Status: Anchored
Conditions: Hot and humid
AirTemp: 38 deg C
WaterTemp: 34 deg C
Wind: Variable - light
SeaState: Calm
Visibility: Good
Saturday November 10th, 2001
Our Jungle Team is getting ready to depart.
The lists are long.
There are still many things to do before we all say goodbye - for very different lifestyles over the next month.
Seamaster will head back down the Amazon, whilst our Jungle team, onboard Iguana, head further up the Rio Negro to San Gabrielle - there to get a ride on a truck with all their equipment - through to the Venezuelan border, about 6 hours of dirt road away.
While Seamaster feels the Atlantic swells, the salt air and trade winds once more, and turns left towards the Caribbean and the entrance to the Orinoco River, the Jungle Team will be using 3 bongos, plus one of our inflatable dinghies, to traverse the Casiquaire channel - the natural reversing waterway that links the Rio Negro with the Orinoco River.
They will be spending time living with a Yanomami Indian tribe, and they will be putting up with the privations of river travel at its most basic. The insects will be far more numerous and voracious than anything we have seen so far.
On uneven days of the month, the Jungle team will be reporting into our web site - with their own Log - complete with colour photographs of what they have experienced that day. They have a state-of-the-art satellite communications system that will allow them to do this from the edge of the river bank.
On the even days, we will be Logging direct from Seamaster as usual until we all meet up again somewhere up the Orinoco River in a month’s time.
Of the team that stayed over last night at the Daraqua village well up the river, some of them were involved in a turtle hunt this morning - an experience that they hadn’t expected.
Dr Mark Orams was there.
He has the following to say about it:
Turtle hunting up the Rio Itu
Alistair, Janot, Franck and I have been fortunate enough to spend the last two days at a small remote village about 15 miles up the Rio Itu (a northern tributary of the Rio Negro). This village consists of nine families, all of whom are the children and grandchildren of a man everyone calls “Bebe”. Bebe and his family moved to the sandy beach where we stayed last night just over ten years ago. Because he couldn’t find work in Barcelos he, like many others, decided to move his family to an area where they could live more comfortably by hunting, growing some crops and catching and selling small fish for the ornamental fish trade.
So, the last few days have been a fascinating insight into the lives of the many people in the Amazon Basin who live this way. We were welcomed into the community via Dr Vogt - these families have befriended him - and they now assist him with his turtle research. Turtles form a staple of the diet along with many other species of wildlife that the families are able to trap, collect or hunt. In a discussion with Bebe over dinner (rice, manioc and some beef we brought with us) we were told that fish, turtles, birds, small caiman, paca (capybara), deer and even manatees are hunted to help these small remote families survive beside the river. While a number of these species are endangered (and protected by law) - the simple reality of surviving in a subsistence lifestyle such as this requires the people to hunt and take whatever they can find. It is a sobering reminder that conservation is all well and good - but when you don’t know where the next meal is coming from it simply becomes a fanciful theory of those who can afford it. This really is the challenge for the less developed world because - of course - if the harvesting of wildlife depletes the resource the people may eventually starve.
Part of the solution for these people up the Rio Itu may lie in the ornamental fish trade - in which they are involved. It is virtually their only source of cash income. This morning we watched as some of the men from the village stalked amongst the shallows at the river’s edge with a small mesh net and then skilfully used their bongo paddles to work the small cardinal tetras into the net. These small schooling fish (approx. 1-2cm long) are popular aquarium fish and when sold in Barcelos they fetch about US$1 per 1,000 fish. It was, however, the hunting of turtles that proved most fascinating.
Janot and I watched as the men spread a large mesh gill net across the river. Two of the group were left to hold the net at each end and the other three paddled their small bongos very quietly up stream. After cutting down some large (5-6 metre) poles from a riverside tree each of the men spread out, stood in their bongos and began slapping these poles onto the water surface creating a loud “smack”. It was impressive to watch. I had a go in one of these small bongos and they are difficult to balance when sitting down and yet here they were standing, lifting long poles above their heads and whacking them down as hard as they could. While thrashing these poles the three bongos were being carefully guided downstream toward the waiting net. As the bongos approached closer the rhythm of the poles increased - at the same time the net holders slowly began to close the net in a semi circle toward the approaching bongos. As the bongos met the net holders the net was completely closed off. The men then dived inside, swimming around the net circumference, picking out the turtles. I saw one, two, then four brought to the surface and placed in the bongos - when I counted eight I was impressed - I had expected perhaps two of three. By the time the net was cleared 17 turtles had been gathered - it had taken perhaps half an hours work.
While certainly being impressed by the teamwork, I also felt a great deal of unease with the harvesting of an endangered animal. It is certainly needed by these people as a source of protein - also, and most importantly - it is able to be stored. They keep these turtles in a small pen in the river so that the turtles are fresh when needed. With no refrigeration there is no way to store other meat. In addition, Dr Vogt has taught these people how to harvest the eggs from the pregnant females (all 17 caught today were females) and to transplant these eggs so that the hatchlings can emerge. He also encourages them to de-capitate the turtles before cooking them on the fire - most other people in the Amazon simply put the live turtle onto the fire, cooking it alive.
The fundamental question is, therefore, one of sustainability. It is certainly more likely that a subsistence harvest, such as the one we observed today, will have a lower impact than commercial harvest (that is when the turtles are offered for sale in the fish markets). However, as with so many of these issues, we simply do not know the answer. Dr Vogt and other’s research is attempting to provide some answers to this question. As for me - at this stage I simply am not sure.
Mark Orams.
Onboard Seamaster.
Rio Negro, Amazonas.
12/11/01
We have an early start in the morning - a rendezvous with a floatplane to capture some aerial footage of Seamaster here on the Rio Negro.
So I am shortly heading for my bunk after a cup of tea.
All the best from the Seamaster crew and the about-to-be-activated Jungle Team.
Kind regards,
Peter.
Sir Peter Blake
"Having vision is not enough. Change comes through realising the vision and turning it into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals, values and policies; the hard part is implementation."
Learn about Sir Peter Blake and his journeys around the globe
