Archiv

CW 04 2002

20.01.2002 - 26.01.2002

Today is Sunday, January 20, and we're on Dominica. We're anchoring in Ruppert Bay at Portsmouth. Since it was a little late yesterday we slept in and are having breakfast around 9.30am. We have an appointment with Bounty at 11am and he'll pick us up for an island round-trip. But seemingly the party yesterday was too much for him and he got some things confused - he's already here at 10am. We talk about the time again and he takes off, but less than 15 minutes later he's surrounding the ship again. Well, if has to, he has to. The good thing is that someone else, not he, is going to drive our round-trip-taxi. So we leave shortly before 11am and Bounty takes us to the taxi station where we're being expected. The man who is going to show us a part of his native country in the next few hours is called Jefferson. Into the beige coloured vehicle and off we go.
First we head up North. As soon as we leave Portsmouth there are countless banana plants to the left and right of the street. Bananas are the only thing they have plenty of in Dominica and that's why it's sometimes called a banana republic.
Something worth knowing about the banana: the banana plant can get up to 3m long and its leaves up to 0.6m broad. The plant develops flowers at the top point. It takes 7 months for the plant to flower and after another 4 months the fruit are ripe. After that the entire plant dies. In the beginning the flower points upwards but during its development it starts bending down and produces large violet leaves between which the actual little flowers grow. Out of these the fruit, the banana, develops.
But not only this fruit grows all over the place. Oranges, lemons, grapefruit, papayas, mangos, carambols, they all grow in the gardens here and sometimes uncultured just anywhere. And what we grow as pot plants, what we take care of and water and what dies nevertheless, that grows and prospers here as large bushes, sometimes even into entire hedges. We see humongous rubber trees; giant hibiscuses and poinsettias are flowering. A variety of colour that is difficult to describe. Flowers, who's names I don't know, that cost a lot of money at a florist, just grow at the side of the street here, in an unbelievably beautiful sea of flowers and greens. A pleasure to the eyes!
I almost forgot to mention the palm trees. What we saw on our Indian River tour yesterday was only an appetizer compared to what we get presented today. The palm trees are totally loaded with cocoa nuts and some of them are covered by creepers with green or coloured leaves. The so-called Elephant Ears are most impressive and they deserve their name since their leaves really are as big as the ear of a fully-grown elephant. They grow on palm trees or at the side of the road in bushes as tall as a man. And then there are tree ferns, ferns growing on a stem, a few metres high. In-between all that stand the dark green, high and broad breadfruit trees. And what impressed us as single shrubs yesterday can be admired as a whole forest today: bamboo.
We experience this kind of scenery all the way down the west coast and up to the higher regions. We stop a few times to admire the view and to be able to look at the small plants along the road, for example the mimosa that closes its leaves when touched, no matter how lightly.
In the north we visit a beach to which only fishermen seem to go. Wicker-traps everywhere, and small fishing boats, and tail fins of the blue marlin and tuna fish hang on the walls of the little huts as trophies.
And we carry on to Callibishie. Here we get to see white sand beaches that are typical for the Caribbean, but not really for Dominica.
Now we're descending again, following the East Coast. Driving through all those little villages we see families returning from church everywhere. Everybody is dressed very chic and the little boys and girls look especially sweet. There are a lot of churches in these small villages as well and the people are very faithful.
Sunday seems to be washing day as well. In the many rivers we cross, we see locals in many places washing themselves, their laundry and their cars that they simply drive into the river. Very interesting.
It's also interesting to see how they close a road here: they simply build a road straight across, that's it. Traffic signs in general are quite an exception here.
Our route is heading southwest and takes us to a point that is the declared middle of the island and probably has the only roundabout traffic. A little later, without any prior warning, Jefferson stops the car, opens the door and without getting out of his seat, picks a handful of grass. He hands it to us and tells us to rub it between our fingers. We do as we're told and immediately a refreshing smell spreads through the car. Simultaneously we all announce: "lemon grass"! It's lemon grass and it's growing in thick bushes right next to the road. Amazing. Our chauffer wants to take off again, but we request some stocktaking. This stuff comes in handy in our on board kitchen. (Wait for our culinary tip :)

Now we can continue, after all we still want to visit the Emerald Pool. Emerald Pool is a small pool in the middle of the rainforest, right underneath a little waterfall. A 15-minute hike through the rainforest leaves us greatly impressed again. A curtain made of leaves, in 20 different colours, all shades of green! Along narrow paths, over a bridge and a few large stones we reach this idyllic place. There's another family here, besides us, but they only stay a few more minutes and we're alone again. We pass behind the waterfall and then get out of our clothes and into the water. In any case the water is nice and refreshing, especially as far as the temperature is concerned. We can't stay for too long though, since our taxi is waiting. So we dry ourselves quickly, get dressed and return. Actually we could have saved us the trouble of drying ourselves off. We haven't walked 100m yet as the rain starts pouring down on us. But that's just the way it is here so we keep on walking and get back to the taxi. The last kilometres take us along the East coast and after almost 6 hours we back at our starting point. Bounty is waiting for us here and takes us directly back to our ship.

As far as experiences go we're totally full, but our stomachs are totally empty. Quickly we get into the dinghy and off to the Purple Turtle bar for a small snack.
They also serve a dish that is seen as an attraction here on Dominica: Mountain Chicken. Now one would expect that to be some kind of chicken, maybe a mountain chicken or from a valley or something like that. Wrong! Mountain chicken is a giant frog! Enjoy!
Does someone actually know, what a mountain chicken is?
Well, that's a chicken that lives on the mountain slopes. Easy, isn't it? But, how to you catch a mountain chicken? Well, so that it can live on a slope it has one long and one short leg and you only have to stand behind it and call that chicken: "hello, mountain chicken". Then it will turn around, loose its balance and roll down the mountain. Ok, just a little joke on the side.
In any case, we didn't have any mountain chicken and get back aboard.

Our Monday starts early. The alarm clock goes off at 6am and at 7am we're all ready to go, but the next strong rain was faster than we, so we have to wait. Half an hour later we can start. We're starting this early today because we have a long trip ahead of us. Almost 70nm to Martinique. We bring up the fore- and mainsail while we're still in the bay; and that's where they stay until the late afternoon. We're travelling through a few heavy rainfalls and at times fairly high waves, and we're doing 7-8 knots. It's already dark as we arrive in Martinique, in Fort de France, and we have to feel our way into the bay. We drop anchor shortly after 7pm, make ourselves some dinner and that's it for today.

On Tuesday morning Toms first job is to sign us in. He returns with fresh baguette and croissants and we have breakfast together.
Now that we're all signed in we may go ashore, and that's just what we do, we visit the market in Fort de France. Arriving there our amazement and our sniffling simply doesn't come to an end. Plenty of market-stands with fine spices, homemade liqueurs and different kinds of punsch. Smells of nutmeg, curry, cinnamon, vanilla and, and, and are all around us.
These market stands are in a kind of hall where there also are a few stands with souvenirs and local craftwork. In front of this hall market woman offer fresh fruit and vegetables and we fill our supplies. We carry on walking because there's supposed to be a fish market as well and we also want to check that one out. It's also rather busy here. All kinds of fish are being offered. Sad to say also some fish we rather see while diving, the nice and colourful ones.
We bring our shopping back to the boat and then we go straight to the super market to replenish our stock. These groceries also get packed into the dinghy, brought aboard and put away. Now this day is also almost over and everybody gets to spend the rest of the time until the shops close and it gets dark, as he/she wants.

We also spend Wednesday morning in Fort de France, so we can run a few errands and then we get going again, heading south. After about 2 hours we arrive at Grande Anse de Arlets and drop anchor there. That isn't too easy so we get more than one try. Some things simply take time. In the mean time there are funny vehicles buzzing around us. At the beach you can rent motorized "thingies" that look as if they escaped from a bumper-car ring or like the Flintstones in a Star trek movie. Absolutely ridiculous. One of them even bumps into our stern and waddles on. We actually need to hurry up now because we still want to go on a dive. So we hop into the dinghy with our equipment and take off. And it was worth it! We entered the fascinating underwater world at Pt. Lezarde. Sponges, 30, 40 or even 50 years old and huge! The view was like of a crater scenario. Cup sponges, some of them more than one meter high and with a diameter of surely half a meter. They look like oversized funnels. Great! I get to see my first suitcase-fish; funny creatures. We also see moraines, and one of them, a green moraine, is quite big. These creatures deserve respect. All in all a very nice and satisfying dive. We return to the ship in the day's last light; and this day is also over.

Early bird catches the worm - and that's also true on Thursday. The anchor is already weighed at 7.30am and we're on our way to St. Lucia. The distance isn't that far, but the trade winds are quite strong. The swell between the islands is quite high, but also long. The wind comes in with more than 30 knots and our oilcloth is also in use again. The fishing rod is also in use, but no anglers luck. Since we left Antigua we didn't catch a single fish. But the flying fish do fly very high here. Something we've never seen in that intensity before; and it looks quite funny. We also see a lot of small grey whales. They only show up through the waves for a short time and then their gone again, almost as quickly as they came. I have no idea what kind of whales those were.
A strong wind pulls us along and at 2pm we drop anchor in Marigot Bay. A picturesque bay with a small peninsula in it. The scenery could be out of a movie, and really, the movie Dr. Doolittle was made here. Thomas drives off to sign us in and receive a visit from the boat boys and buy a few bananas from them. The men take a trip round the bay and make book a nice table in the restaurant "Doolittle" for us, where we're going to have dinner. The restaurant is right on the waterfront and next to the little peninsula. After dinner we take a drink at the bar and then it's already time to go to bed again.

Friday morning holds a surprise for us. We hung the bananas we bought yesterday in the cockpit and left them outside which pleased some birds. They enjoyed them majorly and turned our deck into a battlefield. Those little beasts picked the banana out of the skin and always lost a few small pieces. After cleaning up this mess we have breakfast.

Before we leave Mariot Bay we want to fill up some water, but we don't go to the designated landing since there are 2 other ships waiting to tank water and diesel there. We go to the northern part of the bay and moor at the landing of JJ's Paradise and refill water there. We use that time to take a look behind the mangrove thicket. You get to JJ's Paradise by crossing a long, narrow passage and a few steps further there's a small holiday village with nice little houses, each with its own swimming pool. From this villages hill one has a magnificent view of the bay. On the way I see something funny, a cow grazing under palm trees!

But now we have to get back aboard and then we can take off. We leave this beautiful bay and set course for a dive spot, Anse de Chastanet. We moor at a buoy there since we want to go diving. Some inquiries we make at the beach stop us though. On St. Lucia you're not allowed to go diving without a local guide. So we take a quick snack for lunch and take off again. We make our way to Vieux Fort where we're going to spend the night and arrive there shortly after 6pm. The rain didn't spare us on our way here either. Funny enough we always get rain while we're dropping or weighing anchor. Well, that can't be helped.

Today is Saturday, January 26. At a quarter past seven we're on our way already and we're all pretty tired. What a night. We had one gust of wind after the other hitting us and rocking us thoroughly. But it can't be helped; we still had to get up early since we've got 50 miles ahead of us. Since our next stop is Bequia we have to sign in again and the gentlemen in those offices don't work day and night, so we ought to be there in time. This leg isn't without challenges eit