Partner and manager of two marinas in Mallorca for 15 years Oscar has been designer and consultant for marina projects in various countries, and designer of customized marina elements. He has shared his experience through more than 30 conferences in 12countries and has written numerous articles for Marina World and other international nautical magazines. Oscar is a Certified Marina Professional, was founder director of the Global Marina Institute, member of ICOMIA’s Marinas Committee, member of PIANC Recreational Marine Committee, Convenor of ISO TC228 WG8“Yacht Harbours”, member of the Global Marine Business Advisers (GMBA) group and founding member of the Asia Pacific Super yacht Association.
Oscar Siches recounts his experience searching for diesel in the second city of French Guiana.
Kourou. It is one of those places you only reach by chance.
We had set sail from Buenos Aires, bound for Bonaire, one of the three Dutch Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela. We would be travelling 4,800 miles in a motor-sailer named “Sea Witch”, a vessel of 25m in length and 75 years of age, and one that had survived a collision with a submarine at the exit of the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base.
The Sea Witch had a bad reputation, she was a cursed boat. Oak hull on oak and iron frames, I never knew who designed or built her, and she was moored at the Yacht Club Argentino de San Fernando. Being one of the largest boats there, everyone knew her. At 25 years of age myself, the only thing that interested me was sailing, adventure, and the experiences to be had along seven countries of endless and mysterious coasts. Before leaving, we had installed five bilge pumps because despite caulking the hull two months before (in the traditional method of opening of seams, red lead paint, wick pressed at the seams with the fairing iron, and then finished with putty made with red lead, talc and varnish, and launch within 72 hours to avoid the putty drying), the hull moved a lot and as a result we made about 200 litres of water per hour while under way.
We were a crew of four. We had made stops in Paratí, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia, Recife, and an inlet – the name for which I do not remember, but where the locals gave us 10 banana clusters – Fortaleza, San Luis de Marañón just before the mouth of the Amazon river, and Kourou, the second city (the capital is Cayenne) of French Guiana that takes its name from the river that caresses it, and where eight miles from the mouth are the Salvation Islands: Île Royale, Saint Joseph, and the Île du Diable, (the Devil’s Island of Captain Dreyfuss and Papillon).
We landed in the cove to the south of Île Royale, anchored, and disembarked, both curious and delighted to have already left behind 3,400 miles. We came across the prison staff buildings in pretty good condition, and some helpful French-speaking locals whom I asked if I could get diesel. No go. To fuel up with diesel you had to enter through the Kourou River and the bar was a dodgy one to negotiate. I forgot to tell them that by way of on-board electronics, I carried a VHF and a depth sounder, with a neon flash that suddenly went up or down a metre by means that had nothing to do with religion, but made us pray that at that moment it was accurate because we had just a metre of water under the keel!
We toured the island, and they told us of the 75,000 political prisoners that died there. Those who did not die on the island died from tropical sicknesses while building the road to Saint Laurent du Maroni, and were thrown to the sharks (abundant in the area and an archaic recycling method). I still remember the visit to the cemetery, where half of the tombstones signalled the graves of children under 10 years old, and the punishment cells at Île St. Joseph, which are today pierced by enormous roots that condemn the inhumane practices which took place there by breaking the walls inexorably.
The next day, a French Navy corvette anchored near us. They came by tender to ask who we were, where we were going, the usual… I told them about our need for diesel, and they invited us to follow them to Kourou the next day – the high tide was in the morning, they had almost the same draft as us and they had to go to the Kourou dock, where we could order a truck with diesel. We spent the day hiking the other two islands, and visited the training camps of the French Foreign Legion, and saw curious pools built from stacked stones on the coastline so that the water could rise and fall with the tide and permit bathing safely protected from sharks.
In the morning the corvette gave us a sound signal and set sail for the brown spot that entered the Atlantic and marked the mouth of the river. It was blowing from the NE and the swell increased as we sailed through less and less depth.
It was difficult to keep the course in the wake of the corvette, the waves took the stern sideways and we had to give a lot of rudder anticipating the effect, but having that ship of the French Navy show us the way gave me a sense of safety that, knowing that it was totally subjective, made me enjoy the adventure. The breakers looked very active on both sides and suddenly, in a matter of seconds, we passed the river mouth and stopped rolling and pitching, the Caterpillar purred stable, and the moisture transpired by the river was breathed with pleasure and relief. Two miles up, a concrete pier with a major esplanade and a kind of ranch made from straw and palm leaves gave us a lonely welcome. A tall, blue-banded kepi Legionnaire (sub-officer) materialized (we never knew from where) and approached us.
We carried the “Q” flag requesting free practice in the high port shroud under the first spreader, the French flag on the starboard, and the registration Argentine in a socket in the crowning of the stern. The legionary asked us for the passports and told us that we could go ashore but not leave the (unfenced) perimeter of the esplanade. After 20 minutes he was back, returned the passports, and welcomed us, informing us that we could lower the “Q” flag. He said we could go wherever we wanted but must comply with the safety signals: Kourou is a rocket (Ariane) launch station, and many safety regulations must be observed. He told us where to get a cold beer, but that if we saw a fight begin we should run away, because the guys (les mecs) tend to get a little violent and with the training they carried it was best not to participate. I asked him about the diesel, and he offered to manage it for me. I asked him if I had to close the ship or leave someone on duty and he replied, the right corner of his mouth moving two millimetres, which I interpreted as a laugh: “There are ten pairs of eyes looking at this boat, as long as you are here you are untouchable.”
Within five minutes we were at the rancho-bar. It was the wild west in tropical form, all we were missing was John Wayne in a camouflaged vest. Behind the bar stood a humanoid to whom the shoulders were attached to the face without an apparent neck, and the face wore an unfriendly expression that had surely been fermenting for 50 years or more. Two small windows allowed the circulation of a 40ºC breeze that brought to mind the apocalypse and the prelude to hell…
“Bonjour!” I expressed with the attitude of a seasoned sailor. “Quatre bières, s’il vous plait- Kronenbourg1664”. I was not in the mood to play the suicidal cocky captain and ask for Heineken. I paid with dollars, the tip almost greater than the price, and we went for a walk into town, happy to be alive and sweating out the bar experience, never mind the beer. Half an hour on a paved road took us to New Kourou, an artificial, modern city, where the technicians and scientists of the Arianne project were housed.
New Kourou was totally tax-free, whether it was cigarettes, supermarket shopping, perfume or clothing. We provisioned there, buying cigarettes and perfume, and accepted the transport to the boat that the supermarket offered “aux premières clients argentins de la maison” (to the house’s first Argentinian clients).
When we arrived at the dock, there was a TOTAL fuel truck waiting for us with the diesel. I liked this place more and more.
That afternoon a Legionary who had been in the bar showed up, in uniform. He spoke a little Spanish, and you could tell he wanted to chat. He told us that the French Legion’s 3rd Infantry Regiment was permanently stationed in French Guiana. To listen to him was to daydream, to live the books read in one of the places where the war events occurred, to look and listen to a protagonist. Leo, one of my crew, asked him if he had ever been hurt. And this parishioner, entertaining himself with his strong Spanish accent, raised his head and rendered us mute, leaving us looking foolishly at a scar that went from ear to ear – badly healed, a second mouth on his head, and an irregular, violent protagonist of our memories of Kourou during the following days.
The Legionary told us that they had been sent to Algeria, where France still had a conflictive presence, and had been ordered to control a town far from the capital. Almost all of them were circulated in mobylettes, those motorcycle-bicycles so popular in France. One night, when he left the headquarters to go to the tents where they slept, the locals had set a cable trap across the street. “If it had been a normal bike and I had gone faster,” he told us, “I would not have made it.”
We filed the departure papers and caught the high tide early in next morning, negotiating the bar and sailing to pass the Strait of Serpents Mouth south of Trinidad, one of the two mouths that allow access to the Gulf of Paria, separating Trinidad from Venezuela.
The four and a half thousand litres of diesel, 3,000 in tanks and 1,500 in drums of 200 litres each, had transformed us into an asthmatic hippopotamus, with little manoeuvrability and slow reactions. We took the tide tacking in the channel, so if the keel touched the bottom the swell beating on the beam would allow us to get free again. Serpents Mouth was waiting for us: heading 298, 620 miles ahead.
