september, 2005 hi folks -- six months is way to short a time to properly see brazil, with its 4000 miles of coastline and huge interior, but thats all you get, so we had to be out by august, july 29th to be exact. so we checked out of natal on the 29th and were given 72 hours to leave. we dilly dallied a bit, but finally left for trinidad via french guyana and suriname. there is a current flowing to the west along the north coast of brazil and also the tradewinds from the east or south east, so we had a fast passage. did a couple of 180 mile days, which is very fast for wonderland. brazil -> french guyana ----------------------- cayenne is the capital of french guyana but from the depths on the charts its harbor is only open to small boats at then only at high tide. so we skipped it and went to the commercial port there that is out in the middle nowhere. stayed a couple of days, rented a car and visited the european space center there. the eu has its space launching stuff in french guyana because its close to the equator and they can get a boost by launching to the west and gaining the speed of the earths rotation for free. things were quite expensive after brazil and we didnt stay long. next stop was the iles du salut and devils island that were a french penal colony for political prisoners until about 1946. we walked around one of the old prisons and were pretty glad not to be french activists in the late 1800s or early 1900s. the cells were about 6 feet by 8 feet with bars for a roof and no furniture, no bed, no chair, nothing. each had a stake and ring the prisoners were chained to. the guards could walk on the roof bars and see what they were doing. must have really been bad when it rained. the mosquitoes were well fed i'm sure. no one escaped from devils island, primarily because it was easily 20 miles from the french guyana coastline and the current speeds by at about 3 knots headed for trinidad and the caribbean. we stayed only a couple of days because the anchorage was not well protected and quite bouncy when the wind was against the tide. our next port was the former dutch guyana, now called suriname. the suriname river is navigable for many miles and the capital city is about 15 miles up it. the coast is shallow for a long ways out and we followed a buoyed channel for what seemed like forever. the buoys were green against a green coastline and far enough apart to be very hard to see from one to the next. several times we had to just head in the "right" direction till we could see the next buoy, all the while trying to not let the 2-3 knot current slide us sideways too much. managed to get in and anchored off the capital city of paramaribo. french guyana -> suriname ------------------------- we tried to check in, but got sent from one office to another until someone finally said we didnt need to do anything. so although i've been to suriname, i have no passport stamp to show for it. the official language is dutch and many people also speak english. suriname has the most diverse population of any of the countries that we have visited so far. its 15% indian, 15% javanese, 15% african, 15% european, 15% carib indian, etc. many slaves were sold to the plantations there, but most of them escaped into the jungle and joined the indigenous populations in the interior. as a result, the villages are more traditional african in suriname, than in africa. we did a 4 day tour to the interior, visiting their mountain and several native villages. there were two most memorable things from this trip: the absolutely yummy cooking of local dishes by carla and the terrible bumpy car ride that took 5-6 hours on a dusty dirt road full of potholes in an un-airconditioned van. another highlight was the ride in a local dugout canoe with an outboard engine that went up rapids that looked like they would be challenging for a kayak to come down. very experienced canoe drivers. suriname seemed to have no icecream, we always find a favorite ice cream place in each port we visit, but failed in suriname. but they did have the big beers like in brazil, and the prices were like brazil, nice and cheap. suriname -> trinidad -------------------- my crew for the brazil to trinidad leg was adam, a student from hungary on his summer break and peter, a friend from florida who has sailed extensively. peter's recent hernia operation couldnt handle the rough potholed road and 6 hour drive and so he flew back from suriname and adam and i continued on to trinidad alone. the watches got longer, but we made it fine. we arrived on the north east coast of trinidad and needed to go to the northwest corner to check in. the north coast is 50 miles long, so we couldnt make it in daylight and chose to anchor off a little fishing village for the night and continue the next day. it was a lovely anchorage with a quaint little fishing village, but we didnt go ashore since it was illegal even to stop. trinidad/tobago is serious about their checkin/out procedures, so we didnt mention our stop the next day when we officially arrived. as we were sailing down the channel between trinidad and venezuela to the customs place in chaugaramas bay a dinghy came roaring out of scotland bay headed right for us. it was rick on a boat we knew from brazil and he showed us right where to go. arriving in chaugaramas from suriname was like going from a small village in vermont to new york city. instead of being the only boat, we were one of thousands. people seem to get stuck in trinidad. when i asked a few boats how long they had been there, the answer was always in years. but they seem to sit in the boatyards or at anchor and not sail much. maybe because its hurricane season and the only places safe to go are along the venezuelan coast. we had a reservation at a marina and so after checking in, docked and went to sleep. found it was hard to sleep in the marina, very hot, no breeze, several pesky mosquitoes, and boat working noises from 6am on. all three of my nieces are deemed tastier by the mosquito population so i have been spoiled in this regard. however, the trinidad mosquitoes liked both adam and me equally, so my crew protection factor was gone. one of the first chores was to get a simm card for my cell phone so i could make local calls and so my family could call me. got one at a local mall and everything seemed fine, but no one could call me from the states. my blackberry could texto the phone but my son could not call me. tried everything, based on information on the web when i googled for things like trinidad country code. the collection of answers for how to call from the usa included: 1-868-number 011-868-number 011-1868-number 011-868-868-number 011-186868-number with so many right answers, none of which worked, i finally went back to the store where i got the simm card and asked. they said 1-868-number, i said but it doesnt work to receive calls, works to make calls and for local calls. they sent me to the tstt phone company, fortunately in the same mall. and they took one look at the number i had been given and said i needed a new number because that one was a new exchange and it had not been loaded into the international database of valid prefixes. but of course to fix it they needed my original paperwork and an ID, neither of which i had. but the end was in sight and the problem was identified. i now have a working cell phone: 1-868-688-1418. and even an address for the next month or two: evi nemeth, s/v wonderland powerboats marina po box 3163 carenage trinidad, west indies boat chores ----------- the main reason i came to trinidad was to get the corrosion at the top of my mast fixed. the temporary fix that a friend, jeff from australia, did held the mast up till we got here, but leaving it longer was not sensible. we hauled the boat out to pull the mast because the water in the bay is so choppy from outboards zooming every which way that the crane operator did not want to try to do it in the water. my rigger from ft. lauderdale, andy, came down to do the work of rerigging me and also to deal with the contractors who would fabricate a new masthead and weld it in. we did a week of hard work in the hot sun, getting all the problems identified, getting the mast out and disassembled, pulling out all the halyards and putting messengers (little strings that can be used to pull the ropes back into the mast later) in their place, and making a huge list of all the things i need that he will get and ship down. biggest problem was that the corrosion had made it very hard to pull up the sails and even harder to pull up a full sized rigger in a bosuns chair. and of course we forgot on the first pull to the top of the mast to take off the wind instrument that if you leave on is guaranteed to be knocked off by the crane operator. so my winches and i got a workout that morning. also on the list to fix here in trinidad are: windlass that will actually pull up the anchor bottom paint that is advertised to last for 5 years new non-skid surface on the deck that isnt so hot in the tropics fixing the autopilot making a little autopilot drive my wind vane steering and about a zillion other little things. not sure i will get all of them done, but will try. one problem i have is not knowing what really should be done. for example, i have contractors telling me what the bottom of the boat needs and their advice varies from: just sanding and painting it with bottom paint, to stripping off the gel coat (the outside layer of the fiberglass hull), putting on a barrier coat, putting on two coats of primer and finally the bottom paint. i have about 5 bids for the bottom paint, all specifying a different amount of work and all professing to be telling me what i really need to do. i suspect that because its a slow time and they dont have much to do they are inflating the seriousness of the flaws they see on the bottom of the boat. i rented an air conditioner for the boat and that has set my chore-doing back a bit, since most of the chores are outside in the 90 degree heat and humidity instead of inside in cool airconditioned comfort. wireless on the boat hasnt helped either, but sure is nice. am trying to decide whether to stay in the caribbean for a year and see belize, guatemala, honduras, panama and some of the caribbean islands or head direct for panama and go into the pacific. am leaning toward the caribbean for a year. still have no definite crew, but a pretty definite maybe from an australian girl, rachael, who is backpacking around central america now. when i get to the pacific i dont know whether to try for a circuit like i did in the atlantic or go all the way around. if i stay in the caribbean for a year, there is lots of time for folks to visit, so when it gets bleak and snowy, think caribbean sailing vacation with evi. hugs. -evi