French Guyana, a department of France and not a sovereign nation, has as its capital the town of Cayenne, but as its harbor is too shallow to be accessible, so we pull into Kourou instead. One of this place’s two notable characteristics is that it’s the home of the French space program, a kind of Cape Canaveral in the jungle. […]
Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname and almost the only place in the entire country that could be called a city. It lies up a large river that we had to enter using a pilot to guide us through the tricky channels. With no marina, we anchor just off the main hotel and take the tender ashore. […]
The long trip from Trinidad to Paramaribo, Suriname was largely uneventful except for an odd event that took place one evening at sundown. The sea was wonderfully calm, the sun was setting, and I was comfortably seated on the upper deck reading a book. The coastal plains of Suriname, some 25 miles to the west, was far out of sight. […]
Trinidad has not been hit by a hurricane ever and so marks the southern end of the hurricane belt. Still, yacht insurers prefer that their insured vessels reach the equator by July 1 in order to be certain of safety. Since we are for practical purposes out of the danger zone and also in need of some refit work, we linger here for 8 days. […]
Grenada, the island that became world famous when US forces invaded the place to free it from Castro commies who had briefly taken over, is today still forlorn thanks to being blasted by Hurricane Ivan several years ago. Until then, it had not been hit for 50 years. We didn’t spend much time here.