Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

While Les Saintes islands were magical small islands, very French in character, well-kept, colorful and with great opportunities for hiking over the hills where one discovers forts, more sandy beaches, cliffs, the wild Atlantic, pastures for cows, goats and sheep, etc., Dominica was an entirely different experience. Our 21 n. mile passage between the two saw us with a brisk sail in fairly lumpy seas so we were well reefed, yet still made good time. We were greeted by Titus in a ~16ft colorful open fishing boat, typical of the island, as we rounded the headland into Portsmouth Bay. He was part of the PAYS group of organized boat boys and looked after us during our stay in Dominica. It was helpful to have read good things about the organization beforehand in the cruising guide. He organized a mooring for us, took us to the Customs officer’s house to check in (because we arrived on a holiday), organized a tour of the island for us by taxi which (details to follow) and invited us to join in on a reasonably priced beach barbecue that the group put on for all the visiting yachts, yet he was very professional and wasn’t at all bothering.  We were approached by other  similar boats who respected that we were working with Titus and then left us alone.  The exception was Denny who sold fruits and veggies from his paddle board (would you believe?) and, while a likeable character, tended to overcharge for his wares.

The tour of the island was amazing.  It started by Titus picking us up from the boat at 9am and introducing us to our taxi driver.  We toured the northern end of the island first, then the East coast,  stopping off to take in the views and to identify a few of the plants, which included some orchids, cinnamon, nutmeg, bread fruit, various bay and mango trees, bananas and sugarcane.  The stop at Jean Baptiste’s Chocolate-making was fascinating.  Jean was slowly expanding his small chocolate-making facility, which is located on the property his grandmother used to own and has beautiful well-established tropical plants and trees, some of which (e.g. coffee beans) he uses to flavor his chocolate.

Other stops included an EU-funded bread-making ‘shop’ using cassava (really good), an Indian reservation where we had a most refreshing drink of fresh coconut milk from a large, young coconut with oodles of milk inside, and a lunch stop (where Sonia’s photo was taken).  Lunch was quite a feast, consisting of either smoked chicken or fish with breadfruit, plantain and other local root veg whose names I forget, washed down by delicious light apple juice in coconut shells flavored with hibiscus flowers and fresh bay leaves.

But it was the next two stops that made us realize what a special place Dominica is.  First was a walk through a small part of the rain forest that is part of the 17,000 acre Morne Trois Pitons National Park and has been a world heritage site since 1975.  We have never before seen such bio-diversity, in all levels of the forest, even the hand rails across the bridges were covered in minuscule fern-like plants.  The second and last stop was to see thermal Springs.  I have never before seen water boiling at the surface of the earth.  Perhaps the steam in the photo below gives you some impression ….  The tour finally ended after dark, about 6:30pm.  Howard was very thankful he was not driving the twisty windy roads all that time!

Sadly we did not have time to take the tour up the Indian river, which is supposed to be a wonderful way to see some of the wild life, especially early in the morning.  Hopefully we can manage that if we return….

While the people we met in Dominica realize the natural beauty of the island is worth preserving, the island is struggling and most major developments are a result of foreign investment, such as a fishing harbor on the Eastern shore built by the Japanese, Chinese sponsorship of about 5 different projects, including a sports stadium as a result of Dominica not recognizing Taiwan.  They have suffered from various hurricanes / tropical storms in recent years, the most recent being T/S Erica in 2014 which caused much erosion due to excessive rainfall, some deaths and damage to roads and bridges, which is still evident.  Downtown Portsmouth one can see that many folks live on the bare minimum.  At least the land provides for them.