Dominica

Dominican Flag

Volver finally had a pleasant sail!    Even though the route from Ile Des Saintes to Dominica appeared to be dead South and the wind is allegedly due East (this should be a 90 degree vector and a beam reach, yes?), the wind was still forward of the beam at about 60 degrees, seas were still 6-8 feet (good deck wash!) but it was relatively comfortable with winds of 15-20 knots.  With a double reefed main and a reefed jib, we were still doing 6.5-7.5 knots (the latter number being pretty close to our our hull speed, above which we'd need to be on a plane!), and made good time.  

The Cabrits (two hills), Douglas Bay to the right, Prince Rupert Bay (the Portsmouth Anchorage) to the left

We got to Portsmouth and went to town to find customs and immigration.  The town is more than a little rough around the edges, and the first mate just about said, let's just keep going south!  But there were things we wanted to do and so we stayed and found it not so bad.  The service people are mostly friendly, and people in town are fine if you greet them first.  But the atmosphere is more like a French island, where people will walk by you as though you are invisible.  This would never happen in the BVI or on Nevis, where a civilized and friendly, Good Morning! or some such greeting is the norm.  In fact, Erla, our tour guide in Nevis, advised that when she was growing up, her mother would smack her if she failed to greet a passer-by!  Portsmouth is the first town where we lifted our dinghy at night (lift it or lose it) and we used the interior latch we had installed to lock us inside the boat!  There have been two murders and one very violent assault requiring surgery involving cruisers in the Eastern Caribbean this year, so a little prudence is in order.  

There is also a fairly rigid system of Yacht Services boats who are quite assertive about getting your business.  A boat will greet you as you are coming into harbour and will take you to a mooring ball and thread your line through the eye of the pennant, or take you to a good site for anchoring (most people don't need help with this).  After doing so, they have staked their claim on you and expect you to take tours with them, pay them for mooring ball, use them as water taxi, etc.   They call themselves PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security) and they provide valuable services, reasonable prices, and also host a twice weekly Beach BBQ, which is a great opportunity to meet other cruisers (we went, it was fun!).   We prefer the anchor, but pay for a mooring ball, in order to contribute to the local economy and support these entrepreneurs.

BUT this system works very awkwardly.   We can think of very few other industries where our freedom to choose is so rigidly determined by others.  We had a very strong recommendation to do business with a particular provider.  In most professions, whether you are a lawyer, a dentist, a doctor, or a yacht service provider, people develop a reputation and receive referrals.  The exception is in the cases of crises or perhaps poverty, when people need a legal aid clinic, a free dental clinic, or an emergency ward: in these cases, the service provider is on a first come, first served basis.  And this is how PAYS is running their organization, like a crisis situation!  But most of the customers are not in crisis.  Here is my unasked for recommendation:  Pool some cash for administration (Cobra already has an office and admin staff):  create a brochure, offer different tours, let people sign up for the ones they are interested in.  Then the service providers can focus on developing their services and building their reputations rather than hustling for business.  The market is there, the services are great but the delivery model needs fine tuning.  We would have spent more money if it was easier to access tours.

Going up the Indian River

Martin, of Providence Yacht Services, providing us with a fresh coconut

Tree Roots like sculptures, Indian River

Enough of my rant.  So, we got off to a slow start, but Martin of Providence Yacht Services was able to come through for us.  We enjoyed his Indian River Tour, along with Arnaud and Amiee from France, and were able to work on our French.  Martin is bilingual, and we told him he did not always need to translate for us!  The national park system forbids use of engines on this stretch of the river, so this was a truly relaxing tour, under the canopy of the jungle, by rowboat.  Martin was very knowledgeable about birds and plantlife.  There are many plants used for medicinal purposes (there was a special plant for low back pain:  I hope this means there is no Oxycontin problem here!  Still in mourning over the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman).  

Two crabs eating a mushroom on the banks of the Indian River

We could not find anyone to drop us off in the Cabrits national park to snorkel (again, system not working) and you are not allowed to tie up yourselves to any moorings.  Capt'n stayed in boat while first mate drifted around to the tip of the neighbouring bay/national marine park, Douglas Bay (and she saw new and unidentifiable fish, and Angel fish!) and it was a good thing he did, as the current was so strong she would have drifted to Mexico!  

Nice Brain Coral, Prince Rupert Bay (Portsmouth)

We really enjoyed the walk around Cabrits peak.  Our guidebook makes little mention of Fort Shirley, which is a restored Fort, never used in battle, with beautiful views and an interesting history of having changed hands multiple times between the British and the French.  There were trails to an unrestored battery on the Douglas Bay side of the peak:  nice!

Battery at Fort Shirley, overlooking Prince Rupert Bay

Unrestored!  Fort on Douglas Bay side of Cabrits

We went for a land tour with Martin's colleague, Paul Honore:   this time we went with 8 German speakers, who had to get by in English.  Like Martin, Paul was very knowledgeable about plants and took us to some very off the beaten track places.  We visited Joe the Jazz musician, who serenaded us,  picked fresh ginger from his garden, and gave us purple yams, grapefruit, bananas, sour oranges, guavas, and gooseberries to sample and take home with us. 

Joe, a more colorful character than this picture suggests

 The countryside is one hill and valley after the other.  One minute you are on a hill overlooking the tops of coconuts palms and the next you are at sea level, looking at the beach where Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 was filmed (a matter of pride, it seems, this put Dominica on the tourist map?).  

Overlooking the beach where Johnny Depp walked

We hiked down a very muddy path to the islands only cold souffriere (volcano:  apparently this one is so deep the bubbling water is cold by the time it makes it to the surface).  There are 9 volcanos on the island, 8 of which are active.  

Paul introduced us to many crops that were being cultivated or were growing wild, including cacao, vanilla, coffee, and castor oil (as an aside, most stores have a very large portion of a stack of shelves devoted to castor oil (is this childhood punishment?), but nary a diet coke in sight).

Vanilla plant:  a saprophyte, which lives symbiotically on other plants and requires human pollination to produce vanilla pods

We brought home ginger, bay leaves, lemon grass, banana leaves, and "boisbody" (Wood body), the bark that is known as nature's Viagra (just soak it in rum!).

Not a fan of food photos, but this was made from the spoils of our tour:  grouper with fresh ginger, lemon grass, coconut milk, and thai green curry in banana leaves, beautifully executed by the captain.  Just add BBQ and rice!

  

Finally, we visted the "red rocks," which are the remains of a remote Volcanic eruption.  We had to hide in a stand of vegetation when a squall roared in off the Atlantic, as the rain came sideways and with a vengeance!  We were soaked anyway! 

The Red Rocks, just before the squall hit

After four nights, we made our way to Roseau, capital city of Dominica, and feel much more at home here. We had contacted a yacht service provider in advance, but no one is aggressively fighting for our business anyway.  We were able to catch the first day of Carnival and there was no missing it this week:  there was quite a spectacular parade!  We noted loud music at 6 am and this was the sound check for the street party, heard right across the coast!  

The CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) Steel Pan Band at work

There were many princesses and beauty queens followed by Mas bands and Dancers.  The main street was closed, and was lined by bar tents and street food vendors (Cap'n says best bakes ever).  They know how to throw a party before getting down to the serious business of Lent, here in Roseau!

Many, many princesses on floats opened the parade

Dancers in Dominican colours

Sure wish we knew the significance of these very heavy and likely hot costumes!

Isn't Carnival a real Scream?

Too hot to even finish the parade!

Today is Sunday and Roseau is closed up tighter than a drum.  We did a walk through town and declare the finest music to be coming from the Catholic church.  They were rocking, with drums and guitars and everything.  Not so common in Canada!  We wandered through the botanical garden, which is more like a big park, it is open to the public, and largely abandoned.  There are some aviaries and we could see some parrots, but not up close.  Dominica is home to 2 kinds of parrots that are not found elsewhere:  the Sisserou parrot (aka Imperial Amazon), which is found on the national flag, and the Jaco parrot (this has been spelled many ways and is also called the Red-Necked Amazon).  We did see some of these parrots flying when we were on tour with Paul in the Northern part of the country.  Then we climbed the Jack's Walk Trail to the top of Bruce Morne, where we found amazing views of the city, and much to our surprise, Jesus was looking over the city too.  

Surprise at the top of Bruce Morne

The view from Bruce Morne, overlooking Roseau and the Cricket Ground

We could not find a resto that was open for lunch, so we walked back to the boat.  It is a quiet, grey day, and we may have to make our way back to the bar at the only fancy hotel in town and see about watching the futball game:  we were there at 0845 yesterday to watch the Arsenal get humiliated by Liverpool.  First time in weeks we have found a place to watch a game. 

Next up:  we hope to join Fabuloso for a land tour, do a snorkel tour around Scott's Head then dash off to Martinique.  Sadly, our batteries are not holding a charge as we might hope, so we may have to start at the bottom of the country and make our way north, so we can plug into a dock and access services of a boatyard if necessary.  Later!