Saloum River - Senegal, West Africa?

[Tim Good]

Has anyone been or know anyone that has cruised up the Saloum Delta National Park in Senegal?

We were considering going down to Cape Verde and crossing the Atlantic in November but fancy delaying the crossing and visiting West Africa first; then crossing the pond in January perhaps. It will mean a short caribeanean season but not bothered about that to be fair.

 

[Roberto]

We cruised that area for several months during the past few years; as always, depending upon what your tastes are you may totally li:e or dislike it.
Supposing you like cruising in that kind of places, I d personally rate Sine Saloum area as 3, Casamance as 6, Gambia as 20, Bijagos archipelago (farther south in Guinea bissau) probably 100 (with proportional difficulties).

Re Senegal, please ascertain beforhand what the formalities are, they have changed a lot recently, especially wrt entry/exit ports, now it seems everythingng has to be done in Dakar, which is anuisance if you want to exit say from Casamance (apparently Ziguinchor is not allowed any more, be do check). We have been checked by local authorities even in remote places, my personal advice stick with regulations no matter what other people say, theyare places where you meet all sort of "foreign" visitors with very personal ideas as to how to behave.
Best place to have updated info is Cercle de Voile de Dakar, they have an internet site also.

Entrance to Saloum moves a bit, there are a few options, notably to hug the strip of land to the north of the pass and enter literally metres away from a series of wooden poles at its southern tip. Be very careful/suspicious in using gps tracks from other vessels, even if they claim having entered one week earlier.
Upriver in Foundiougne where the "ferry" crossing is there is restaurant with an Italian owner speaking several languages, probably the best option ifyou need anything. Victualling before a transat would mean a return trip to dakar, which is not that far: a taxi-brousse/bush taxi could handle everything in one day for a reasonable price (we took one to get our cruising permit extension at that time).