It is Saturday morning November 2 and it is one of these beautiful quiet tropical mornings just after sunrise with a very nice breeze and for the tropics rather cool temperature.

We arrived in Suriname last week Thursday October 24 and passed the outer beacon of the shipping channel just at day break at high tide. An anchored tanker we had observed already hours earlier lifted its anchor and sailed in front of us into the shipping lane. We just followed especially through the narrow and for a shipping lane shallow water of 16 feet. As soon we passed the mouth of the Suriname River I started to recognize my surroundings especially after we approached the Commewijne River flowing into the east side of the Suriname River and a small town called Leonsberg on the west side. At the intersection of the Commewijne River and the Suriname River is a fort called New Amsterdam that I visited many times when I lived in Suriname between 1968 and 1979. I wanted to pay a lot of attention to all kinds of features and buildings along the river, but a large Brazilian navy vessel called "Almirante Saboia" came in and I needed to stay out of its way. I called them on the VHF and I was instructed to stay on the starboard side of the river so they could pass us on our port side. They passed us close by that gave us a great opportunity to wave at the sailors lined up on the decks. Afterwards we got the time to start our rediscovery of Suriname the country I have always loved and have so many wonderful memories of.

We could not identify our home along the Anton Dragten Weg that runs along the river mainly due to all the new buildings along the river. New homes, new hotels, stores and marine facilities are built along the river and only after we passed Hotel Torarica and Fort Zeelandia with its beautiful wooden officer houses we recognized what is called the "Water Kant", the Independence Square with the house of the President and the Ministry of Finance with the very nice clock tower. Everyone who visited Suriname knows how beautiful downtown Paramaribo is, built in the early 1600's and rebuilt in 1830 after some devastating fires. For those who have never been to Suriname I refer to my pictures and you will agree it is beautiful. The wooden buildings have a great architecture and are mainly very well preserved. It is sad to see that the new Suriname has less feeling about their history and many buildings are in bad shape, broken down and set on fire. The old "KNSM" docks are in very bad shape, I wish they were removed and the wreck of the Goslar is still in the middle of the river.

This is the story of the Goslar:
"In late August, 1939, a German radio station at Norddeich transmitted instructions to all captains of German ships "to proceed full speed to the nearest homeport within 4 days or, if that was not possible, to proceed to a port in the nearest neutral country other than the United States." The Goslar sailed from an American port for Suriname, as The Netherlands were neutral at that time, arriving in Paramaribo Sept. 5, 1939. As there were no Dutch naval forces in Suriname, she wasn't inspected for 8 months, although her radio had been disabled. Her German captain and crew sought asylum (a crew of 16 Germans and 38 Chinese).
On May 10, 1940, war broke out between Germany and The Netherlands, and at 2.30 a.m. the police commissioner approached the ship with a detachment of military and police to arrest the crew. The Germans were given half an hour to pack, but in that time a few crewmembers went below to the engine room and opened the sea-cocks. Without naval or merchant personnel, the Dutch didn't know what to do, and so the Goslar filled with water and settled on the bottom of the river on her starboard side where she was left as she was and remains today".

We sailed to Domburg a small town along the Suriname River about 20 miles from Paramaribo where a Dutchman is building a yacht center with all the facilities, however, no boat slips but very good mooring balls. The only problem is during dead tide the wind blows you past the ball and the ball starts banging against the boat. This is especially annoying at night when the large bauxite tankers pass by. When we lived in Paramaribo we used to visit this place nearly every weekend with our ski boat to eat the best "Sate" you can get. The grandson of the lady who made this Sate still has a "Warung" at the same place that sells great Indonesian food in the weekend.

Unfortunately the old 200+ year plantation house I always wanted to buy is broken down. The future "club house" of the yachting center is already a meeting place of 'active' cruisers, cruisers who settled down and built a home in Domburg and the crew of the Dutch fishing vessels. The shared drink is Parbo Beer out of a "Djogo" a large bottle made to share.

It took us nearly a day to get our tourist cards and pass immigration, but we also used this day to see many places in Paramaribo. In the meantime we rented a car and have visited all the homes we had. Most of them are in good shape or even better. The exception to this is the compound of KLM Aerocarto in Zanderij, the International airport. This compound was built in 1968 and was the center of all our work in the interior of Suriname and housed the family of the project manager, his assistant and all the expatriates. We had an Olympic size swimming pool and many great facilities. I lived there as an expatriate and project manager and it is sad to see that this facility is in such a bad condition. We had lunch in the little snack bar close to the Old Dutch Embassy where Dorothy used to have her daily lunch.

It is of course normal that a city and a country change in 35 years and Paramaribo has changed. Despite all these changes I can still drive and walk around without a map and find all the places I want to see. It is clear that Suriname is economically in a better shape than before. Officially it is due to the gold mining, the oil industry and other foreign investments and aid. Suriname has its own oil refinery and is expanding this facility with a US$ 977 million investment. Both Venezuela and China are investing in Suriname and give a lot of aid. The retail industry is completely taken over by Chinese people. In the past the Chinese stores were mainly in the food and household retail, but now it seems that every store is Chinese. We have counted over 10 casinos in Paramaribo and we have seen many very nice new houses, shops, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants and other buildings. Building activities are going on everywhere. In the river we see every day many barges with river sand used in construction on their way to Paramaribo.

Last week Saturday a former staff member of KLM Aerocarto, Hanna with whom we still have regular contact, visited us on Island Girl and she told us many stories about Suriname and its development over the last 30 years. We talked about people we know, but unfortunately many of them passed away or live in The Netherlands. Our biggest surprise was that our Dutch friend Paul Scheffer, the former mayor of the historic city in The Netherlands "Harlingen" was in Suriname as a member of a committee with the goal to improve relations between The Netherlands and Suriname. Paul was also an employee of KLM Aerocarto. We had not seen Paul for many years and we had two very nice and interesting visits with Hanna and Paul.

We visited Afobaka on the Brokopondo dam built to supply the bauxite industry with needed power. The original road was built with the red bauxite clay and a car was unrecognizable after returning of this trip. The current road is now surfaced with asphalt and easy to drive. On our way back we visited Zanderij the International Airport and a little town called Berlijn where our former housekeeping staff of our Aerocarto compound lived. We met the daughter of our most senior housekeeper Ms. Bijlhout and took a picture of a house like the one she used to live in. Unfortunately her house together with 5 other ones is burned down. We passed by a small town called Onverwagt which was the beginning station of a railroad to Brownberg at the Brokopondo lake. I rode this train many times, but as the pictures show not much is remaining of the train way.

I know that as a blog describing places we visit during this trip, this story is not so interesting, but we are here to rediscover a place very dear to us and we are having a great time. Suriname is beautiful and its people are very friendly and now that the interior is open for tourism it is definitely a place to visit.