Aaarrrrrh, Pirates Bay

We had a very nice sail on  the leeward side of the island to Charlotteville, Julie lost a nice size Barracuda or maybe Mackeral and almost her finger as she was letting go the line and the fish pretty well smashed the lure as soon as it hit the water. She survived but we have been hungry for fish ever since! 

We anchored off the beach in Pirates Bay and to say it is absolutely spectacular is an understatement and the photo will never do it justice. Beautiful sandy beach with full on jungle going straight up the mountain and with a little stream that someone has tapped a little pipe into that you can collect perfect spring water and have a wash with after your swim. So the last few days it's been back into the frisbee throwing beach life with a few beers, boat jobs just don't seem to be happenning??

Tobago!

Well what Suriname lacks in soul this place definitely makes up for it! We got to a Store Bay just after dark and after a couple of rum and cokes and a bottle of champagne thought it best to go ashore and have a look. Instantly felt right at home, reggae music blaring from every which direction, everyone smiling and saying hello and they really are super "cool" people, we are in the Caribbean that's for sure! So a quick burger and then found a bar with a dj playing off course more reggae and sampled a few of there Carib beers with bit of a dance, great night.Woke up early with a sore head and then we went into the main town to clear in with immigration ect. Was half way through the formalities in customs and the guys chatting away and making jokes and then says yea man we take a trip across de road for a look, ok we say?? Go into this dark dodgey bar our man knows everyone in there of course and Julie says it's a bit early? The whole bar just cracks up, you're in the Caribbean now man dis bottle got no time!! Ha it is 9am so fair enough?? So after a couple of rounds another guy from customs comes in and says yea guys immigration are now ready for you, love this place best check in ever!

Here's a pic with our customs man, like he says in de Caribbean man and we are just liming which means hanging out and enjoying with a beer. I think we will be doing a lot more of this!

Nearly there

I was really excited about this passage before we left with a forecast of mainly 12-15 knot NE winds on the beam for the rest of the week which makes for perfect fast sailing. Well it lasted for 12 hours and since then it has been mainly very light SE from behind or NE just for a couple of hours mainly when there's rain around. The auto pilot is still playing up and only wants to work when there's lots of power, anything under 13.5volts it won't hold course. We checked all connections and unit is getting full power the same as the batteries and after speaking to the guy that builds them he thinks it must be the motor control unit. At least it works if we motor and the wind is so light we don't feel quite so bad but it still would be nice to be sailing. The windvane definitely doesn't work in these light winds. So after all this blabbering to sum it up it is the most boring passage we have had in a very long time :)
Fishing is impossible as there is so much weed around, after a while our speed drops and we have to put it into reverse to clear it all from rudder and prop there is that much, never seen it this bad before.
On the plus side we have had plenty of sleep and reading lots of books, the sun is out and all is well and tomorrow we will be on a nice beach in the South Caribbean!

65nm to Tobago, we should be there about 10pm tonight and anchor in Store Bay in the south.
Pos at 10am 10*25N 60*03W

5th August

We left Domburg at slack tide yesterday to make the 30miles out of the river and channel into the deeper water. We were flying along by the end of the river doing 11 knots with 5 knots of current. We cooked the last of the mackerel we caught on passage last week on the BBQ had a beer and were out into the bay with a 15knot NE breeze with us on a beam reach with genoa, staysail and a reef in the main doing 7knots plus. That lasted until about midnight and then it went to the SE and we lost a lot of ground with the windvane and at daylight put up the twin headsails and are rolling along doing 4 knots in a very light breeze but at least on track.
Hopefully we will get some more NE winds and we can make good miles again as were we are now there is not a lot of current helping us at all and it's slow progress but at least there's only a couple more days to go.

1430 yesterday until noon today 120nm. 330n, to Tobago

Suriname

Maybe my expectations were to high as I thought it would be quite isolated and a bit more of a final frontier in the jungle kinda feel??? I'm finding it hard to say to much positive about the place but we were only here for 4 days so I could be well mistaken also. It's Dutch and there's no mistaking it and the Dutch sailors we met seem to love it and a couple of them have even settled here and built houses so it must be good for some. From what little I saw it didn't impress me though, a lot of money from oil and gas is obvious with a massive processing plant in the middle of town and with all of that you can see blatant corruption everywhere with the many casinos to launder their money and massive houses along the river but with also a lot of poor people just getting by. Unlike most other countries we have visited where you get an instant feel about a place, here it seems like it doesn't have much souI, think maybe as there are too many cultures here and they really don't seem to mix with each other at all. Lots of creole african type people, many Indians, Chinese, Muslim and then the Dutch and they all seem to live very different lives in obvious separation of classes. Town is very busy with many shops and if you needed to repair something I'm sure you could get it here easily though nothing is cheap and most boating/hardware things imported from holland it seems.
Domburg is nice and quiet though 22nm up the river and is were we anchored. Very secure with a clubhouse/bar with showers and a pool. You pay €6.75 a day for the privilege to use it which really is to just leave the dinghy secure. They have beer which they sell for 14$ Suriname and costs 3$ Suriname in the shop which I really felt was taking the piss for a place that's for the sailors and there are no other real options for food or beer close by that really interested us.
There is another marina resort about 5 miles further up called Waterlands were we went for a Sunday lunch. Very isolated but Noël the Dutch owner has done an amazing job and seemed like a very nice guy. His marina berths are €1.50 mtr per day with good pontoons and 6 luxury villas and would make a great place to stop if you had friends or family coming. The buffet lunch was delicious but not cheap at all but worth it as a treat. Suriname food is very basic chicken noodles and eggs and standard fresh veges very hard to find even at the massive market apparently the locals to lazy to grow them themselves which is crazy as it's the perfect climate to grow anything I'm sure.
I feel bad to write this and sound like I'm whinging but it just didn't seem to do it for us and is strange as it's the first country we have never really liked although it's not like we didn't have a good time. Was nice to relax though and meet a few new nice sailors but for us the 4 days was enough and we are looking forward to anchoring in some nice clear water in Tobago in a few days.
Maybe just also this isn't the place to come straight after Brazil were the people were so warm, friendly and bursting with life and atmosphere :)