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Tobiah Houston Weather they’re chiseling concrete or rearranging fuel tanks that are strapped to the deck, World Wide Water Foundation is constantly Lena Grace Adams On the day my mother, Patricia, and I were supposed to fly to Panama, we were doing errands like any other day, not really grasping the fact that we were going to be in Central America, the starting point of our adventure, reunited with my father and brother after months of being apart. In fact, it was the longest my mother and father had ever been apart. My After graduating with a bachelors in Art Education and no prospects of a job due to the failing economy, the chance to sail into the Amazon was an opportunity of a lifetime. Not everyone can say that they were able to first sail through the Panama Canal then help in the process of making it around the northern part of South America and into Brazil via the Amazon River. How nice that would look on my Resume, was what I was thinking. When we started out on the last leg of the trip, the guys had already crossed the Pacific and were now sailing on the Atlantic to their destination, which was in the near future, they had their routines down and definitely had their sea legs, unlike my mother and I. Getting used to the ship and being on watch from four to eight every morning and night was quite an adjustment at first. Having my shift during those hours was a blessing. The sunsets and sunrises that I saw everyday were unbelievable; I probably took a hundred pictures. In the morning, I would stare out into the dark of nothing but water and sky, until I would see faint colors of purples and blues. Then there were sunbursts of reds, oranges and yellows. It took your breath away to see God’s handy work. The time that I spent with my family playing rummy and catching up on the last few months was priceless. Seeing what my parents are accomplishing and helping them with their goals, ended up being an overwhelming joy that couldn’t be described on a piece of paper it must be lived. I will forever be grateful for the adventure of a lifetime! Patricia Adams We began our journey in Panama. It was very nice and interesting going thru the canal. It was good to be going somewhere after eight years of working on a ship in Texas. God has always blessed us wherever we have been. Our desire is to help the needy in every location. After arriving on the Amazon and seeing the needs of the people, you realize how blessed America really is. Life revolves around the river. Wooden flat bottom boats taking people wherever they need to go such as the market, school, work, and so on. By early sunrise, the boats were already on the river taking people, equipment, livestock etc. to their destinations. Life is simple there. All went well and we arrived in Manaus, a city of nearly two million people, just like any other major city. Many willing hands came along and were eager to help us with our needs to start getting the boat in tip top shape, and for being a vessel that will be a tool for carrying out God’s purpose for us and the ship “Revival”. Hammon Adams Well, I had just gotten back from vacation on Anna Maria island, Florida when my father asked if I would meet him in Nelson, New Zealand to check out a boat he was looking at buying. The boat was a little worn out and would be costly to bring back into class. So we declined on moving on that vessel. The next boat we looked at was the same case of being a bottomless pit to throw money into. Then, we heard of a vessel down on the tip of the South island in Dunedin. Clan Macleod was her name. She was built in Japan to be a fisheries enforcement vessel for the Japanese government. Later sold to Alan Macleod and he used her to take the New Zealand's department of conservation down to the sub Antarctic and the islands in between to chase whales and research stuff. Well, Alan had some heart issues and felt it would be risky going offshore. He already had a buyer in the wings, but the buyer was dragging his feet and was unsure if the bank would lend him the funds to purchase her. Alan agreed to sell us her if we matched the asking price and we agreed. After purchasing the vessel we upgraded the navigation and safety gear, put a water maker in, added two new twenty-five man life rafts, and changed the registration of the vessel to a Cook Island private yacht. All this had to be done before making the ocean crossing. By that point Tobie had joined us and his help was greatly appreciated. We also needed more fuel capacity so we had to buy 25 thousand liter fuel pods to put on the deck. After getting all of this done in the dead of winter at New Zealand's Southern most tip of the South We were ready to get to the tropics and closer to home. So we shoved off and skirted the East coast of NZ all the way up to Napier where we cleared customs. From there we were in Rarotonga, Cook Island for a couple of days, Tahiti for almost a month with gen-set problems, and then we sailed North to about 10 degrees North to the easterly bound current before heading East toPanama. The stretch between Tahiti and Panama was by for the longest. Testing the boat and the crew. Each person had to keep a four on, eight off watch. While I engineered the engine room and transfered fuel from the pods on deck to the ships holding tanks daily to keep the center of gravity down low. Once in Panama we sent Tobie back home and my mother and sister replaced him. We had to pass thru the canal and refuel on the other side. From Panama we were heading across the top of South America when our auto pilot started shorting out and putting us in a circular pattern. That night we limped into Aruba to get an electronics guy to fix this issue. From there we skirted South America until we entered the Amazon river. We traveled the Amazon without a pilot up to Manaus, Brazil. Here we made some changes to the aft deck, interior, and then some painting. From here nobody knows...? |