HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAELA!!!

 

(I think she’d like it better if it was a happy bathday. We’re still on water rationing.)

 

We’ve just come back down from being on deck where the dolphins had cometo wish her a happy birthday!

 

We’re on our way again and in proper blue water again. After leaving the Maroni river we were sailing on a lime green sea for a while. The Maroni itself was the colour of tea – with and without milk depending on where we happened to be at the time. In the estuary Michaela decided that the sea was the colour of Granddad’s tea (extra strong). But back to where we left off...

 

The Iles de Salut were pretty and mostly tree covered. Devil’s island appeared to have nothing but palm trees but the other two islands were less fussy and allowed other species to prosper. We were not sure what to make of the islands – they are trying to show themselves in an ecological light but there is more than a whiff of man’s inhumanity to man about them. Remnants of the penal colony exist and parts of them have been converted into living quarters for hotel staff and as hotel guest rooms. The reception area even has a iron-barred gate and iron bars in its windows. Quite odd. The church displayed a series of cards showing life in the colony – how the dead were thrown into the sea for shark bait; the prisoners in solitary confinement, the use of the guillotine and so forth. It brought a sense of the despair that must have been in around when the colony was operating at its peak.  We circumnavigated both Ile Royale and St. Joseph’s on foot over our two day visit and came across a cemetery for the military personnel – no being thrown to the sharks for them but nevertheless sad to see so many small child graves and military wives’ graves as well as those of the soldiers themselves – all dating around late 1890s. Couldn’t have been pleasant being stationed on the islands in those days.

 

On the night of our first day a big swell came into the anchorage in the very early hours of the morning and the boat rocked and rolled 50s style. No sleep possible and we sat in the cockpit with cups of tea until it started to abate at about four am. When daylight came a German boat who had only arrived the previous afternoon thought better of it and sailed off without seeing the islands. We took ourselves off for a snack lunch at the hotel and then crossed the narrow straight between Royale and St. Joesph’s in the dinghy to see what we could see for the afternoon and then left later in the afternoon for the Maroni River.

 

For once the wind was in our favour and we went speeding along all too fast. The idea was to plan our arrival time for just before half flood tide and then ride the current up river. After crossing the sand bar at the entrance (3 metres minimum depth) we shot up the river at 8 knots with a 3.5 knot current behind us and anchored at about 17:00 – in good time to watch the sun go down over St. Laurent.

 

The river itself is wide and very Amazonlike. No sloths or monkeys spotted in the trees, no toucans or parrots either which was a bit of a disappointment. Nevertheless stunning in its islands, tributaries, vegetation. Given lots of time it would be a wonderland to explore. Liz and Michaela have now both read Papillon so were able to provide a running commentary as to his escapades in the river and with the leper colony.

 

In case of mozzies and malaria we’d started taking our Malarone tablets when we were still in the Iles de Salut and somehow the word got muddled with the river Maroni – so we found ourselves going up the ‘Malaroni’ river. Seemed apt except that we never came across a single mosquito. The occasional fly and wasp type insect but that was all.

 

On day two of our visit CPO Fitzpatrick pumped up the dinghy and we then decided to row ashore – just the two of us – to test out the current and to see the lie of the land. Hard work but manageable. We got ashore only to be met by one man who told us that we’d anchored in the wrong place and pointed out the right place for us and another man who made some very obscene and unpleasant gestures towards Michaela. We scurried back to the boat at high speed, up-anchored and went round the point to the right anchorage as fast as possible. It seemed a much more pleasant spot despite there being lesser depth of water. So, having anchored we all departed for the shore under oar power on the basis that an engineless boat would be of less interest to any local miscreants.

 

It was our lucky day – Wednesday is market day so we were able to replenish our fruit and veg supplies which saved us from all having to suck on the same orange every day for the next week to avoid scurvy. Liz made friends with a Vietnamese stallholder who sold her some beans. Not any old beans but beans whose ancestors quite a few generations ago were growing happily in Vietnam. The great thing about them is that we only need three beans each for our supper since they were more than half a metre long. Liz tried them out as dreadlocks and looked quite, um, well, different!

 

After lunching ashore at ‘Le Toucan’ we wandered around town and then headed back to the dinghy. This was where our plan of going ashore under oars alone came unstuck! The current was in full flow and a good wind was backing it up – and we were four adults with a heavy weight of shopping in a little rubber boat with a pair of lightweight oars. This was never going to work. Nevertheless off we went with Michael and I paddling canoe fashion. With a lot of hard work we managed to get to the boarding platform of an old steel ketch which was half way towards our boat. Our arms were about to come off by then so we had a long rest clinging on to the platform. Then we off-loaded the girls and the shopping onto the platform thinking that a lighter boat would be easier to paddle down to our boat where we could fit the engine and then fetch the marooned of the Maroni off the back of the ketch – which was exactly what the pair of them looked like sat on the boarding platform surrounded by their shopping bags! Good plan but it didn’t work. After what seemed an age of paddling and getting nowhere we had no paddling left in us. We gave up and started to drift rapidly upstream with the wind and current behind us. I said it was our lucky day – it just happened that a junior sailing school was in operation not too far away. We waved our oars in the air and eventually got the attention of the safety boat who towed us to the beach.  After leaving us there he went off to round up his charges and then came back to tow us and the little flotilla of tiny sailing boats to collect Liz, Michaela and the shopping and then on to our boat. I have never been so thankful. I was out of puff, out of paddling and almost out for the count. The Maroni river is about 500 Km in length – without our rescuer we would probably have got to see it all! The sailing school kids certainly had a tale to tell when they went home.

 

So that was  our visit to the Malaroni. Bright and early next morning we up-anchored and shot down the river and over the bar just in time. The breakers on the sand bar were rehearsing for the main event – low water was about and hour and half away – and we got across without incident.

 

Next stop – Tobago.

 

P, L, M & M