December 14, 2008 – Dominica

We sailed into the beautiful garden island of Dominica under partly cloudy skies and mild temperatures for a 4 hour stay. Five of us had privately booked a tubing on the river trip but when we met our guide on shore he informed us that recent heavy rains had swollen the river and it was closed to tubing. We were offered an alternative tour which we gladly accepted. As we drove the guide gave us history and information about the island. Before independence it had been controlled by both France and England and influences from both countries show up in both architecture and names of streets. The French tended to name things after locations, plants geologic formations etc and the English tended to name things after royals, Sirs & Ladies and admirals & generals. We drove up into the mountains on narrow pothole filled roads through alternating rain & sunshine (it is a rainforest after all.) We came to the twin Trafalgar waterfalls where we walked along a narrow rocky path to a sheltered platform where we could view and photograph the falls and surrounding mountains. The island is 95% volcanic and 5% limestone so the flora is quite lush with lots of fruit trees. All of their produce is organic because they don’t need fertilizer. We then walked down a rocky slope past a “Proceed past this point at your own risk” sign. We passed lots of land crabs, fern trees flowering plants and lots of rocks down to the base of the falls. It was a strenuous walk both ways but worth it for the views. We drove on and saw thermal pools, streams & rivers and forest as we winded our way up and down the mountainsides. The views were exceptional. We made a stop at Screws sulfur ponds that isn’t visited by the regular tours because it’s too small to handle a crowd. There are 5 separate natural sulfur water ponds at different temperatures and we spent ½ hour soaking in them and it felt great. After our soaking we were treated to fresh local fruits and had a sample of “bush rum”, a homemade rum with herbs & spices. It had quite a kick and a very tasty flavor. We continued back down the mountainside, through the botanical garden where we saw a school bus crushed under a baobob tree (victim of Hurricane David) and into the new town. We finally made it back to the old town and the pier and got back on the ship.

We sailed at 12:30 and had pre arranged a steak tartare lunch for 12 people to replace the one cancelled 2 days previously. The Cruise Director and Doctor & girlfriend were unable to attend but the Captain did as soon as we cleared the port and we had a wonderful lunch lasting for 2 hours. After a short power nap we made it to tea time and won trivia again. Before dinner there was the semi final for Navigator Idol where the 6 crew with the most votes competed for the 3 final slots. They were all incredible and it was difficult to pick the best 3. We had dinner with friends and started to watch the show which was the magician from a previous evening. He was even worse than before so we left quickly and went to bed.