After Maris’s return from the ‘Big City’, which she highly recommended, we have dinner at the resort since it is open for a management conference, a delicious meal, with good company in a lovely setting, helped along with the Baganara Breeze;

   

We take the dinghy and have a visit up river with Bernard and his wife Charmoulah, Bernard arrived in Guyana 17 years ago where he met his Guianese wife, they did their circumnavigation and returned to Guyana, bought a plot of jungle where they built their house and cultivated the land around them, fruit trees, roses, vegetables, orchids and grass that takes all day once a week to cut.  A bit of paradise which now takes all of there time to maintain and so limits their sailing days, Charmoulah is determined they are going to sell and sail to New Zealand, Bernard is not so sure.

   

Sunday 16th November we begin our move back up the river, past the Sand dredger which is extending the beach at Baganara, towards Sloth Island, but as the water depths are not as charted we dredge a channel through the thankfully soft mud and head across the river to find a lovely unmarked anchorage for the night.  Early Monday we take the tide and head for Bartica to check out, late afternoon we depart for an overnight at Stampa Island arriving after dark, a lot of barges and tugs moving around so quite glad the tide is running by 03.00 and we can get on our way,  by evening 18th November we have negotiated the buoys, fishing poles, floats and boats, cleared the Essequibo and heading for deep Atlantic water, with overcast skies and North Easterly winds.