It would have been fun to continue upriver, maybe even go until the junction with the main stem of the Orinoco and come out that way, but we had to return. Reuben's parents, who had come out to join Alsager for the trip, needed to fly back home to St. Maarten. Anyway, we were getting antsy to have some swimmable water and some walkable land around our boat, and the jungle was giving way to less-interesting grassland, so we made Lau Lau Lagoon our furthest-in point.
Downriver, of course, we flew with the current, recording GPS speeds of 8 and 9 knots. Since two segments of our upstream trip had been on side streams which eventually rejoined the main river, we passed through some new territory -- new trees to look at, new side caños to explore, and most especially new villages to trade with. Not that our old friends at the villages we'd passed on the way upstream ignored us; we had to stop at each and every one to do a little more business. We now have more baskets and beads than we know what to do with. Our aft cabin, where we've stashed all our loot for now, still has a faint odor of "Bop", the Barbadian insecticide we sprayed all the stuff with before taking it indoors.
On our last day we sailed most of the way down the river. The wind was flukey and light, jumping around from side to side and dropping without warning, but since we had a good current it didn't matter that we weren't always making much speed. It was nice to turn the motor off for a while and hear the sounds of the river. Most interesting was that as we neared a village we heard them all yelling and screaming, dogs barking, children cheering as they paddled madly toward us in their canoes -- all noises that had been masked by our engines!
Since Alsager had bumped bottom a few times on the way in, we all agreed to leave the Macareo at just before high tide. This turned out to be 6:30 a.m., an early start for us slackers on Windom, but we managed to wake up in time. We all made it through the channel without incident, but because the tide was now dropping, we again had current against us going back to Trinidad. It doesn't seem fair that it should have been uphill both ways!
One unusual sight on our way back was the very distinct line where the brown river water hit the green ocean water. Quite a bit of flotsam collected along this line, we guess because of the confluence of currents.
Since we started so early, we decided to go all the way back to Chaguaramas (68 miles) that day. There wasn't enough wind to sail at the speed we needed, and in fact with the stupid contrary current (which of course switched direction just when we got on its good side, so it was against us all the way) we could barely motorsail fast enough, and we got into Chaguaramas just after sunset. All the semi-decent places to anchor were too crowded to shoehorn into, and it got darker and darker, and nobody was using anchor lights, and finally we gave up in disgust and anchored way the heck out where the big ships were in 100 feet, a record depth for us, where it was rolly all night. Have I mentioned yet that I hate this anchorage?
The next day we moved somewhere slightly better, but we're not staying put for long. After doing laundry, picking up a few more supplies, and doing a hike with a local hiking group, we're heading out. Time to find some clear water we can swim in!