A Day Trip to Braamspunt, Suriname

It has been a weird week. I'm on a temporary break from making daily videos, as I trying to align things at work at there are a lot of new projects coming up and combining that with creating content has let to too many sleepless nights in this new year already. However, the daily video journey continues February 1st.

About Braamspunt

Back to the topic at hand, a day trip to Suriname's most accessible beach along the Atlantic Ocean. Braamspunt is a very small beach at the river mounth of the Suriname River, the main river in Suriname. It is about an one hour boat ride from Leonsberg, the neighborhood where I grew up and currently reside.

To put things into perspective, a little screenshot from Google maps:

Now, for those who want to have a little more perspective, I decided to zoom out a bit to give a general idea where Suriname is located geographically with Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico (and the South East of the US):

The Trip

So my wife and her friends decided to go for a day trip to Braamspunt to celebrate the birthday of one of the children and I (after some convincing from my wife) decided to tag along. To make it a little more fun, I used my son as the guide for this trip.

Ready for boarding: The weather didn't look nice in the morning, but everything cleared up so we had a sunny day.

Enjoying the boat ride: My son is really into boats. Whenever he sees one, he always wants to hop on and join for a ride, so no one happier than him to finally jump in. Due to Covid regulations in Suriname, a maximum of 5 adults is allowed per boat, which of course made the trip a little more expensive, but there were some perks as well.

Safely arrived at Braamspunt: Just of the boat and not sure yet what the next step would be. Due to the low tide, we had to walk a little to get to the hand made hut where we would spend the day. There is no official lodging at Braamspunt. Several fisherman have set up camps and the hut where we stayed was set up by a friend who goes there for kite surfing on a weekly basis.

On the look-out: One of the new things at Braamspunt that wasn't there when I visited the last time was the look-out tower, a wooden tower with a pretty good view of the beach.

The view from above: Interestingly, the beach was a lot greener than I remembered. Also, it has gotten really small. This is especially concerning since it is one of the few spots in Suriname left where sea turtles can lay their eggs.

Going in for a swim: Both the weather and the tide were pretty favorable for the children to get in. I remember getting completely crushed by the waves as a child, but of course, a lot of things look bigger when you are young. I lastly do have to note the Suriname has brown beaches and the sea water isn't clear blue like in the Caribbean. Most beaches in our country are mud beaches, including several parts of Braamspunt as well.

Braamspunt sure has a lot of potential and still is very underdeveloped as a beach destination, but great for a short day trip. And also the sunset at Braamspunt can be quite gorgeous (we couldn't stay for that this time around as the evening lockdown starts at 7 PM). I think I already shared a Braamspunt sunset photo here, but I'm sharing my favorite Braamspunt photo here as well.

[Sunset at Braamspunt 2014. Personal collection.]

Thanks for reading and joining in on the trip!

#lobi
@jeanlucsr