The Maroni River and the fascinating port of call of Saint Laurent
The ebb waters of the Maroni, laden with alluvial deposits, meet the twenty knots of easterly trade winds, evoking a ploughed field.
Before reaching Saint-Laurent, Coswine Creek, Vaches Creek and Manatee Creek are anchors in the heart of the tropical fauna.
Saint-Laurent has the feel of a large village
The streets are wide and airy, and the many colonial buildings, some of them magnificent, give it an exceptional character.
Saint Laurent is rarely visited by sailors. Yet it is probably the most convenient port of entry to French Guiana.
Anchoring is prohibited, due to the riverâ??s strong current. However, an area has been set aside with serious moorings and a "âeurosannexesâeuros" space, which is quite frequentable.
On the other bank of the river, it's Surinam
The incessant ballet of crossing pirogues only slows down with the arrival of night.
Theft and petty theft are frequent, and everything has to be padlocked. This is the slightly unpleasant aspect, but well known to real travelers. The splendor of the banks of the Maroni is well worth a pirogue trip.
We'll take the opportunity to discover several Amerindian villages. The staple food of the Surinamese villagers is manioc roots, from which they make pancakes somewhat similar to our bread. Most of the houses are made of wood and covered with palm-leaf roofs, shingles or corrugated iron sheets.
Pirogues, the main means of transport on the river
Built from a hollowed-out tree trunk then deformed by fire, they come in two types. The "âeurosnez pointusâeuros" for navigating estuaries and "âeuroscouper les vaguesâeuros", and the "âeurosnez rondâeuros" for crossing "âeurossautsâeuros", i.e. rapids with little water. They scrape up the pebbles, which can be overcome by passing them with momentum... without forgetting to put the powerful outboard motor to good use. The Maroni has given rise to small towns in the Amazon jungle, accessible only by river or air, such as Maripasoula (population 9970). The entire hinterland (90% of the territory) is covered by dense tropical forests.
The Illes du Salut, 90 miles south of the mouth of the Maroni river
Ile Royale is a pure marvelâeuros! What beauty, what charmâeuros!
A small, shady path leads around it. You'll come across a multitude of monkeys and agoutis competing for the coconuts in their meal.
They are abundant here, as the exuberant vegetation includes hundreds of coconut palms. If you look out to sea, in the immediate vicinity of the shoreline, you can often make out the head of a turtle emerging for a few seconds before diving to the bottom, in search of some roborative treat...
Only one place to swim: Anse Le Goff.
Its turquoise waters invite you to relax.
Elsewhere, it's dangerous due to currents, slippery rocks and sharks. In the last century, when the penal colony still housed its "âeurosconvivesâeuros", the shores of these islands were infested with sharks. They fed richly on the waste and bodies of prisoners thrown into the sea each time they died. This was a frequent occurrence, as only prison staff were allowed a recent sepulture.
Today, there seem to be far fewer of these fearsome predators. It's true that culinary habits evolve with the times
