Dawn on the Amazon Captain’s Blog

Yuru, Amazónica Princess, Featuring Dawn on the Amazon III

My crew and I are very proud that Dawn on the Amazon III will play a prominent roll in the twenty episode mini series, Yuru, Amazónica Princess. The adventure series is based on illegal international wildlife trafficking from the rainforest. Tunche and Culebra are the villains who steal the lovely Yuru’s pet monkey. The adventure and romance are driven by her struggle to reclaim her pet and to free the other wild life the poachers have caged ready to smuggle out of Peru.

I do not want to ruin the ending for you…but…naw…I will just tell you that by the ending, both of my boats were a muddy mess. The villains thought nothing of flopping down on our hand embroidered sheets with their muddy boots, or scratching our hardwood floors dragging equipment around. My crew sanded and cleaned for days after we finished the shoot. We think the boat gained character from one scene. Tunche was supposed to stab his knife into the rail. The rail is made of Purple Heart, one of the densest, hardest woods in the world. Purple Heart does not stab easily. Sparks flew! That scene was shot over and over and he never really got it right. We left the stab marks for our souvenirs.

We still laugh among ourselves remembering one scene, filmed from the island at the confluence of the Momon and Nanay Rivers. Dawn III comes around the bend and no one is supposed to be visible. Captain Santos, who is comically short anyway, was barely peeking over the pilot house window to steer the ship and the director is screaming into the VHF radio, “I see one head, I see a head. That head had better disappear.” Santos can’t believe it is his head and says, “I have to see to steer, what do they want, a ghost boat.”

Filming a movie is hard and boring. Making movies in the jungle is harder still. My crew was ready to mutiny several times. Oh, you should have heard them complain. During one three-day film session, which was only supposed to last eight hours, most of the crew did not even have a change of clothes. Everyone was mad at me. Now that the promotional clips are on TV every half hour, my crew tell a different story. Dawn on the Amazon III comes around the bend and it looks like a beautiful ghost ship; not one head in sight. They all get to tell their friends and family how it was done. They are celebrities in their own neighborhoods, and I am not such a bad “jefe” after all.

The first installment of Yuru, Amazónica Princess, begins February 5th on Peru national TV, channel 9.

Yuru, Amazónica Princess, Featuring Dawn on the Amazon III

Bill Grimes,  Welcome to Iquitos,  Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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The Characters of Iquitos Peru

Characters abound along every waterfront in the world. Many novels have been written based on the lives of men and women struggling with themselves and nature in third world waterfront locations. Here in this island city surrounded by rivers, in the midst of the jungle, three degrees south of the equator, there is a crowd of characters modeling for their role in my novel.

Every character has a story waiting to be told, or in some cases being repeated over and over to whoever will listen. Some of the best tales are hinted at but left untold. Some cannot go back, and the trail forward is obscured by dense jungle shadows. A few are fugitives from justice, others fugitives from their past lives. All are trying to do the best their characters will allow.

How did they get here? Why did they stay? What will they do now? What next?

How will Mike Collins, the main character and the editor of the Iquitos Bugle, help the street children and those in need: “Hi. I am Mad Mick, oldest and largest paper boy in the world. Welcome to paradise. Would you like a copy of the Bugle? It’s free.”

Jarard is the antagonist, and owner of The Flowers of the Amazon, better known as The Red Rose, a house of ill repute near the ports: “Hi, I am Jarard. Keep those little bastards away from my place or I’ll shock the shit out of them with a cattle prod.”

Richard Ryan is Jarard’s mysterious accomplice.

The Cobbler is a gringo shaman, apprentice to a master curandero. He learns the secrets of how to cure cancer and diabetes using a recipe of plant extracts from the tropical rainforest.

Juaneco is a jungle guide and hustler, blessed with 7 pretty daughters and three granddaughters: “Hola, I am Juaneco. I am a jongle guied. I cry when Jarard steal my customers. Ef there es anyting you need, you ask me. Tha’s one dollor pleese.”

Ahara, Mike’s faithful sidekick.

Urie, creative street hustler. Mad Mick turned his name into a verb. His clients are never hustled, they are Uried.

Maukoo, jungle guide, professionalle: “Hi, I’m Maaaukcoooooo. You ever eat monkey? It’s delicious. Tastes like human.”

My character is the as yet unnamed narrator who inserts himself into the dialogue whenever it pleases him.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please help this creative process. Thanks.

The Characters of Iquitos Peru

Bill Grimes, Welcome to Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon

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How the Amazon Golf Club Was Stolen

Mike Collis the editor of the Iquitos Times had the dream. He exploded out of his chair while watching CNN, “We can build the first golf course ever in the Peruvian Amazon.”

Leo Jones shouted from the bar, “You are mad, Mick.” Mike is also the owner of Mad Mick’s Trading Post and Bunkhouse.

Fate cursed me for being there at that moment in time, January 24th, 2004. For reasons that I forget now, I volunteered to be the first share holder.

I remember Mike said, “I didn’t know you liked golf.”

“I don’t like golf and I don’t like people who play golf,” I joked, and we laughed as I gave him my investment money to buy the first share of the Amazon Golf Club. Nothing has happened since that day to change my opinion of golf or golfers.

Marmelita was furious with me when I proudly told her of my brilliant investment. “Now Sugrita, this share could be worth a lot of money some day.” She is a smart young woman, and I wish with all my heart that I had taken her advice and demanded my money back. I always knew it would be a risky investment, and I knew there was a good chance I would lose my money, but I never dreamed that some varmints would steal it.

Ryan Richards offered to rent us 10 hectares of land where he squatted, on the outskirts of the city. It was 99 % jungle. We arrived at a mutually agreeable price, but Ryan did not have title to the land, so there could be no long term lease agreement. We proceeded in good faith, but I always questioned why Ryan did not take steps to get a clear title of the land.

This story is not about the building of the golf course, although that is an interesting subject. No one had ever built a golf course in the Amazon jungle, and the difficulty that presented can hardly be underestimated. If that is not bad enough, none of us had ever built a golf course anywhere and our ignorance could hardly be overestimated. A lot of the early work was trial and error, with emphasis on the error. Some implied that they could have done better with less. That is fine, maybe they could have, but they did not. The nine hole course, with a difficult par 5, and a couple of par 4s is turning out to be better than I imagined, but that is not this story.

This story is about how the Amazon Golf Club, Mad Mick’s dream, was stolen. Of the original 62 founding investors, only 7 are now considered to be members. All of the rest of us have been disenfranchised. I accept some responsibility. I was preoccupied building my boats, and then building my new business, while the weasels watched the hen house.

I do not believe my friend Mike Collis will be mad at me for stating the obvious. Mike’s strength is the “bright idea” followed by promoting that idea. Managing the details should best be left to the managers. Unfortunately the managers were busy on other projects of their own and Mike was in a hurry. It would take a long time to build a golf course. Grass only grows fast when you do not want it to.

We should have hired a lawyer, but we didn’t. The Amazon Golf Club was set up as a non-profit organization, but the shares were sold as an investment that could be resold for a profit. That was the detail. If we had hired a lawyer, he could have advised us to change the constitution of the club from a non-profit to a for-profit club. It would have cost less than $100 and all 62 founding members could be happy.

First the club was hijacked from the investors. A resolution was passed that only members who play golf that live in Iquitos could be on the board of directors. There were 8 members that fit that requirement and 7 board member positions to fill. Castro could not have better job security. The other 55 investors were told not to worry, the hen house is secure.

Shortly after commandeering the club, a secret meeting was called for board members only. No letters of notification were necessary for the other members, because at this point it was declared there were only seven members, the board of directors. Signatures were forged, documents falsified, officials bribed, lies told, the club was dissolved. Gerald Mayeaux was named the liquidator of the clubs assets. The club was declared to have no assets. The coup d’état was complete.

Or is it? Are we going to let the weasels get away with stealing our Amazon Golf Club? Hell no we are not! We already tried persuasion. We already tried diplomacy. You can not reason with a weasel. Who knows what a weasel thinks?

Several of us have hired two lawyers who agree, everything that has been done by the weasels is illegal. We will pursue the varmints in the legal system of Peru to the Supreme Court if necessary. If any of you reading this, particularly the other 50 investors from 14 countries, would like to help, we can use all the help we can get.

Anyone who would like to tell their version of this story can do so by clicking the comment link below.

How the Amazon Golf Club Was Stolen

Bill Grimes, Welcome to Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Is He Dead?

“Es él Muerto?”

I jump out of my seat and gape at a Peruano man standing in his canoe in the rain. I brush mosquitoes from my face. I thought mine was the only boat around for miles, but here’s this man in a canoe pointing to the front of my boat.

“Es él Muerto?” he says again.

He looks worried. He’s standing in the rain in his canoe, pointing. It’s not just any kind of rain, either. It’s rainforest rain. It’s coming down harder and faster than you’ve ever seen rain. It’s thick. It has sound. It’s coming down so hard, it hits the surface with such a splash, it’s like it’s raining up. I look to the front of my boat, to Mark laying on the fishing platform in his raingear. Rain bouncing up off him.

Where I am, in the relative dryness under the thatched roof by the wheel, are a million mosquitoes, buzzing about their good fortune of shelter and food. I’m doing my best to put mind over matter, to kind of hum at a frequency sympathetic to theirs and confuse them enough to stop the frenzy. I’ve always tried to make a point of ignoring them and going about my business. It is not working.

There didn’t have to be mosquitoes. Really. It depends on the water. Black, tannic acid, no mosquitoes. Clear sweet water, Deet won’t do it. When we were back in Iquitos planning the trip, we knew this, but we wanted to come here. We packed the boat, threw the chickens on the roof, and took off. We meandered around adventurously and wound up here, with a guy standing in the rain in his canoe pointing to Mark, laying on the fishing platform in his raingear to escape the mosquito fest under the thatching.

“Hey, Mark,” I call. “What’s muerto mean?”

Mark sits up on the platform. “I don’t know. Dead, I think,” he says. “Why?”

I look back out at the rain falling in an unbroken curtain, like looking out from behind a waterfall, no sign of the Peruano man or the canoe. “No reason,” I say. I brush at the mosquitoes.

Is He Dead?

Bill Grimes,  Welcome to Iquitos Peru,  Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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The Dawn on the Amazon Photo Album at Flickr

I have created an online photo album of 300 photos, culled from thousands, of my boats and the upper Amazon rainforest of Peru. If you are interested enough to have come to my Captain’s Blog, I think you will enjoy visiting the link below. The photos there tell part of my story. You can see them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawnontheamazon/.

What I am most proud of about the photo album is it shows I have experienced a lot these last two years. Sometimes it seems I spend all of my time at the computer.

The first camera I owned was a Canon SLR 35 mm with the standard 50 mm lens. I bought it used from a fellow Marine whose tour of duty in Vietnam was ending. My tour was not ending any time soon. I carried that heavy camera around through two monsoons and the 1967-68 Tet offensive. A lot happened. Few cameras ever got wetter, muddier, or banged around more than that Canon. As my tour of duty wound down, I gave it to another Marine. The few rolls of film that survived amazed me.

Stateside, I remembered how that Canon survived the monsoons and the war, and it never entered my mind to get anything but another Canon. The second Canon still worked 20 years later. I switched to one of the first Canon Elphs to travel light through Mexico, island hop the South Pacific, backpack central Africa, go down under, and on my first visit to the Amazon Jungle. The photos I took of the Mayan ruins at Palenque and Uxmal, the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu, and when I was too close to the mountain gorillas in Uganda, are great, but the Elph could not reach out and capture the leopard up the tree with the antelope carcass, the cheetah cubs nursing, or the flock of macaws squawking overhead.

For three years I over-obsessed on shooting video with a couple of Sony camcorders. My buddy Mark and I adventured the Amazon watershed and rainforest ruining more video than most people ever shot. I eventually distilled over 60 hours of tape into three, one-hour DVDs. They would have been better as two. A single one hour DVD would have been even better. If it is hand held, zoomed, or shot from a boat or while walking, edit it out, and edit out most everything else. My rule of thumb for every one hour of unedited video is to keep three minutes to show your family, two minutes to show your best friends, and one minute of high quality video to be proud of.

When I started a web site, http://www.dawnontheamazon.com/, I reconfirmed what I already knew, that still images taken from video are not high enough quality. I needed to get back to high resolution photography. My first digital still camera was a Nikon D-70. I was never happy with the results, and it self-destructed on the 367th day. Now I have come full circle back to a Canon 30-D and a digital Elph. I am enjoying photography again.

The Dawn on the Amazon Photo Album at Flickr

Bill Grimes, Welcome to Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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An Introduction to Bill Grimes, Captain of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, Iquitos Peru

Hello, my name is Bill Grimes, Captain of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises. I live in Iquitos, Peru, Gateway to the upper Amazon Rivers and rainforest. I am a writer with a story to tell, a photographer with a vision, a fisherman on the greatest fresh water fishery, and a naturalist in the midst of the most bio-diversity on earth. I live in the spectacle of the largest Indian village in the world with no roads, with interesting characters, and many adventures. I expect this blog to be a success on many levels and become the raw material for a book.

Sitting at my computer on the top floor of my building, located between the edge of the city, and the bank of the Itaya River, with the jungle on the far side, I have an inspiring view. Whatever I create here comes, From the Crow’s Nest. The crow’s nest on the early whaling ships was mounted on the upper part of the main mast and provided the best view for a look out. I use the term metaphorically. “Thar she blows!”

From the Crows Nest

An Introduction to Bill Grimes, Captain of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, Iquitos Peru

Bill Grimes, Welcome to Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Jose; On Fishing for Peacock Bass

“Pescado fresco?” Jose brings his fingers to his mouth in the age old sign of eating. “A comer?” He keeps his canoe steady in the current with a one-handed swirl of his paddle, easy as breathing.

He wants to know if we keep the fish we catch today or throw them back. He does not understand catch and release or the crazy gringo who hired him to guide his boat to good fishing on the Nanay River. To come all this way, to expend this energy for nothing is foolish decadence.

“Si,” I say. “Fresco.” Fresh fish to eat will be nice.

Jose smiles. He is happy. This is what a man does. He catches fish. Eats his fill and salts and dries the rest. Then works his yuca patch.

Jose; On Fishing for Peacock Bass

Bill Grimes, Peacock Bass Fishing, Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Explosión, Live in Iquitos Peru

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of two steam ships of the Peruvian navy that sailed around the southern tip of South America and up 2,300 miles of the Amazon River to start construction of what would become the international port the farthest distance from an ocean in Iquitos Peru. In 1864 a ship could arrive from Europe or the United States in less time than it took to arrive from Lima, giving Iquitos an international flair with tiles, designs and architecture from Portugal, Italy, and France. Today there are at least 80 buildings, more or less preserved as historical land marks, from the 1870’s to the end of the rubber boom in 1912.

Tonight we are listening to Explosión, a 20 member band with four drummers playing their hot Latin music on a stage set up under our windows on the boulevard. Part of the Explosión experience is watching the four wonderful dancers. The tassels on the hips of their scanty costumes defy gravity. It is three in the morning, way past my bed time, but sleep will be impossible until the show is over. We have the best seats in the house. You can watch their Explosión de Iquitos 2006 video on www.youtube.com and, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, probably even the show we are watching now.

Explosión, Live in Iquitos Peru

Reporting from the Dawn on the Amazon Crows Nest for the Captain’s Blog, Welcome to Iquitos Peru

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The Dawn on the Amazon Christmas Program 2006

We cast off early in the morning of December 23rd with a boat load of Christmas cheer destined to brighten the lives of all the good little boys and girls in two remote jungle villages up the Nanay River. Our guest of honor was Santa Clause who consented to ride on Dawn on the Amazon III instead of his traditional mode of transportation. Seven hours later we arrived at Mishana, deep in the green heart of Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

We sounded our fog horn and Santa boomed, “Ho, ho, ho, Feliz Navidad.” With Santa waving and ho, ho, hoing, we edged our boat to shore. As my crew secured the boat, Santa stepped ashore followed by his cute little elves, Marmelita, Marina, Marjorie, Lupa, Loremy, and my son Matt.

Our cook, Judy, and some of the village parents, gathered wood to start a fire and began to make hot chocolate in a giant pan. The elves shared candy and snacks with the children while Santa introduced himself speaking Spanish with a British accent. The children were very polite and well behaved but it was obvious they had never seen such a strange creature as Santa.

One of our Mishana friends, Alicia, told us that the village elders have no memory of a Christmas program in the village. No one in Mishana had ever seen Papa Noel in the flesh and the children were in awe. When Santa handed out the gifts, which the elves had wrapped in pretty Christmas paper, the children did not open the presents. They had never been given a wrapped present and did not know what to do. Matt offered a little boy a candy sucker and he declined because one of the other elves had already given him one. Street children in the city would push an elf down and take the whole bag of suckers and steal the elf’s hat.

Only when we started the contests did the children know what to do. They were very enthusiastic about who could jump the farthest, pull the hardest, hop the fastest…and they were enthusiastic about the fruit cakes. Judy made enough hot chocolate for two villages.

This was Matt’s first trip to the Amazon rainforest so, after the festivities, we slipped out the back of the village for a jungle hike. As we walked quietly on a trail through the white sand forest watching blue morpho butterflies flitting among thirty species of palms, I was thinking: It is hard to imagine life in a jungle village from the comfort of your living room in the advanced economies of the world. Mishana does not have electricity and of course no computers or television, not to mention refrigeration or running water.

A noisy flock of parakeets flew out of a ripe fruit tree while I was remembering last July when four of my favorite guests brought school supplies to the one room school house in Mishana. There were no educational supplies before that thoughtful donation. Matt and I watched an iridescent beetle hide under a fungus and I remembered how concerned another of my favorite guests, a doctor, was when we visited a remote jungle village “hospital” where everyone in the village had parasites and there were hardly any medical supplies. As we backtracked to Mishana I thought again that Dawn on the Amazon should be the partner of corporate donors for distributing educational and medical supplies to improve the lives of the most interesting mammals of the rainforest, its human inhabitants.

We cast off from Mishana late in the afternoon and cruised for an hour or so before looking for a good place to tie up for the night. By the time we tied up and ate a big supper, Santa was exhausted and went to bed early. Matt and I went to the observation deck and star gazed the clear, dark, tropical night skies. A few shooting stars later I went to bed also.

The next morning we ate a leisurely breakfast before moving on to our next stop at Llanchama, the village where we have our Jungle Cabin. I always like pulling into the small entrance to the Llanchama Cocha, how it opens up into the lake with an island covered with jungle in the middle. I like cruising slow around the edge of the island and entering our little port.

Several children heard the fog horn and Santa. They were waiting as we tied up. We started the same program again. Judy and our Llanchama neighbors started a wood fire and made enough hot chocolate for two more villages, everyone enjoyed the contests with special gifts for prizes, and every child received a gift wrapped by Santa’s elves, from Santa’s lap.

A few hours later we started back to Iquitos leaving many happy families in our wake. When we anchored at our home port at the Hunting and Fishing Club, I gave the entire crew Christmas Eve and Christmas day off. Marmelita, Matt, and I pulled guard duty on the two boats. We watched the fireworks over the city. Although my main job was taking photos and saying Feliz Navidad to each individual in the two villages as they received their fruit cake and hot chocolate, I was pretty tired and had a difficult time staying awake for my shift. I spent the night asking myself how I can make a difference in 2007. The answer could be to start an NGO, a non-profit organization, using Dawn on the Amazon as a conduit to provide health and education opportunities for disadvantaged river, rainforest children. What do you think?

I would like to thank my good friend Mike Collis for wearing the hot, Santa costume and sweating so much he lost 10 pounds in two days. This makes the 8th year in a row that Mike has played Father Christmas, carrying on the legacy that his father created by playing Santa for 40 years in the UK. Mike is the owner of Mad Mick’s Trading Post and Bunkhouse, and the publisher of the Iquitos Times, the only English newspaper in Peru. His web site contains many interesting stories and is a valuable resource for what goes on in and around Iquitos.

I recommend going to http://www.iquitostimes.com/ and reading the article about a friend of mine, Richard “Aukcoo” Fowler, called Jungle Survival Tales. That article was previously published in Soldier of Fortune. Also there are five articles about Dawn on the Amazon including one previously published in Living in Peru, called An American Dream Comes True.

I would also like to thank my good friends David Sheridan, Luis de Freitas, Jim Anderson, Dr. Larry Williams, and Dr. Dave Williams for their generous donations and contributions to our 2006 Christmas Program.
Happy New Year to you, from the Dawn on the Amazon Crows Nest

The Dawn on the Amazon Christmas Program 2006

Bill Grimes, Welcome to Iquitos Peru, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

Christmas Cheer

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