23 July St Laurent du Maroni

We left Ils du Salut at 5pm and motored in no wind until nearly midnight. Then the breeze picked up to a wind and then a strong wind as we reached the safe water mark at the entrance to the Maroni river next morning.

We arrived an hour after LW at Les Hattes tidal station at the start of the river.

It's 10nm from the safe water mark Les Hattes and then a further 16nm to the town of St Laurent. The South America Navionics chip in our chart plotter proved to be inaccurate for the channel markers. However, the Navionics app on the tablet had the correct positions for the markers and the channel. Following this the shallowest water we saw was 3m, 1 hour before LW immediately before M2 and M3.

With 22 knots on the beam and a current flowing NW we had to be aware of our leeway to avoid being pushed out of the channel at the entry.

 Once past the westerly cardinal depth increased as did the flow and we made a fast passage. The journey is a motor, not particularly interesting; some birds, the mangroves. It is not the Kinatabangan in Borneo!

When we arrived at St Laurent at 2 o'clock marina owner David was in his dinghy waiting to show us to a mooring. The marina has about 20 moorings, no slips to go alongside. Without a line to pick up and pull on board our alternative would have been to thread our line through the metal ring on top of the buoy from our stern and walk the line forward.

MV Edith Cavell

bow out to the centre of the river

still flying the flag

lies stern to shore

Protecting the up river moorings is a man made island. The base of the wooded island is a metal cargo ship named the Edith Cavell which went aground 90 years ago. In the intervening years she has split in the middle and now rests with her stern to the dinghy dock and her bow to the river. Mud collected around her hull and plants, as they do, found a new home and grew. At first sight it is an island. Only on taking a a second, closer look can you see the hull which has no marine growth below the waterline; testament to the cleaning powers of the Maroni river. (When we left all growth from Jacare had disappeared.)

locking dinghy to jetty

Once tied up we took our dinghy to the nice dock being careful to lock it as we'd been advised by David. There is a lot of pirogue traffic back and forth across the water between French Guiana and Suriname and non of it is legal; no border controls, no immigration unless you use the car ferry which does have border control.

David drove us to the ferry terminal to have our passports stamped and he did our customs clearance on line on his computer in the office. Cost to join the marina which includes clearance in and out and a lift to the supermarket each morning is €20. Moorings are €12 a day or €80 per week. The marina office is conveniently the first building on the right at the top of the jetty. We received good internet on the mooring for €5 for seven days.

looking across the river to Suriname