go any further up river than Manaus, but Odyssey did on this occasion. The reason was that they were going about 10/20 miles up river to have a beach BBQ for all the passenger that evening. And when i say beach BBQ it's a little understatement, as Seabourn certainly didn't do things by halves, i refer you to the Seabourn advert of the 90s/00s with the waiter serving drinks in the sea to passengers floating on a lilo!
It was a spread like no other and would not have been out of place in a 5 star hotel 'ashore'. Everything, and i mean everything was prepared onboard and taken ashore, salads, deserts, ice for drinks, drinks, glasses proper plates, meats etc etc etc... My wife has some photos somewhere and if i can find them i'll post a few.
The incredible thing about the Amazon is that Manaus is not even half way along it's complete length of 6992km/4344 miles.
A truly amazing experience and that's before we get to the passenger tours and shows. We were lucky as my wife was 'used' as a tour guide so did the 'crockle' thing and then reviewed it in the evening over a 'soft' drink and dinner.