Back to The Amazon – The Eve of Another Adventure

What better way to kick off a new year than a trip to somewhere warm and exotic?

I’m pleased to say that, once again, I have been invited to run watercolour workshops aboard Cruise and Maritime Voyages’ ship, the MV Marco Polo, as it sails across the Atlantic Ocean towards Brazil and the mighty Amazon River.

It’s a six-week trip, with twenty-odd sea-days, on each of which I will be running classes; so I need to provide large amounts of art materials. The mountain of watercolour paper, paint, brushes, boards and masking tape, along with the huge pile of printouts and various other odds and ends, all piled up ready to be loaded into the van bound for Bristol, is testament to that fact.

Despite this being my sixth visit to the Amazon, I’m still very much looking forward to the trip, which kicks off on Thursday, all being well. I’ve always said that, of all the different cruises I’ve worked on, this particular voyage is one that has an itinerary which consistently excites me the most, for its diversity if nothing else. We’ll be visiting Lisbon in Portugal, Funchal in Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands before crossing the (hopefully calm) pond to Brazil. After sailing up the Amazon as far as Manaus and back, we’ll be heading around the North-Eastern coast of South America, dropping into Papillon’s Devil’s Island (sea-swell permitting) and hanging out on a few Caribbean islands before setting sail for home, via the beautiful Azores Islands. If that doesn’t sound like an interesting plan, then I don’t know what is….

I’ll be keeping a daily log of the journey, although posting may be sporadic due to unpredictable internet access, so expect updates to be like buses (none at all for ages, then three come along at once).

I have a real soft spot for the Marco Polo, too; she’s a grand old ship that just keeps going on and on. I think it would be safe to say that life on board the Marco Polo is never dull…

Bring it on…