Farewell Suriname – Back to the Caribbean
27 January 2014 | Store Bay Tobagp
Bert - Partly Cloudy 76 deg
On January 24, 2014 we would have been in Suriname for 3 months and that means that our visa would have expired. Suriname has simple procedures to start a new cycle by just visiting French Guiana and purchasing a new visa for 3 months. But although we love Suriname and we could continue living in this beautiful country we felt that it was time to continue our Caribbean trip. The closest island in the Caribbean from Suriname is Tobago from which we departed for Suriname on October 5, 2013. So after consulting the weather reports we decided to leave on January 20, 2014. Unfortunately this meant that if we wanted to leave early in the morning, like we typically do, we had to go against the incoming current on the Suriname River. This somehow represented our attitude as we were leaving – we were sailing down the river but with a heavy heart. We arrived at the outer marker of the Suriname River at 12:10 PM and raised the sails for an estimated 3 days sail.
The first day was the typical boring trip that most sailors like, with a light wind until after dark when the wind started picking up to a speed of 20 kn. with broad reach and Island Girl really liked this. Our average speed for the remainder of the night was between 7.5 and 8 kn. We had the high predicted swell of over 8 ft. together with high wind waves but this it was still an exciting sail. Unfortunately we got seasick. Even the most experienced sailors who just crossed the Atlantic arriving in Suriname from the Cape Verdi Islands without problems report getting seasick on the stretch from Suriname to Tobago. For both of us this was the first time during this cruise. In my case I was really sick and could not even drink a sip of water without throwing up. On Tuesday and Wednesday we did not have any wind and we had to use the engine the entire time except Wednesday morning. On Wednesday night it was a different story when just after the sun went down the wind started to pick up and dark clouds started forming. We had that night wind up to 45 kn. broad reach and even with a sliver of our jib and three reefs in our main sail our speed in the water was over 8 kn. The waves and swell became very high and we had a lot of water over the boat. The rain was very heavy particularly when we came close to the Trinidad oil fields with a lot of boat traffic. Without AIS we had never made it since we had to call two times a ship that was on a collision course with us. Luckily in both cases they responded by altering their course. Due to the high waves the boat made very violent moves and during one of them I took a very bad fall and ended up with a big bump on my head and hip and a badly bruised finger. After we arrived in Tobago we discovered that one of the battens in the main sail was broken; it made a hole in the sail that needs to be repaired as soon as we arrive in Trinidad. We arrived in Tobago (Store Bay) on Thursday, 01/23/14 at 10:00 AM local time. After we were convinced that our anchor was holding, we went ashore, took a cab to Scarborough to clear customs and immigration. Afterwards we took the bus back to Store Bay; once back on board Island Girl we enjoyed a relaxing drink, ate dinner and at 8 PM we were fast asleep.
But before we start to describe in future blogs our continued trip in the Caribbean I would like to describe and show in our picture gallery a few trips we took before we left Suriname. We had already visited the most easterly town on the coast of Suriname, Albina with a crossing over the Marowijne River to French Guiana and Coroni District with Wageningen but we had not yet made it to Nickerie on the west side on the coast with its very large rice polders created for mechanical rice production. Since we did not want to leave Island Girl unattended overnight we had to leave very early in the morning to make this 180 miles one-way trip. This is one of these trips that you only take when you love the Suriname coastal environment with coastal swamps and its small scale agriculture created by the Hindustani and Javanese people who are the descendants from the contract labor force that came to Suriname after the end of the slavery. Crossing the Saramaca, the majestic Coppename River and Nickerie Rivers is always special to me after I spent so much time in the past navigating these rivers that give you access to the interior of Suriname. As a born Dutchman we love the endless flat open polder landscape with the very beautiful fresh color green of the young growing rice plants. We visited the seawall that protects the City of New Nickerie and its surroundings. With a view of the Corantijn River you can see on the other side Guyana that has a small daily ferry connection with Suriname.
We visited The Peperpot an old Coffee and Cocoa Plantation with beautiful restored historic buildings and a small Javanese village called “Kampong” in Indonesian. This historic plantation is now part of a Natural Park with a very wide variety of birds with nice trails specially made for bird watching. This 30 ha. Park and a 700 ha. Natural Corridor is a protected reservation and supported by the WWF and is only 10 minutes driving from Paramaribo.
In the City of Lelydorp is a Neotropical Butterfly Park that is a commercial company that grows butterfly chrysalis (or pupa) for export. Since every butterfly type can only grow on a specific plant, this company has selected 20 butterfly types and the associated plants to grow. You can see the entire life cycle of a butterfly visit the insect exposition and a very nice butterfly garden. The second floor to the exposition building has very unique realistic impressionistic painting in a panoramic view of all the different landscapes of Suriname. The dimensions of the beautiful piece of art are 3 by 40 meters (10 x 132 ft.). You can hear the wind blowing, splashing water, animal sounds and even the sounds of insects.
Before the independence of Suriname cremations were not allowed except in 2 designated areas and these could only be used for Hindustani people. The most famous one is on “De Weg naar de Zee” (The road to the sea) and its location is just along the seashore. People who could afford it had very nice small to very large temples and statues built to honor their dead. See our picture gallery for a few of these temples and statues.
Before we returned our car we took a long drive along all the locations dear to us and said good bye as we do not expect to have an opportunity to return to Suriname. During this tour we stopped at a music store called “Disco Amico” and purchased a couple of very nice CD’s with exiting Surinamese music to remember how much we enjoyed this 3 months stay.