Cruising in a rainforest
Belinda Chesman and Kit McAllister adventure along the Suriname River in their cutter rigged Bowman 40
An adventure along the Suriname River in a cutter rigged Bowman 40
We had finally arrived in South America! We dropped anchor at 2130 in the mouth of the Suriname River, after 2,019 miles and 15 days sailing from Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands to Suriname (formerly Dutch Guyana).
Due to extensive coastal shallows our final approach began 15 miles out at the fairway buoy; from there we followed the buoyed channel (IALA ‘B’) but couldn’t see land until almost upon it as Suriname is so low-lying. The coastline consists of soupy, muddy tidal flats backed by rainforest.
Much of the crossing had been lumpy with numerous squalls and a huge Atlantic swell, so it was a relief to be on flat water at last. With a celebratory nightcap in hand (our first drop for two weeks) we sat in the salty cockpit and took stock of our surroundings.
The river was wide, the colour of cold tea, the banks lined with rainforest. An occasional hut was visible on shore but otherwise the only sign of human habitation was a series of stakes, perhaps fish-traps, radiating out from the shore.
Despite the late hour a variety of birds – including frigates, terns and herons – flew about and we could hear animal calls from the shore. It felt completely alien, especially after our time at sea.
A friendly welcome
After a very welcome full night’s sleep we caught the rising tide and motor-sailed 20 miles upriver to Domburg. We’d done our research and called Maritime Authority Suriname (MAS) on VHF Ch12 and requested permission to proceed, which was granted. The forest lining the banks of the Suriname River is a vivid green and we were about to find out why! We’d just passed Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital, when the rain started – and boy did it rain (well it isn’t called rainforest for nothing!). It was a torrential downpour during which the banks either side of the river disappeared into the murk. Thank goodness the charts and chartplotter were accurate as we blindly hopped from buoy to buoy remembering to avoid the wreck of the 6,000 tonne Goslar, a World War II German cargo ship scuttled in the river to prevent it falling into Allied hands.
Dripping wet (with fresh water this time!) we reached Domburg and picked up a mooring just as the rain stopped. There were around 14 yachts moored when we arrived: Dutch, Canadian, British, New Zealand, French, American, Swiss – quite a mix. We were delighted to see friends moored nearby, the Dutch-flagged Mermaid and NZ-flagged Saraoni. They’d arrived two and ten days ahead of us. They assured us that the Surinamese authorities are friendly and relaxed and we weren’t expected to check in immediately upon arrival – just as well because we still had a lot of sleep to catch up on.
The following day we went into Paramaribo to apply at the Ministry of External Affairs for a visa, then a bus ride away at Immigration for an entry stamp. Yachts don’t have to visit Customs. We were well prepared with three copies of everything; passports, photos, crewlist (all two of us!) and last port clearance.
At both places the process was completed reasonably quickly. At the Ministry we were treated like VIPs and felt almost embarrassed to be ushered past waiting locals to the front of a considerable queue where we were interviewed and granted a month’s visa in exchange for r30. The local currency is the Surinamese dollar but Euros and US dollars were accepted.
Howling monkeys
Once the formalities were completed we could relax and enjoy our new environs.
Suriname is a former Dutch colony and the principal language is still Dutch.
A massive 80% of the country is covered with intact rainforest. Roads only exist along the northern coastal areas. Access to the rest of the country is by river or by light aircraft. Tropical fruit is growing everywhere, mango trees, pineapples, bananas, breadfruit, paw paw etc.
There are eight species of primate in Suriname and sitting on our boat we could hear the roars of the red howler monkeys in the forest, especially at dawn and dusk. It’s quite a surreal experience to hear them; it begins with sounds like wind in the trees, then grows in volume to reach a roaring, howling crescendo before it stops suddenly – as if switched off! We didn’t see the monkeys; they stay in the rainforest beyond the riverbanks and the land is so flat we could see only the verdant river frontage.
The moorings are grandly called Domburg Harbour, but in reality are around 15 safe moorings laid out in the river. The cost was only r8 per night. When the moorings are full it’s possible to anchor at either end of the mooring field in about 8m plus tide. At Domburg the river is still tidal so moored boats turn with the tide twice a day. Being 25 miles inland it was mostly freshwater, but murky and muddy and definitely not potable.
Everything discharges into the river plus there are gold mines and a bauxite plant upriver, and commercial docks and an oil refinery under construction down river. We were told there are piranha in the river although we didn’t see any; not surprising as the water was so murky. Needless to say we didn’t risk a swim!
For fresh water we could take containers by dinghy to a fishing boat dock nearby and fill up with good, clean fresh water. It was a lot of effort in the heat but worth it.
Attractions ashore
On shore at the harbour resort there are lovely clean showers and a clubhouse, both open sided buildings. The clubhouse was a good place to enjoy happy hour in company with cruisers, locals and Dutch boaters that have settled here. It’s also a great place to swap information and tips. There’s a Chinese supermarket in the
nearby village and on Sundays, a Javanese ‘market’ sets up, mostly food stalls where you can buy delicious satay sticks, barmi (noodle) dishes, rice dishes and many other delicacies. This market is primarily to serve the large numbers of locals who descend on Domburg’s main square on Sunday afternoon.
There’s a lot of socialising and picnicking and for entertainment the local jet-skiers and speedboats arrive to power up and down the river. This can be a little annoying if you’re trying to have a quiet afternoon aboard but it’s harmless fun and, after all, we visited to see the local way of life.
Further afield in Paramaribo are several large well-stocked supermarkets.
The capital is very spread out with low buildings with many grand, but rather neglected old colonial-style timbered houses. They would be splendid if renovated. There seem to be more cars than people in the town. When we hired a car it took an absolute age to get into town as there appears to be no right-ofway rule. We finally arrived but couldn’t find an inch to park. Pavements and access roads are all fair game, and double parking can keep you stuck for ages.
We visited a colourful market with a fantastic array of exotic fruit and veg, and we found a great area of Maroon stalls locally called the ‘witches market’ selling herbs, bones, odd size eggs, bottles of strange concoctions and other weird things. Suriname is extremely multicultural: The Maroons are the descendants of slaves, there are also Chinese, Javanese, Indian, Creoles, Lebanese, West Indian, Mexican, Amerindian – mixed origins and mixed religions. In one small area of Paramaribo there’s a Mosque, Hindu temple, Lutheran church, Christian church and a Buddhist temple, plus a synagogue. It is impressive that this very multicultural population seem to live alongside one another in relative harmony... and these mixed origins make for mixed and fabulous cuisine.
A highlight in Paramaribo was the wooden Cathedral of Saint Peter and Paul, the largest wooden structure in the
Western Hemisphere, dating back to 1826.
We also visited Fort Zeelandia on Paramaribo’s riverfront. A pentagonal fort built by British colonists in 1651, it has a violent history: Originally called Fort Willoughby, it was taken by the Dutch in 1667 and renamed Fort Zeelandia. Slaves were held and sold here and subjected to terrible treatment. The fort was also the scene of the ‘December murders’ of political dissidents by the military dictatorship in 1982.
A local ferryboat across the river took us to Frederiksdorp, one of the old plantations on the Commewijne river. During Dutch rule the imported African slaves were used to create and work on a patchwork of coffee, cocoa and sugar plantations around the Suriname and Commewijne rivers. It’s now a wonderfully peaceful place with walking and cycling trails, all alive with exotic birds and butterflies. There’s also a small restaurant there serving delicious Javanese food.
At the confluence of the Suriname and Commewijne rivers Nieuw-Amsterdam still preserves the dams and dykes created by Dutch colonists. Incidentally New York in North America was originally called NieuwAmsterdam; it was traded for Suriname by the British Empire and renamed New York!
Local customs
As with many countries there are strange customs here; men can be seen carrying one small bird in a birdcage. These songbirds (Pikolets, lesser seed eaters, and Twa Twas, greater seed eaters) are kept to compete in singing competitions. They are trapped, almost to extinction, and exchange hands for hundreds of dollars. From our mooring we often saw the Suriname river ferry pass with someone carefully holding his caged bird, en route to a competition.
Suriname is roughly 5°N and 55°W so has a tropical climate with four seasons: major and minor rainy seasons from April to August and December to February, and major and minor dry seasons from August to December, and February to April.
Arriving in early February put us in the ‘short’ dry season although you’d never have known it! There were showers almost every day although the rain was warm and soon passed. Temperatures were generally 30°C during the daytime and around 23°C at night, and with high humidity often felt hot and sticky, particularly when there was no wind. We polished the wood inside the cabin regularly whilst we were there in an effort to keep mould at bay!
Sadly my camera also suffered in the humidity resulting in a bit of ‘blur’ on some of our photos. We couldn’t leave Suriname without taking a trip inland so we packed our mozzie repellent, sun block and camera and headed upriver.
Numerous tour operators in Paramaribo offer trips inland and upriver, but we decided to risk going it alone so we hired a four-wheel drive car and headed 200km inland to Atjoni – the end of the line for drivable roads and the start of unbroken rainforest accessible only by river.
We’d managed to book a few nights at Danpaati Island Lodge, three-hours upriver from Atjoni. North of Domburg and the next village, Paranam, the road is long, straight and lined on both sides with rainforest, broken only by occasional small wooden-hut villages. With very little traffic the drive was quite relaxing, especially compared with our whiteknuckle excursions to Paramaribo. The road is also surprisingly good – again compared with Paramaribo’s lumpy, pot-holed roads.
We took a detour to see the Afobaka hydroelectric dam built in the early 1960s primarily to help power aluminium processing plants. About 75% of the electricity goes to the plants and the remaining 25% goes to the city of Paramaribo. The rainforest trees were left in the valley when the area was flooded, as a result the remnants of a rainforest graveyard can be seen from the surface of Brokopondo Reservoir – not that we saw it. The road shown on our map across the top of the reservoir doesn’t exist now and we had to retrace our route for 25km.
Dazzling destination
Arrival at Atjoni, the river ferry port, was sudden and dazzling. We drove around a corner and the road just ended in a big slipway… and what a sight!
Cars and buses lined the sides of the road and people carrying all sorts of goods and luggage were everywhere.
‘During a torrential downpour the banks either side of the river disappeared into the murk’
Fast food stalls and warungs (bars) were doing a steady trade as boats were loaded and unloaded. Colourful riverboats vied for position on the slipway and for customers. After we parked someone called Danpaati Lodge to let them know we were on the way.
Two hours later we were still waiting for our boat to finish loading! More and more things were carried aboard – chairs, food supplies, fuel, luggage and, believe it or not, this was all topped with a wheelbarrow and a double mattress!
Now this boat is about 50ft long and only 6ft wide, and all the load was placed at the front end leaving the few seats for passengers at the back. This would have been OK except the boat was hauled half way onto the slipway and wedged between lots of other boats making access very difficult. The boatmen balanced on the gunwales and ran along the length of the boat but this didn’t seem to be a viable option for us would-be passengers!
Eventually we clambered onto whichever neighbouring boats had space, crossed over to ours and were finally off.
Heart-stopping rapids
The journey upriver was breathtaking. Although wide the river is shallow and there are numerous sandbanks and rocks. The boats are fitted with outboard engines and the boatmen are brilliant; they have to know every inch of the river as they negotiate the banks, rocks and rapids with incredible skill. It was heart-stopping in places and we felt sure we’d get a dunking when the boat skimmed between rocks and rushing waters! We did get quite wet from the spray. Locals carry umbrellas for sun, spray and rain – a wise move!
We passed several villages and saw groups of women washing clothes, pots and pans – along with themselves and their children – in the river.
At one point we rounded a bend and there, sticking up from the rainforest was a phone mast! It seemed totally out of place. We stopped once or twice at villages to deliver people or goods, which meant much searching and rearranging of the load. I was itching to take photos but had been warned that many of the people object to having their photo taken as they believe it damages their soul. Superstition and old myths are very much alive here. I had to content myself with distant shots taken surreptitiously or from the middle of the river.
After three hours we finally arrived at Danpaati Lodge. We were hot and sticky and were met at the jetty by a happy and smiling woman called Christa who took us to an open sided bar/lounge. We’d chosen our accommodation well!.
Over a welcome cold melon and mango drink and a snack of fried plantain in batter with spicy peanut salsa (Bakabana – delicious!) she told us a bit about the island then showed us to our ‘cabana’. It was basic but very clean with two single beds covered in mosquito netting, and toilet and shower (cold filtered river water). A lovely veranda overlooked the river.
We spent two relaxed and peaceful days on the island. In the mornings and evenings we saw riverboats ferrying children from villages upriver to the school in the village of Dan on the opposite bank. Danpaati means Dan island, or ‘island near Dan’ in Saramaccan, the language of the villagers in this area.
The food was good, nothing exotic but nicely cooked by village women from Dan who work at the lodge. They were always laughing and chatting and seem so happy.
Christa, our lovely hostess, was from a village farther upriver; after attending a local school, she went to college in Paramaribo. This is only possible for young people with relatives in, or who can afford accommodation in, Paramaribo. Christa speaks several languages and had also worked for the Peace Corps as a translator.
Next day we went over to Dan by riverboat. Our guide was Simeon who escorted us and apologised for his broken English, although we thought he did really well considering his first language is Saramaccan and second, Dutch. We visited the school with its 250 children all dressed in smart, checked shirts.
It’s impressive the way the schoolchildren are turned out so neatly when they live in such surroundings. We wandered through the village with Simeon telling us about the plants and how people live. It was almost exclusively women, many bare-breasted. Some covered up as we approached but others didn’t (causing Kit great embarrassment!). The huts were mainly timber, many with palm leaf roofs, others with tin sheeting and there are communal cooking huts with shiny clean pans hanging outside. The floors are dirt the same as the village paths.
With no running water, rainwater is collected for drinking and cooking but washing and pots and pans are carried down to the river by the women. It appears to be a social event too judging by the laughter during this work. We saw
two satellite dishes – yes, even here. They were a bit battered and we weren’t sure if they were functioning or even if there was electricity, although we did see an old generator outside one hut and Christa later informed us that the lodge donated it.
Return journey
The trip back downriver was just as spectacular as before. The water level had dropped as the ‘dry’ season’ finally kicked in and this time we had a ‘spotter’ on the front of the boat with a paddle. Passing over very shallow areas over rocks the helmsman pulled up the engine and the guy at the front pushed and paddled to guide us. We hit bottom once with an awful grating sound but arrived at Atjoni safely.
Despite the navigational difficulties the river here is the life-blood of the interior, providing a means of transport for goods and people to the inaccessible villages. There are several small airstrips dotted about in the rainforest but the cost of flights would be prohibitive, certainly for the villagers. So until a road is built life will probably not improve much for the people.
We’d planned a visit to Brownsberg Nature Reserve on the way back. Brownsberg has all eight species of Suriname’s primates along with lots of other wildlife. We turned off the tarmac road and negotiated 15km of potholed, dirt track to the reserve (four-wheel drive essential!). Things looked promising when we saw an Agouti run across the track in front of us, and a spider monkey swinging through the tree canopy above the track. However the room we were offered on arrival was pretty disgusting so we just took a short walk around and left. At least the beer at Domburg was cold and we received a warm welcome from the other yachties in the clubhouse.
One by one the other yachts left to go up to the Caribbean, and it was time for us to do the same. We departed Domburg moorings on the ebb tide on 9 March and motored down river. Bobbing about at anchor in the river mouth we saw a beautiful sunset, and next morning were fortunate enough to see some of the rare wildlife of Suriname; pink river dolphins played around our boat and a flock of red ibis flew overhead to their feeding grounds on the north-east coast, so we left on a high note.
Why visit?
Suriname is an unusual destination less visited by yachts and unspoilt by mass tourism. It was a privilege to be one of only 13 visiting yachts instead of one in hundreds as can be in popular Caribbean destinations.
It’s also a good place to make landfall after crossing the Atlantic or coming from further south. With the prevailing winds and the Guianas current running north-northwest it is more challenging to come down from the Caribbean although several of the yachts had done so without too much difficulty.
There’s a lot to see and do in Suriname before heading north into the Caribbean and it could be a safe alternative during hurricane season. Just a few miles further upriver from Domburg is Marina Resort Waterland. It is a secure gated site and has berths for around 12 yachts. We didn’t stay there but hear that several yachts have been safely left there during the hurricane season.
It is also possible to enter the Commewijne River although there are extensive shallows at the confluence of the Commewijne and Suriname Rivers and the tidal currents can run strongly (3+ knots) so extra care is needed.
Since our visit there have been improvements at Domburg and we hear there is now a bar and restaurant, swimming pool and washing machine (marinasuriname.com).
We really enjoyed our time in Suriname. It’s an interesting and scenic country, the people are friendly and welcoming, the food is good and we always felt safe. What more could you ask for?
‘We could hear the roars of the red howler monkeys in the forest at dawn and dusk’