Paramaribo

Monday 20th.
Both Otto & Ester are without transport so we took the local Taxi (Robbie) into Paramaribo to have a look round and do the tourist stuff.

Fort Zeelandia Courtyard

   In 1613 the two Dutchmen Dirck Cleaszoon van Sanen and Nicolaas Baliestel founded a trading company near the Indian village of ‘Parmirbo’. This settlement on the west bank of the Suriname river, 23 km from the Atlantic Ocean, was the basis for the present Paramaribo, capital of the Republic Suriname.
  Our first stop was the huge downtown market, by far the biggest we have seen on our travels (no I didn’t get up at 06.30 to go to market in Trinidad!)  Here in Paramaribo there were stalls for all manner of home produce.  Masses of vegetables, herbs, fruit, salad items, then fish, meat (all chicken) and then crafts such as table linen, and fabrics.  Nearby fast food stalls with drinks and so on.
  We then wandered along Keizerstraat to the Tourist Information area and picked up a map.  We fully enjoyed the downtown area .  It has a number of old  Colonial buildings including the Presidential Palace.  Most of the architecture is wood since the only bricks available were those which formed ’ballast’ in the ships arriving to trade. The rest the wooden buildings have only their foundations made from the bricks   consequently, some are in ruins and some refurbished but all mingled with new.  There is a palpable aura of a rich Dutch heritage. It’s a real melting pot of a second world country trying to catch up with the first.
Paramaribo has World Heritage Status and is billed as the ‘Beating heart of South America’ so to give you a taste of what we saw:
The photos include the Hindu Mosque and Jewish Synagogue next to one another, this is the only place in the world where the two religions are found so close!
The Military Police building where we spent a few hours the other day on a wild goose chase.
St Peter & Pauls’ Cathedral on Wulfinghstraat which we visited with Esther the other day.  This is reputedly the largest wooded building in the Americas.
 The Ministry of Justice and Politics on Henck Arronstraat.
  Indepence Square.  The most prominent building here is the presidental palace. Which is a white building constructed in the early eighteenth century with later additions. The building and the private garden behind it are only accessible to the public on Independence day: November 25.
In front of the Ministry of Finance is a statue of Suriname's most famous politician Johan Adolf Pengel, a prime-minister of the sixties.
  I include Fort Zeelandia here but we had a separate visit with Esther, hence the long blog entry.  It was built by the French, improved by English  and later used by Dutch colonists. In 1667 it received its current name. In the twentieth century the fort was used as a museum. From 1981 to 1992 it was used by the Surinamese army as a military base. Now the army has withdrawn and it is a fine tourist attraction.
   Next the Waterfront Boulevard.  The buildings here are all ’modern’ A great fire in 1821 did for most of them and those that survived got wiped out by another fire in 1832. The rebuilding was down to the rich merchants and plantation owners. Duplessis House or the House for the Environment (Govnt Secretariat) According to the Tourist information board this underwent restoration 2000-2001.  The name Duplessis House refers to Suzanne Duplessis owner of the plantation Nijd en Spilk, who lived here from 1783-1795. She was allegedly one of Surinames' cruellest women.  After her death the government bought the house and from 1796 has used it as the secretariat for over a century.
  Further along are the remains of a later fire at the old Police building which was claimed by fire in 1980 when the army overtook the government.

Neo Tropical Butterfly Park.

Pre–Christmas Butterfly Farm.

  This week has been hectic!  The poor & Intermittent wi-fi has meant that emails have piled up and I have decided to implement a strategy to cope, only sending the odd one or two.
  That said we have also had plenty of action ashore.  Esther is preparing for Christmas and also has a works function to dress up for on Thursday.  With this in mind we have a girlie day shopping for house decorations, Christmas lights, evening shoes and matching bag, etc etc…  In the heat we didn’t stress out but had leisurely coffee & cake to see us through ’til we remembered our rumbling tummies at 4.30 and had a late lunch.
  Friday we went to the Neotropical Butterfly Park on the outskirts of town.  On the way we noticed ’noise’ from the car and stopped to investigate. We didn’t find the cause but did find an oil leak so stopped for an oil top-up and verbal confirmation that we could continue to drive.
  We arrived at the Butterfly Park just on lunchtime so had a snack and joined the tour. The Farm has been trading internationally for 16 years and has recently opened the Butterfly Park, which caters for ’Public Interest’ and ’Eco-Tourism’.

Allowing the public in means that the whole process of fulfilling the orders is seen to be clean tidy and efficient.  They deal with a number of  Butterfly species and each needs an enormous quantity of the specific host food.  They have netted fields to produce this vegetation.  The reason being that there are a number of escapees from the butterfly houses and these cavaliers would make straight for the ‘larder’ and decimate the supply for the others inside.  The rest of the tour took us through the Reptile house where we saw very happy Pythons.  Most were digesting their latest meal but others were snuggling up to procreate.  When they give birth to live young these are then sold.   I’m satisfied that the wild population is not being threatened.  Another area held Tortoises (which the Dutch call Land Turtles)  again this means that the wild Tortoise population is not threatened.
  I’ll finish by telling of the trip home.  The car rapidly went downhill making the most awful noises, which we tracked to the nearside shock absorber.  We limped to Ottos’ workplace and left the car with the mechanic, while we took  Ottos’ car home.  Otto finished work and got a lift home, only to be called back for an emergency just as he was about to eat dinner!  With only one car this meant that we were stranded ashore (in real comfort) overnight.  What bliss!
 Remember to look at Picasa after Christmas when I will have uploaded the images. - I hope!

Suriname Exploits

The rest of the week we did shopping and some sightseeing spending time with our dear friends and ‘Piano’ in about equal quantities.  The weekend was the next highlight.  We all decided to take one of Ottos’ motor launches up river to a local resort for a picnic.  The trip up river was fast and high tech, we all took turns in driving under the close supervision of our Master Mariner Leader.  We covered the distance in good time for lunch and had a swim in a net protected beach too.  - Yes the reason for the net protection is against ‘Piranhas’! Which have been known to nibble peoples toes.  There are also Caimans—crocodile family– known to live in the river which may also have caused concern…  In all it was a luxurious day—we all slept soundly that night.
  Sunday we set off to Jodensavannah and another river resort.  This time we drove over land, since it was further upstream.  The trip involved a river crossing aboard a ’ferry’.  This was a converted barge with a large Yamaha outboard engine.  It could carry about 6 vehicles and took about 10 minutes.
  The Jodensavannah is an area South of Paramaribo on which some Portuguese Jews settled back in the 17th Century (In 1639 the First Jewish Synagogue was built and the ruins can still be seen in this WHS).  They wanted to be able to practice their faith without being persecuted.  They chose a particularly nice spot on the banks of the river which had a natural freshwater spring and was slightly above river level for good visibility, views and provided dry ground to live on.  These first settlers lived comfortable for a time and were joined by like minded kinsmen from another colony in Brazil.  The new blood enhanced to enclave and soon the community had established some 40 plantations covering a large tract of land.  Even in those days there were slaves and each plantation had about 250 slaves to work the land.   The community survived a fire and the ravages of war for ownership of the country in which they were living.  But the final blow was the return of some escaped slaves who returned to free those still enslaved.  Once the work force had been lost the Jewish settlers decided to move back to the city and become manufacturers.
  Our lunch spot was the ’Black Water’ resort.  This time on a smaller river.  It had tarpaulin covered structures for shade and access to the ’beach’ for cooling off.  The water was barely deep enough to swim and was pleasantly cool– if rather dark coloured water (it reminded me of tea).  We weren’t the only white people a group of airline workers were having a holiday with a friend and they shared their BBQ and coconuts with us.  Everyone we talked to in Suriname was especially helpful and friendly.

1st December 2011

Suriname, 1st December 2011.
After a week sailing against the wind and curents we arrived at Domberg.  After anchoring and having a rest we had dinner, and then Malcolm managed to drop the fridge lid on his finger ooowwwwch and naughty words.  I did first aid and cleaned it with antiseptic, then put healing gel on it and steristrip round it.  It seems to be ok but I fear he will loose the nail.   Today I have been driving the outboard and doing all the stuff he can't do.   Unlike last time I haven't had to  overhaul the toilet system!!! -yet.
  So we went into town to register that we had arrived and were given the usual run around.  Here more than other places since it is a big country and still has a lot of red tape.  We did the police station first where our ‘crew list was given a stamp and we were then told to take it to immigration who would issue a visa.   At immigration wew were given a tourist Visa and sent to the military administration building where we were finally told that we had been given the wrong type of Visa and to go back to change it.  I asked the girl to write down what she had told us so that there would be no confusion when we got there.  Two hours later we cleared this mistake up but were told that the next step at the bank would have to wait ‘til tomorrow since the bank closes at 2 o’clock!   We decided to wait until Otto and Esther gets here so that they can help us.
  Great news , they are home early and will meet us at 8 for a drink tonight!
  Wow what a reunion, we do lots of catching up.  We meet again tomorrow early to make a start on formalities.
 

Monday 5th December.
It’s St Nicholas Day for the Dutch.  Esther meets us at 9 and we begin with passport sized photos, then coffee a side trip to finalize the visas and a fantastic lunch.  We finish with crossing the T’s at the police station ( which is formally closed) but a kindly policeman makes an effort and sorts us out.  We then return to Esthers’ home have Tea and chill out until Otto finishes work.  Plenty more reminiscing, a superb dinner and we return to ’Piano’ fully worn out after such a full day. 

Passage to Suriname (The Skippers bit)

Trinidad to Suriname—the Passage 24th-2 November 2011.
After resolving the problems which were immediately apparent after relaunch, we had hoped to be able to leave Crews' Inn marina with everything working but it was not to be. The engine rev counter decided not to regiister anymore and resisted Jean-Jacques efforts to find out what the problem was. Then, on the day before we planned to leave, I discovered that the sensor unit for the log was leaking and, to cap it all, 10 keys on my laptop keyboard stopped working! Eventually, we decided that we weren't going to be able to fix any of these things and so, on Nov 24 we finally left Chaguaramas,  3 months after flying back from England.

We wanted to try out the new anchor and renovated anchor windlass, so first we just motored round to Scotland Bay. What a difference those few miles made – instead of the bustle of Chaguaramas, we were now anchored in a very peaceful, jungle-fringed bay with just a handful of other yachts and hardly any signs of civilisation. All was well with the anchor and windlasss so, after a nice lunch, we set off again, towards Suriname. We had expected to have to motor the 40 miles or so along the north coast of Trinidad and that was indeed the case. Staying fairly close inshore to avoid the adverse current (and actually picking up favourable current!), there was just a gentle breeze from ahead and we didn't even bother putting the mainsail up until well along the coast. While there seemed to be plenty of showers over the island, only the occasional light one extended over the water and the seas were very slight, so it was a pleasant, relaxing first evening. Around midnight, as we rounded the NE corner of Trinidad, the seas became uncomfortable, even thought the wid was only Force 3-4; we had some sail up by now, mainly to steady the motion. Finally, in the early hours we turned the engine off and enjoyed a couple of hours of decent sailing on a close reach towards our destination. The wind soon dropped though, and changed from ENE to ESE. We could no longer sail in the direction we wanted to go, so started motorsailing. We passed a number of uncharted oilrigs, with support vessels buzzing around and also saw a couple of dolphins. While there were some moderately big showers around, on the whole they passed us by and brought no significant wind.. The breeze remained resolutely less than  10 knots from between ESE and SSE, so progress was very slow. In the first  hours we only made about 100 miles towards Suriname and most of that progress was from motoring along the north coast of Trinidad. The next day followed the same pattern, with light winds from ahead. The weather was hot and sunny and while lighning was occasionally visible on the horizon, we had only a very occasional light shower. Just before sunset, there was a good display of tuna jumping, which was something new for us. In the early evening, a fishing boat passed within half a mileand later, the wind picked up to Force 4 and we reefed. In the early hours,the wind dropped back to Force 3-4and while we were occasionally able to get 'PIANO' sailing nicely, it never lasted long and the services of the engine were often engaged. Even so, we were only 89 miles closer to our destination by the end of the day. The painfully slow progress continued for the rest of the trip. The saving grace was that the weather was good – sunny,  hot and dry. In the evenings, lots of lightning was visible on the horizon but the thundery activity was all confined to the distant land. Several seabirds accompanied us for varying distances and we had two large and several small flying fish on deck, as well as a tiny live crab. The only other excitement was having to tack in the middle of the night to avoid a cargo ship which was getting too close.

Eventually, on the evening of Nov 30, the wind gained a slight northerly component and we started making good progress towards our destination, some 30 miles away. It was time to try to engineer our arrival at the Safe Water Mark at the river entrance, in order to take the tide upstream. The ideal time appeared to be 0500 but in the event, our progress was a little slower than estimatedand we didn't get there until 0630. However, this still allowed us to carry favourable current all the way to Domburg and we were doing 7-8 knots over the ground most of the time. The estuary of the river only has a very narrow navigable channel but is well-buoyed, making the passage relatively uneventful. Apart, that is, from when the engine decided to splutter a few times just while we were in the narrowest part of the channel. Luckily, after a few minutes it cured itself and stress levels decreased again. We anchored off the small village of Domburg, some  8 miles above Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam, There were half a dozen other yachts of various nationalities in the anchorage – no Brits though. The passage of  440 miles had taken 160 hours at an average speed made good of just under 2.8 knots. The worst day's progress was just  miles, making it our slowest ever passage by some margin!

Refurbishing the Saloon.

Refurbishing the Saloon.
     This story begins in Peakes yard where we need protection from the sun, I look around for a suitably priced canvas worker.  This is for some new hatch covers to match /blend with the Bimini.  Kay came to take measurements and gave me a reasonable quote, then returned a week later with the goods.  A nice new set of hatch covers to replace the now well weathered and now mouldy ones I had made in the Azores.  I was so impressed I asked her for a quote to do the Saloon, this agreed we then went to choose and buy the fabric.  Malcolm left the pattern to me and to cut a long story short this is the end picture! Naturally we keep the dust covers over the seats to try and keep them looking new and maybe next year I will have a go at doing these too.

      After the success of the Saloon I bit the bullet and decided to put new curtains up, (and make them myself!) this involved choosing and buying the fabric - soo cheap here only £24 for 8 yards (no metrication here yet). The shop had sales assistants and measurers to check the customers calculations– except he was working in feet & inches and I had measured in centimetres… after he had found a tape measure with both on it he then understood that the curtains I wanted to make were not the usual room size he is used to checking…. Undeterred he was prepared to have a go.  He really wanted to sell me 20 yards but I stressed that I would probably only need 6, we agreed on 8 which gave me room for mistakes and cushions
Anyway, it was a steep learning curve and I’m sure that if any of you sewers  had been around you would have helped me make a better job! at a quick glance they look ok -if home made and not very professional even though I used a template to make them all the same hems etc. Hey ho I'm nearly finished but out of header tape, and all my pins are bent with going through the machine with such a thickness of material.  I broke 8 needles by accident while catching a pin and a rod -stiffener.  Now I have a fellow boater who is going to adapt my machine to take the big packets of non singer needles so that I have a new supply.   Only minor adjustments were needed to sort the sewing machine out and a big THANKS to Ray & Irene (C-Drifters) who spent time helping.  I should also Thank Vicky (Cinnamon Teal) for sorting out the tension for me.  I have now really learnt a great deal about sewing machines—I just need to remember it all.