We arrived this morning (Tuesday 13 April) in Saint Louis, Senegal after a brilliant six day passage totally under sail. And we saw dolphins, whales, turtles, flying fish and pelicans. We actually took five days but when we arrived we were surprised to find that the channel indicated on our chart to enter the river did not exist. Even though our chart was updated last year! So we sailed around for the night to continue our search in daylight. St Louis is in the Senegal River which is seperated from the sea by a long peninsular. And the channel on the chart was actually a beach. Martin had downloaded a photo of the channel from google earth with gps coordinates which we found the next morning much further north than on the chart and we went in no problem following the little fishing boats.
We now know what happened…St Louis was threatened by floods so they decided to dig a channel 4 metres wide across the peninsular to help the river drain into the sea. But this channel wasn’t stabilised and now it is a mile wide and as a result the old channel has silted up and the mouth of the river has closed to form a lagoon. Dramatic consequences for the wildlife and the population. All this happened in 2005 and still the marine charts are not updated. An adventure for us. If there are other boats who want to visit St Louis we can give you the coordinates.
First impressions…very colourful and lively and very friendly people.
Our phone number in Senegal is 00 212 77 309 7096
1 comment
bibi didier says:
15 April 2010 at 08:07 (UTC 0 )
nous etions inquiets, car par de vos nouvelles
nous n’avons pas eu le temps de se dire au revoir
on vous embrasse bien fort