There are nine passengers, in three rows of three. I am in the front row, and once the Green Toad is settled behind me, I extract my ‘poofter pad’. This is an inflatable mattress that rolls down to about the size of a quart bottle, but when inflated is almost two inches thick. It is long enough to run the entire width of our seat, and wide enough to act as a pad for our backs as well as bums. My fellow seat occupiers are at first puzzled by what I’m doing, then break into wide grins, remarking to the others that we are first class passengers. Heh. I had been warned that the swift passage still involves twelve hours, spent sitting on a bare wooden plank seat, so I had schemed accordingly.
Alas, the sudden departure had meant that I couldn’t make extensive arrangements for food and drink (long advance warning of a specific departure time might allow others to make their preparations), but I had my water bottle ready and Uncle Dad had seen me off with some oranges as well as a meal of vege wrapped in a banana leaf. I should survive.
After a bit more messing about, we’re ready, and soon are speeding downriver as the dawn gathers strength. Black water churned white by our wake steadily becomes more visible as a mirror to the pink glow over the tops of the trees lining the riverbanks: we’re well on our way now. Then we slow; a discussion behind us, and we turn to head back upriver. Huh? One of the passengers, the boatman’s brother, has forgotten his documents, so we must return to retrieve them. This does not seem proper smuggler’s elan: I, for example, am in a delicate state, as my twenty-five day stay allowed in Guyana had run out while I was waiting, but rather than slog all the way to Georgetown and back in order to beg bureaucrats to please extend it, I reckoned that as passengers on a smuggler’s run, we wouldn’t be bothering with any exit formalities, so there was no need to bring anything to anyone’s attention.
When we resume descending the river, it is fully day so I get to view the forest afresh. We zoom on, then after a while, the river widens: ahead is the open sea. We are hardly slowed by the swell of about two feet nor are we bothered by spray unlike those sitting behind us. It looks to be a pleasant trip.
CRUNCH! A horrifying clatter from the engine, which is at once reduced to a mere idle. A connecting rod has broken is the consensus. The engine can still run, but only dead slow, so we turn towards the shore and limp along, barely leaving any wake at all now. Any attempt at speed soon evokes an agonising clatter from the engine. We’re heading for a strip of mangroves, but as we near, it is seen not to be a solid wall. We approach a muddy channel, and reach out to the muddy, barnacle-encrusted roots to fend off or pull along. The channel turns out to be the sea end of a drainage channel amongst a stand of palm trees with a village tucked away. We step out onto the bank, and settle down to wait while our boatman makes arrangements. I am well-equipped, having a hammock to stretch between two palm trees, once I can find a pair close enough together.
The day passes. The tide rises almost to the lip of the channel, then falls back, while the quiet is punctuated by the boys of the village launching rockets at the parrots mobbing a selected palm tree. Fizzzzz….BAM! SquawkSquawk flapflapflap. They have heavy bodies with stumpy wings that must be flapped vigorously, unlike the seagulls’ swift silent swoop.
As evening draws near, our boatman returns with a borrowed engine to get us back to Charity ready to restart tomorrow. A slow journey up the river, with me dreaming of the pleasures of Uncle Dad’s cooking, but we stop short of Charity having dropped people off along the way. I am invited to spend the night in the boatman’s home. This turns out to be a substantial two-storey house, and notably well-supplied with portable consumer items such as TV, video player, stereo, and even its own electrical generator.
In the morning, away again into the dawn. Our replacement engine is slightly smaller at only seventy horsepower, but still adequate for a good pace as we arrow across glassy water. And out into the ocean again, once more only a slight swell. After an hour we’re past the site of yesterday’s breakdown (it was lucky that the forgotten documents had meant that we weren’t further along) and speeding along happily. I notice a slight faltering of the engine’s note, but we zoom along for another hour and… Blurgghhhhh!!
Our engine has choked to a halt. We cast over the anchor (a chunk of metal) and bob in the waves about half a mile off shore while investigating. Although the waves are mild, the surf on the steep shore is still fierce enough that I doubt that we would be able to get to it safely.
Soon we learn that the engine has swallowed a leaf valve. There are six intake ports that each are covered by a leaf valve pair, and one has broken or fallen loose and been swept through the engine. As air can now surge both in and then back out through the open port, the engine cannot ‘breathe’ at all. Rather annoyingly, our boatman carries no spare parts, not even spare spark plugs for example, nor does he have many tools. However, there is an old tin can lying in the bilge, and one passenger is a mechanic: he proposes that a strip of tin could be used to block the open port, and the engine could then breathe well enough through the remaining ports. So, now to cut a suitable strip of tin can. There are no tin snips in the boat’s toolkit of course, so a knife is tried with difficulty. Ah, but I have my ‘Swiss Army’ knife, and it has scissors that prove capable of cutting the tin neatly, without any rollover along the cut such as would be produced by a knife. A suitable blocker is soon prepared and the engine intake reassembled. Some hauls on the starter rope, and yes! We’re soon surging along as before.
For hours we pass a sequence of wide bays between headlands, each much like the previous. Just a line of surf, a strip of yellow sand, and a band of deep green jungle as far as the eye can see. There is almost no sign of humanity, just an occasional palm frond shelter along the beach that would be used by fishermen. There is a rain squall, sweeping in from the sea, but all we need do is drag up some large sheets of clear plastic and huddle behind them for a few minutes.
Suddenly, we round a headland to spot ahead a grey-painted motor vessel: some sort of patrol ship. It shows no sign of life, nor is anyone visible aboard when I bring forth my binoculars. We pause, puzzled. Still no reaction. There is a conference. Our boatman suggests that we go around it well out into the ocean and our mechanic agrees, saying “If we need speed, we have speed.” So onwards, cautiously at first, then as there is still no sign of any reaction, faster, until soon the patrol boat, if that is what it was, is hull down behind us.
A few hours more, then we slow down to bare steerage way. It is time to lighten the load; some have called for a bladder stop. This is quite tricky, as no one dares to stand up to piss into the ocean. Although the wave motion is not violent, the boat still rocks far too much for landlubbers to stand up with confidence. Instead, we kneel on the gunwale, and try to piss overboard without following it. This too proves difficult, as concentration is easily disrupted. It is easy to suspect our boatman of some sudden adjustments of course. In the quiet, trickles can be heard, also the distant roar of the surf. No splashes, happily. How ladies might manage I can’t imagine, but then again, no gentleman would imagine ladies confronting such issues, nor are there any amongst us on this trip.
Dusk approaches and then I notice that the sea is no longer blue or green but definitely brown; a sample taste is barely brackish. We are bouncing over the waves at 30 m.p.h. into the wide southern mouth of the Orinoco: the sun is setting dead ahead and astern a near full moon is rising while in the distance off the port bow, a tropical thunderstorm flashes luridly.
We now have a following sea as we head up river, that soon fades away. As night falls we approach a jetty behind which can be seen the lights of a few buildings. Our boatman calls up asking if they have any petrol for sale; comes the reply “Si”, we have arrived in Venezuela. But we’re only refuelling before continuing upriver to Ciudad Guyana, still hours away. This journey is like something out of a dream. The moon illuminates a silver-splattered path along an ebon river that we speed along, casting spray into the night. We arrive at a little past midnight, and settle down to sleep on the boat until dawn.
I head off to the immigration post, and get a bit of trouble for not having announced myself at the first possible port of call, however, explaining that we had reached it after closing time and showing the proper entry permit mollified the official, and I was stamped in as a legitimate visitor.
Read the whole adventure:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
