It's a long row ahead, boys

Question

Jeff's company advanced slowly, aware of the presence a rare crocodile species on the long river. Jackson had his wallet in hand and was admiring some foreign banknotes. "This Japanese currency, I say! Check out the golden colour!"

Nobody seemed interested. At the moment they were more focused on observing the organizational behaviour of some carnivorous fish in the ship's wake. The Zairian jungles were filled with exciting lifeforms.

One of the men was babbling on about the romantic love he felt for a woman back home. Her name was... umm...

What was the woman's name?

Hint:

Jeff is very famous.

Hint #2:

His company is even more famous.

Hint #3:

The crocodile species isn't really rare at all. "Rare" just fit the story a little better.

Answer 1

The woman's name was ...

... LENA.

The story refers to ...

... the longest rivers of the world:

• Amazon is Jeff Bezos's company.
• One species of crocodile is the Nile crocodile.
• Yangtze means "long river" in Chinese.
• Jackson is the capital of Mississippi.
• Yenisei sounds like "Yen, I say."
• The Yellow River is named for its golden colour.
• OB means organizational behaviour.
• Paraná sounds a bit like piranha, a carnivorous fish.
• Zaire is another name for the Congo river.
• Amur sounds like amour, romantic love.
• Finally, Lena is a girl's name.

Answer 2

Possible partial answer:

Looks like all the story components of the first part have a pretty strong connection with

Gold, which is also directly mentioned in the story.

In particular,

Jeff's company advanced slowly,

Jeff Goldblum is a famous actor

aware of the presence a rare crocodile species

A Golden crocodile is indeed pretty rare, with roughly 250 of them still living in the wild.

on the long river.

There are annoyingly many golden rivers

Jackson had his wallet in hand

Gold is a 2008 compilation album of Michael Jackson's music

and was admiring some foreign banknotes. "This Japanese currency, I say!

The Japanese word for money, "kane" is written 金, which also means "gold"

Check out the golden colour!"

Ah, well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjA5A86V6SY#t=1

Answer 3

I think that the answer has to do with

the fact that each sentence represents two words that start with the same letter.

Jeff's company advanced slowly, aware of the presence a rare crocodile species on the long river. (edited)

Jeff is referring to Jeff Bezos, whose company is Amazon, a long river. American crocodiles (although black caimans are found more regionally) are a rare crocodile species found by that river. So we still have two As...

Jackson had his wallet in hand and was admiring some foreign banknotes. "This Japanese currency, I say! Check out the golden colour!"

This could be talking about yellow yen. Although this was the first clue I thought I found, I don't understand the reference to Jackson though...maybe Andrew Jackson, on the American $20; or Michael Jackson, who sang the song "Money"...?

Nobody seemed interested. At the moment they were more focused on observing the organizational behaviour of some carnivorous fish in the ship's wake.

This could be the psychology of the piranhas. I think this is one of the correct clues...

The Zairian jungles were filled with exciting lifeforms.

This could be the critters or creatures in the Congo. (Exciting trivia, the Rumble in the Jungle happened in Zaire's capital, Kinshasa, between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali!) I think this is something with the Congo, if not creatures...

At any rate, another word for romantic love could be

Adoration, which means that the man could have been talking about adoration of Abigail? Or another girl's name that starts with A?