Endurance

I am, officially, in love. She is beautiful and elegant with a few minor flaws that serve only to endear her to those who know her peculiarities. She seems to glide through every movement, and is deliberate in every course of action. I was introduced to the object of my affections yesterday in Godolo and stared in disbelief that she could be mine. I took her home with me to Diitabiki after only a few hours together.

Here is a picture:

Her name is Endurance, and this morning we had our first disagreement. She wanted to go in a direction that I was not comfortable with, and she would not respond to my gentle prodding. After going around in circles a few times we compromised and ended the discussion at the bank. I’m going to have to work on her. Then again, the fault could lie entirely with me.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a dugout canoe, and it feels like getting my first bike all over again. In March I started exploring the possibility of getting a boat. A friend of mine asked the Godolo craftsman, Baya, to make the canoe. About a month afterward, expecting the boat to be well under way, I discovered that Baya had not begun and that the price was above my range, so I went to Godolo to negotiate. I was successful, but I later learned that in other villages, boats can be found for a little less. By this time it was May, and the boat maker said it would take a couple of weeks before he completed the canoe. True to Suriname timing, the Endurance was finished on schedule about a week ago.

It’s a very nice boat. It is not, however, simply a bow and a stern and crossbeams and planks; that’s what a dugout canoe needs. But what a dugout canoe is, what the Endurance is…is freedom. Now I can explore the river whenever I want, paddle my own way to the airfield, and visit friends on other islands.

I had originally wanted to paddle from Godolo to Diitabiki, a five-hour voyage downstream, but my protective neighbors adamantly opposed this. Where is the sense of adventure these days? Fortunately for them, another friend offered to take me to Godolo and bring the canoe back with us in his larger, motorized canoe. I am now finding that paddling a hollowed-out tree trunk upstream through rapids is a great workout, and while I did not travel solo through vast stretches of virgin rainforest for the Endurance’s maiden voyage, there are plenty of challenges to conquer in the Diitabiki archipelago.