Trinidad & the French Guyanna

Still in Trinidad. We are waiting for an appointment with a dental surgeon to fix Gaston’s tooth issue. In the mean time, our paint brushes and our tools have been stored away and are now enjoying the Island. We went for a visit of downtown Port-of-Spain and we also walked around the north part of the city where there are Victorian houses, parks, a zoo, a botanical garden, ... It was nice but what impressed us most was the architecture. Particularly downtown, the styles vary greatly from one building to the next. We also spent a day in Scotland bay on a friend’s boat hoping we could swim a bit. Turned out that since the bay is only 3 nm from Chaguaramas the water is not perfectly clean. We did swim anyway and so far we didn’t grow a second head so we should survive. However, the mountains around the bay are splendid. It’s a nice quiet place to anch

or. I will leave out the details of the evening and just say we had some memorable moments. Last night, there was the final of a jazz steel pan competition. This instrument was born in Trinidad. In all, seven groups were competing for the title. The music was incredible! I need to find some in mp3 for my next picture montage! Now another flash back to talk about the French Guyana.

French Guyana:

The arrival at the Salut Islands is impressive for the nature lover. Giant turtles swim around the boat, iguanas lie on rocks taking up some sun, parrots circle Royal Island, agoutis sit around eating coconuts and monkeys perched on their tree throw pieces of wood at us. There are also lots of nice fish to catch. We visited the Royal and Saint-Joseph Islands (Diable Island (Devil’s Island) is left wild). They became famous because of the prison that was on them and the book «Papillion» written by a murderer and a liar. The first is how he landed in jail and the later is because he said the book was a biography. In fact, the stories in it happened to other prisoners about a century before. He did however escape the Island in strong current surrounded by sharks to go make it rich in the petrol industry in Venezuela. Hats off! Even if I’m a good swimmer, i don’t know that I would have attempted the crossing! On both Islands it is possible to walk around following paths. There is museum and some left over buildings from the prison on Royal Island and a military base on St-Joseph Island. We were fortunate enough to meet with a local man on the later who showed us how to open coconuts. They were very tasty! The wind was quiet for three days which gave us time to visit. When the wind comes up, it brings an uncomfortable wave in the bay and since the bottom doesn’t hold well, it makes it hard to stay at anchor.

Next stop was in front of the city of Kourou on the Kourou River. This is were we encountered the first difficulty of Guyana; no transport. There are no buses, no taxis, no individuals doing underground taxi and nobody to pick up a hitchhiker. The distances are big so the shoes use up fast. We got caught on our first day. According to another navigator, the customs office was close by and place to rent a car on the way. So we left to go to customs with him and he told us that we should go to the car rental place on the way back. In turns out that the office was at least an hour’s walk away. When we got back to the car rental place another hour later, they didn’t have any cars left. Then we find out that the other car rental places are close to the customs office. So we had to walk all the way back again. On the way, we tried to get a charitable soul to pick us up but with no such luck. Since I expected to only be gone for a short while, I did not put on enough sun screen and was wearing a sun dress. So by the time we got back, I looked like a tomato and spent the evening with cold water compress on my shoulders. Unless someone has a bike or they want to stay close to the water in Kourou, one will need to rent a car here. We rented ours for a week. It’s not long but considering the rental prices, that is all we could afford. While we had the car, we visited Cayenne and Degrade des Cannes where some friends had stopped whit their boat. From the later, a tour boat leaves to go to Ilet de la mère (Mother Island). There lives about 300 common squirrel monkeys. They are not affraid to jump on you or your lunch bag and steel whatever you have to eat. They are fast but also gentle. We visited many zoos since the start of our sailing trip but have not yet seen one as beautiful as the one in French Guyana. The animals are well set up in natural environments but can still be seen. We also went with the rest of the crews at anchor to visit the European space station. We got to see the new Soyuz site which is still under construction. The weirdest thing about this visit is that we mostly only saw the outside of buildings without getting to see what was going on inside and yet the visit was interesting. When we got back, someone gave us a Sputnik. No! Not the space ship! The French thing that washes clothing.

As time went by, the tides got bigger and so did the current. That is when we experienced the second difficulty of Guyana. The bottom is made of mud which moves. When the current gets strong and the tide turns, the boats start to navigate (move from left to right). They look as if they were trying to pass each other. So much so that the captains were having fun commenting on the race on VHF. It was usually funny until one of the anchors gave out. Then everybody would go back to being serious and finding a way to help the boat leaving with the current. We were about ten boats at anchor so we were invited to many happy hours on other boats but the getting to and from those invitations wasn’t obvious. The current was so strong that our outboard engine almost couldn’t get the dinghy back to the boat. We left right after the launch of Arianne5 because we were tired of having to look after the boat all the time. It’s too bad because we liked the French Guyana and might of stayed longer is there would of been a safer place to leave the boat. It’s not as welcoming as Brazil and the cost of living is higher but the food is way better and the nature is overwhelming. One last comment on the launch of Arianne5: it took off just before 20h so the filming of it is not very good but the experience was still interesting. From the boat, there was so much light it seemed like the sun was rising. Even with the distance, we saw the boosters separate from the rocket.

We added three picture montages to the site at the following address: http://bidule.micro.org/Bidule/Guyanne.html

and I reworked the web site. Let me know what you think: http://bidule.micro.org.