Plans were to go to Suriname and join Springtime and Taremaro but after some negative reports about the heat and the tide in the river, I decided to stay a bit longer at Isle du Salut and spend more time on the Islands. We had a braai one evening on St Thomas on the beach. The mango's on the island are the sweetest that I have ever tasted. I had to clear out of French Guiana and went to Kourou to do so.
Kourou is a nice little town on the river and have a small marina. Yachts anchor in the river and it was very quiet and peaceful. I anchored there for a day and left the next morning for Isle du Salut. After spending such a great time on the Islands it was time to leave.
On Saturday morning we were 5 yachts that left for Tobago. It took Mila 4 days to do the 640 miles and I arrived in Tobago on Wednesday. The sailing conditions varied from very light winds to squalls of 35 knts. Milo, the boat cat enjoyed himself with all the flying fish. He tried to get as much of the fish into the boat in the shortest possible time. I even had a fish on my pillow. He must have thought to leave a present for me.
Anchoring in Tobago is another dream come true. I am finally in the Caribbean. The water is clear and clean, I can see the anchor in 15 meters of water. Clearing into the country was easy but expensive. It is hot and humid but so far there is a nice cool breeze blowing, and life on board is comfortable. The people here are friendly, but one will have to get use to the English they speak.
Springtime is still in Suriname and they are sailing to Tobago soon. It was nice to see so many of my old friends that I met along the way, some were in Salvador and Itaparika with me. We had a barbecue on Wednesday evening at a local restaurant and all the yachties were there, you can imagine the party.
The island is very green and beautiful and we are 20 boats anchored in the bay at Charlotteville. The currency here is the Trinidad /Tobago Dollar, they call it the TT dollar and the current exchange rate is 6 TT to the US dollar. Things are expensive. There is a six hour time difference with South Africa. Once I have been to more places on the Island I will have some more information.
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