West Indies Island News

After motoring most of the 30 miles from Martinique to Dominica and with our all-over tans nicely topped up, we were met as, at 2.00pm, we approached the mooring buoy immediately in front of the Anchorage Hotel, Roseau (the capital), by Pancho in his water taxi, and set up a trip for the next day to a couple of tourist hot spots - Trafalgar Falls and Emerald pool. We were only yards from the dinghy dock of the hotel, so it wasn't long before I'd paid 10 EC Dollars (2.5 pounds, 4 US Dollars) to use the hotel's fresh water pool (these are pretty rare sights in the caribbean) and loos. Such luxury - better than actually staying in the hotel, having one's luxury yacht tied up outside it.

The tourist trip was superb. We were at the 80 foot high Trafalgar Falls by 9.00 am before anyone else and all of us enjoyed a great frolic in the pool - fresh water again, this is becoming a real holiday. Then off to Emerald Pool - yet another waterfall, falling into a large and, yes, emerald coloured pool - yet another frolic in cool fresh water. And of course our driver, Batman, showed us all the spices on the way - nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon grass, tamarind etc etc - enough to rival the spice island Grenada's range.

Then back to the yacht, back to the hotel, more fresh water, lazing around the pool - wow. Dave joined me here and we met Inga from Greenland! - she thought the pool was cold, would you believe. Then we met an Inca from Peru (can't remeber her name but she was gorgeous) - it turns out that there's a major conference on for indigenous tribes in Roseau and tonight was their party night. As mongrels from America and down-town Birmingham, England, there's no way we could gatecrash that event.

So we finish up our time in Roseau with a meal on board and a couple of drinks at the hotel before setting off the next morning up the coast some 20 miles to our second and final stop in Dominica - Portsmouth, in Prince Rupert Bay at the northern end of the island. The scenery we pass is breathtaking - this island has 7 volcanoes, 365 rivers (they say), and the whole lot is covered in dense vegetation, mainly rainforest.

Having motored all the way on the calmest sea yet, and with our suntans topped up again, we arrive at noon to be met by Albert in his water taxi and book him for the next morning to take us to yet another tourist hot spot - the Indian River. But before that: it's an afternoon stroll (i.e a masochistic treck in the heat up a big hill and back) to Fort Shirley on the north of the bay. Loads of historical interest here - the English built it, the French tried to attack it in 1805 but were turned back etc etc.

And so to yesterday morning, Friday, for our trip up the river. We saw humming birds, herons, egrets, land crabs, red crabs, mullet - but none of the island's native parrot - with so many varieties of manggroves, ferns, etc that our minds were a blur before long. (Well, mine's a blur most of the time anyway.) Lovely unique trip.

Yesterday afternoon we had nothing planned, but as soon as the skipper said 'I think there's some painting to be done' Dave and I immediately decided that we would go for a snorkel from the beach round the corner despite the fact that it was raining and cloudy and that the sea didn't look too clear. Off we set for the two mile walk and soon alighted upon what looked like a roadside rum still. It turned out to be a bay leave oil plant in what looked like a totally delapidated state but Joseph, the owner, explained the process to us and it was amazing to behold: there is a furnace boiling water, the steam from which gently lifts the oil from leaves scattered on a sieve, and the resulting emulsion/vapour travels down a water-cooled tube into a resevoir, where the oil seperates out on top and the water below travels over a swan neck to waste. The smell was very aromatic - I bet Joseph never gets a cold.

By this time thirst was becoming a priority and the sea was far too murky for swimming so off we went to this tiny wooden-with-corrugated-steel-roof roadside grocers cum bar. We had a ball! The 70 year old granny Jemima (she lives in the tiny back room with her grandson staying with her) served us to rum and ice/coke, her 68 year old friend came in and joined us to make up a foresome, and the lad from next door brought a couple of green coconuts in so we all switched to coconut milk and gin. Then: how to get back two miles to the boat to help the skipper with his painting (we are in no fit state to walk it by this time)? No problem - another lad rides up on his 50 cc 150-year-old motor scooter and gives us a lift back, one at a time of course. Unfortunately the skipper had finished painting by the time we returned - and in any case it was already time for our pre-prandial gin and tonic before setting off for chicken and chips at the Turtle Dove cafe.

Over this sumptuous supper, I decided, as editor in chief of the Mollymawk Caribbean Newsletter, to interview the skipper and Dave on the subject of: what is it that each of us, strangers only some 6 weeks ago, would like to record are the things which have really annoyed each other in the intimate space called a 40 foot luxury yacht, as I know our readers spread over half the globe would be interested to find out?

I was expecting that first off against me would be my smoking - there have been times, I feely admit, when the deck has looked as though one of the many volcanoes round here had spewed ash all over us. And I do know that I can be a pain in the arse (that's butt in American) sometimes But no, our lovely skipper spoils the whole article by saying that 'if there are problems I like to deal with them on a one-to-one basis; minor things don't - and shouldn't - register; he was slightly concerned by the Brit-US banter at one stage but he realised over time that it was all in good fun (which Dave and I wholeheartedly endorsed); and that he's only ever had a problem once and that was with two women crew members.

Dave chips in to say that the only incident for him was when I skipped lunch at McDonald's, and I have to round it off by saying it's been a pleasure all the way for me and thanks for the toleration. How's all that for bloody boring.

It's 8.00 am Saturday, Dave and the skipper have just gone off to do some last minute shopping and we'll be setting sail for Guadeloupe very shortly.

So: that's Dominica, with a fair bit to see and marvel at, with such lovely friendly people again that Martinique will hopefully prove to be just an unhappy one off. But: we still have another bit of France, Guadeloupe, for which we will set out tomorrow, in our path before we reach Antigua.