Photography Teacher
“I traveled from Quito, Ecuador, over the Andes, down to Napo River, which is a tributary of the Amazon. During the trip on the Napo River, I was on about a 40 foot boat, and we hit a submerged sandbar at about 4:30 in the morning. Most of us had to jump out in the darkness into a river that was probably a quarter, or half mile wide and we spent an hour pushing the boat until we finally got it adrift. As the light was coming back because it was dawn, we had to jump back into the boat through the windows while hauling in some of the gentlemen that were a little heavier and couldn’t get in by themselves. So we hauled them in, and then as we were floating down the river with the engine cut, I noticed that the captain was still in the submerged sandbar with some passengers that couldn’t swim. We were just floating down the river when the first mate told me to get in the captain’s chair while he ran to the back of the boat to try and get the engine started… So I like to think for that one brief moment, I was a riverboat captain on the Napo River in the Amazon rainforest.”
(Writer’s note: Mr. Wynia was excited to be photographed with his “captains hat”)
Written and photographed by Eileen Zhang ‘21