Dominica

Eco-tourism. That about sums up Dominica. We knew the anchorages were not going to be fabulous, there are not very many, and there are a lot of restrictions. It’s true. Scuba diving can only be done with a dive boat, and many of the snorkeling areas we are not allowed to even dingy to, requiring a tour operator. There is a lot of hiking on the island, and the national parks are the main draw to the island. Never being built up most of the island is still wilderness with small towns, no large hotels or resorts are found here.

Our first stop is in Portsmouth, before we even make it to the anchorage we are met by the boat boys. They are a part of an organized group of certified tour operators, PAYS. In addition to being tour guides, the boat boys will buy ice and bring it to your boat among other services, provide you with information, and they monitor the anchorage that has really helped to reduce theft problems that have been a big issue in the past. We met up with Alexis and agreed to go on an Indian River tour the following morning. No motors are allowed on the Indian River, and no yachts are allowed to take their own boats, you must go with a guide. During The one mile paddle up the river, Alexis tells us some of the history of the island, points out different flora and fauna, birds, and even a filming site from Pirates of the Caribbean. The trip ends at a riverside bar; from there we take a walk through a plantation, where Alexis points out the different local fruits and vegetables. Alexis was friendly and a very knowledgeable guide.

The country really does it’s best to hide trail maps, bus routes and schedules and pushes taking a guided tour to visit it’s many destinations. The guides do provide a lot of information about the area but at $160 price for two to go on a 3-hour hike is a bit more than our budget really allows for. I’ve never really thought too much about eco-tourism until now. I realize that the government is trying to create jobs for the people and I would be happy to help the economy but not at US prices. In a place where the cost of living is fairly low, these tour guides are making more money than many of my friends back home.

Although the anchorage feels safe in Portsmouth, and the PAYS guys are friendly and helpful, there is also a constant barrage of other guys paddling out in boats or on surfboards trying to sell fruit take trash or anything they can make a buck on. These guys are mostly just annoying. If trying to take a nap, read a book or relax inside they will hang on the boat knocking and calling, refusing to leave until someone comes out. One day of that was really quite enough so we didn’t stay long, and headed down to Roseau.

Roseau is the southern most anchorage available, below it everything is a marine sanctuary and no boats are allowed, well except dive operators. The anchoring space was a bit limited and we opted to pick up a mooring for $10 a day, a very reasonable amount. With a nice southern swell at night, the anchorage is not the most comfortable. I wake up with my arms and shoulders sore from constantly bracing my body from rolling in my sleep. Aside from that it’s a pleasant enough place to be.

We try, unsuccessfully to find a trail map and see if we can hike on our own. We do find the forestry office and they tell us where we can find a trail map, but the store is already closed for the day. They also mention a number of hikes that are marked well enough to not need a guide (the first time we’ve heard this). In the meantime our friends find a taxi driver that will take us to Middleham Falls for $100 and claims we will need a guide there that is available when we get there. Splitting the cost 3 ways we decide to go along with the plan, since we need at least another day to figure out a trail map and transportation on our own. We should have known we were in for a ride when the next morning the taxi driver raises the price because he didn’t know there were 6 people :-/ Then he promptly hands us over to someone else, he wasn’t even taking us. Once up at the park, we see the Ranger who is collecting the required park permit that our driver has failed to acquire first. We keep going into town to get the permit, stop at one location that is closed, turn around and go back. This time I hear the conversation with the Ranger who informs our driver that he told him to go to all four locations before coming back and he should know the regulations, the Ranger than informs our driver that he will drop us at the trail and go get our permits while we are hiking. Good Ranger. Bad cab driver. The supposed available guides are no where to be found.. thankfully as the trail so did not require either a guide or a trail map. The trail was very well maintained with good signs at any intersection. The falls were beautiful and were too tall to fit in a photograph. A refreshing dip in the cold fresh water was wonderful. On the way back we detoured to the stinking hole. Which was exactly that, a hole that stinks. We find out later for $1.50 a bus comes up to this area. Great information to know for next time. It was a successful adventure; don’t think I’ll be keeping that cab drivers number though. Next time we’ll just spend a few days getting appropriate maps rent a car and go where we want.

Skipping the rest of the islands natural beauty to visit on the return trip the following day after a particularly rolly night we take off bright and early in the morning for Martinique. As we head out of the bay there is hardly any wind at all, seems as though it will be an easy trip down. A few miles later as we near the southern tip of the island, the wind and seas start to build and we start to wonder if we should have checked the weather forecast. As we clear the tip of the island, the wind is 25kts with gusts to 30kts, the seas are 6-8 ft with some occasionally higher, and we wonder if we should go back and wait for another day. There is a squall in the distance and we wonder where it’s headed. We do keep going and eventually the wind drops down to a very civilized 15kts and the seas subside to a very reasonable 3-4 ft. As we sail into the lee of Martinique our wind all but dies and we complete our trip into St. Pierre motoring.

Guadeloupe

Our first island that feels like a foreign country. Although almost all the islands we have visited are foreign countries Guadeloupe feels like it; a French department, the official language is French and English speakers are rare. We are fortunate to be here with our French Canadian friends on Spirare who are able to do some translating for us. When we are not with them we are glad to have bought French for Cruisers to help stumble through the language. The entire time I’m trying to pick up words, phrases and thinking it’s time for a language school. Speaking Spanish on a French island just doesn’t get me very far, although sometimes it does help.

Dashaies is a comfortable town to be in, except for all the rain we had there. We read through our cruising guide and decided to take a recommended “walk” up the river. The recommended walk consisted of hoping rock-to-rock up the river and occasionally bushwhacking along the banks. At least there was a road at the other end, although we had to leave the river and find it over the top of a hill, at least we had an easy walk back to the boat. Although we got along just fine, I think the “walk” was a little understated in our guide.

Guadeloupe leaves us with time decisions. There is supposed to be a beautiful waterfall on the southern end and nice national park. The Saints are supposed to be very nice. We are looking a bit at our time schedule. There are also language schools here I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I know we don’t have time for that. We decide to spend a few days at Les Saints and skip the rest. With this decision we also decide (very definitely for now at least) that next season we will return back up the island chain (at least to the VI’s) and have time to take in everything we are missing on the way down. With this in mind we head to the Les Saints stopping briefly overnight to break up the trip.

Les Saints are a small group of islands just south of Guadeloupe. They have different anchorage choices that are all very close together, clear water, decent snorkeling, a very pleasant friendly town (that is even open in the afternoon), and some sites to hike up to. We chose to hike to the highest point, the old watchtower. A rational planning person would start this hike early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day; we started at noon. There is a paved road the entire way, although it has been closed to all motorized traffic, it’s fairly steep and up all the way. On the way up we pass the local trash dump that falls steeply down the edge of the mountain and is constantly lightly burning and smoldering. Approaching it we see a cat dart out of a pile very close to fire, a hen and her chicks precariously pick their way through the smoldering garbage narrowly missing the flames, and another poor chicken that looks half roasted already with it’s tail feathers completely singed off. At the top we find the old watchtower with metal ladders we can climb to the top where the views are worth the hike up.

For our last night here we go out to dinner to sample some French cuisine. Our friends do not join us, so we are on our own. Right off the dingy dock we head to Linsolente, get out French for Cruisers and start stumbling through the menu. We manage to order and mostly know what we ordered. The food was great; since we ended up with two seafood dishes and no land meats we considered our night out a success.

Antigua

A night at sea provided steady winds and a great sail to arrive bright and early in the morning at Jolly Harbour, Antigua. That is Antigua in the West Indies, not to be confused with Antigua, Guatemala a very landlocked town. After a nap and breakfast we head to the customs office. In addition to figuring out business hours, another conundrum is customs fees. Checking in and checking out within hours of each other the fees we paid and Spirare paid differed from slightly to a lot. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.

From Jolly Harbour we head north and spend a couple of days at Deep Bay. There is the wreck of the Andes that can be snorkeled , but the visibility was poor and the jelly fish ever present. There was also some snorkeling near the point that was nice enough, the best being the thousands of tiny fish you could swim among as they moved in unison in their shimmery dance. A hike up to Fort Barrington provided a beautiful view of the anchorage and surrounding area.

Planning to cut our stay a little short, feeling anxious to be moving south we head on down to English Harbour, home of Nelson’s Dockyard. Completed in 1745, and providing good hurricane protection, it was Britain’s main naval station in the Lesser Antilles. The main road of town runs from English Harbour to Falmouth Harbour, and is full of restaurants. Once again, don’t go to dinner before 6:30, it’s uncivilized. We’ve almost got it this time.

Our stay here was extended by a few days as a tropical wave in the area deteriorated our weather. Clouds and rain every day. At least the rain doesn’t stay all day, but when it clouds over and the shower starts, closing all the hatches on the boat becomes a sauna. The first day of such showers found me below sweating and finishing the rain tarps that will just cover the two main hatches and allow some air even during a rainstorm. That is unless the 30kt gusts blow the rain in anyway. With the forecast not looking great for the next week and a half, we pick the day that looks like it has the lowest (ish) wind and least chance of squalls to sail the 40 miles to Guadeloupe. Sunday appears as a beautiful morning, with 20kt winds and 5-6ft seas. A great day for a beam reach to Guadeloupe. All went great but about 10 miles from the coast we were enveloped in the outskirts of a squall for about 15 minutes life became exciting. Watching it’s arrival, IB put a second reef in the main, pulled in the jib, donned our lifejackets and were ready when the 30kts gusts blew in soaking us in rain.

We arrived in Deshaies (pronounced Day-ay) wet but happy, and anchored before the next rain cloud settled overhead. Of course it’s a Sunday, most of town is closed and no customs till tomorrow.

St. Barthelemy

A mere 15 mile cruise, on a nice day lands us in the waters of St. Barthelemy. We make our first stop at Île Fourchue, just off the north east of the main island, and rendezvous with Spirare and Shadowfax. A very nice little anchorage, they actually have free mooring balls to protect the seabed, by a beautiful rocky island. The water is clear, and snorkeling is okay, although there is not a lot of coral. We end up staying two nights, and spending each evening hanging out with our friends. The second day everyone, but me, heads to shore in the afternoon to hike around the island. I have the sewing machine out, making flags, and too far into the project to stop.

We say our goodbye’s to Shadowfax, we will probably meet up again in Guadeloupe or later, and head down to Gustavia for the afternoon. There we check in and out with custom, see the town, buy some groceries and get ready for another overnight sail to Antigua. Spirare calls as they get near, we pull up anchor and head to sea with them.

St. Martin / Sint Maarten

Of course we arrived during a holiday! Apparently we have a real knack for arriving at destinations during holidays. We were able to check in with customs the same day, but that shopping list for the marine stores … forget it. Not only is it carnival, but on the Dutch side no one is working in reverence of the Queen’s birthday. God Bless the Queen.

St Martin is French and Dutch (Sint Maarten for the Dutch). The smallest island that is two countries. Each country has different fees for checking in by boat. We checked in on the French side, as we were warned that the Dutch have extra fees, and it’s just as easy to visit the Dutch side by dingy. Although the language spoken is French and Dutch respectively, English is still used everywhere. Of course signs are in French of which I don’t speak a lick; that will need to go on my study list. I often find myself wanting to speak Spanish, since that’s the only foreign language I know. Not actually helpful.

Since there will be no shopping till next week, we decide to spend the weekend exploring a bit of the island. According to our guidebook the small island of Île Tintamarre has some nice mud with great exfoliate properties. Always up for a little home spa on the beach we head over to check out the mud. The mud did not disappoint, must be something from the volcanic origin of the island, after 20 minutes of basking mud caked in the sun with a salt water rinse, our skin feels soft, smooth and rejuvenated.

Next stop, Orient Bay. A lively and well-known beach, also the location of St Martin’s clothing optional beach on the east end. And of course that is where we anchored. Most of the afternoon was spent lounging and swimming off the boat, later in the day we decided to head to shore, which brings up the question; Where to land the dingy? Our cruising guide claimed there was a location on the east end, we looked and didn’t see it. Finally we found a mooring near shore that didn’t look very used so we just tied to it, stowed our gear in a dry bag and swam to shore. We were not really sure if this was an acceptable place to leave the dingy or not, but watched for several hours on the beach, eventually deciding it was fine and an unused mooring. At one point there were two other dingys there as well, guess they figured we knew what we were doing. First we head to the east end, past the sign welcoming us to the clothing optional beach resort and the sign forbidding the use of cameras, plopped our stuff down on the beach and headed in for a swim.. with suits.. mostly. Now that we had swam at the nude beach, it seemed to be getting on cocktail hour and time to see the rest of the beach, find a tasty drink and think about some food. I can see why this is an attractive beach, the water is calm and beautiful, restaurants and stores are right on the beach complete with chairs and umbrellas for rent. We found a pleasant spot, ordered a few margaritas and sat down to enjoy the beach, putting off dinner for a while. About 5:00 it seems time to look for some food, so we think. I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get the hang of business hours in the Caribbean. Everything on the beach closes up at 5:00, even though it is still quite sunny out. We are told to head downtown, of course the restaurants downtown don’t really open until 6:00. Hmm. We hang out a while, shop for a restaurant and eventually get dinner. Time to head back home. The dingy is still moored off the beach, and since we are all dressed for dinner, off come the clothes, into the dry bag they go and we swim back to the boat.

The next day it’s time to start heading back toward Marigot Bay, stopping for the night to visit Grand Case. About the only thing in Grand Case are restaurants; this is where people come to eat. Of course we go to shore too early, 5:00 is a very unreasonable hour to want to eat, we should know this by now. But this gives us plenty of time to shop for a restaurant, walking up and down the street, one by one, reading the menu’s, and time to stop for a glass of wine to discuss the menu’s. Eventually we opt for one that has a happy hour special buy one meal get one free. Maybe not the best meal in town, but definitely half the price.

Once back at Marigot Bay, we are able to get our shopping done, the marine stores have most of the items on our list. What we didn’t find our next glorified mail courier can bring down from the states when he meets up with us in St. Lucia. After shopping, we head back to customs to check out and try to stop back by the Spoon Café where we had some wonderful crepes. But alas it’s 2:00 and who would eat lunch at 2:00, they are closed. Tomorrow we head to St Barthelemy.

Virgin Islands

Our big crossing of nearly 15 miles brought us to St. Thomas, USVI. Our first stop, Charlotte Amalie, cruise ship dock and tourist mecca. In Puerto Rico we were issued local boater cards at the customs office that would theoretically allow us to call a number and report our presence when arriving in US waters. However when the internet bites, skype calls can’t be made, with no cell phone, calling is not possible. Really starting to miss that cell phone. So off to find the customs office we go, well tomorrow anyway. We have managed to arrive on Easter Sunday, a few restaurants are open but most of the town is closed up. The next morning when we get to the customs office we find that since we just came from a US waters we don’t actually need to check in at all, even though we were told in Puerto Rico we would need to, but what does Puerto Rico know about St. Thomas anyway.

We have almost a week here before my mom flies down for a visit. That’s just enough time to see town, grocery shop, scout out a few anchorages, and find some good snorkeling sites.

When Mom arrives we walk to the airport to collect her and our packages she brought along. I had a little trouble convincing her she wanted to come down and visit, and eventually ordered enough stuff that was sent to her house she had to deliver it!

The first night stay in Charlotte Amalie, walk around town and go out for dinner. The next morning we pull up the anchor and head to St. John. We pick up a mooring in Francis Bay, get into swim suits tell mom to jump overboard and take off for mom’s first snorkel. And of course we made her swim to the snorkeling, I did hold onto her though, and it’s a good thing as she kept trying to swim out to sea. She had a great time and by the end of the trip got quite comfortable in the water. From Francis Bay, we hopped around the corner to Waterlemon Cay for more snorkeling and a short hike to the Annaberg Sugar Mill Ruins. The mill ruins were in one direction and the ruins of the master’s house in another. The master’s house is on top of the hill with a great view of the anchorage, surrounding islands and the sugar mill.

We contemplated circumnavigating St. John, but decided since mom came prepared, like a good girl scout with her passport, we would visit the BVI’s at Jost Van Dyke. Anchoring at Great Harbor was a bit of a challenge, after the 8^th attempt the anchor finally caught on something on the rocky bottom. After the captain went to shore and checked us in we headed to shore to see town and visit Foxy’s for a painkiller. We had the pleasure of meeting Foxy who never lacked for a story to tell. As soon as he heard we were from WV, he told us of his friend from WV, Joe Manchin, the governor.

We moved around the corner to Long Bay the following day and passed the time snorkeling, swimming and took a short hike to “the bubbles”, a small pool surrounded by boulders. The waves would crash in through the boulders and… well.. bubble.

With the week nearing the end we headed back toward Charlotte Amalie. Mom had one more first before flying home, parasailing. So the day before she left, we put her on a boat, strapped her to a parachute and hauled her (and me with her) up into the air 600ft. She loved it. But alas that put an end to the week and we had to send her to the airport and back home.

While we were in Charlotte Amalie, we looked up some friends of friends, after all friends of friends are basically already friends right? We found Kris and Carroll downtown at their store Fishface. They came out to the boat one evening for cocktail hour and some music playing.

With a quick stop at Coral Bay on St. John, we headed over to Roadtown on Tortola. Of course we arrive on a weekend, so most of the town is closed. We did managed to have someone come out and look at our refrigerator that is acting up a bit, that is after we finally managed to locate the compressor that was hidden under the floorboards, in the rear cockpit locker. We’ve been looking around for a year trying to find that, although I don’t think that locker has ever been completely emptied. Turns out our problem was just a failing fan, since the freezer compressor is identical we just swapped them out and were working again. We’ll need to get another fan but for now we don’t need to use the freezer.

The rest of the time in the BVI’s was a brief whirlwind trip, so we could make use of a weather window to make our last overnight jump east into the trade winds. We stopped by Marina Cay, Virgin Gorda, and visited the Baths; before heading out to sea.

Puerto Rico

Our expected weather window, fell a little short of the predicted north winds. We expected a shift in winds during our first night out. They didn’t shift. But they were very light and variable and the seas were very calm, to the point of having a glassy surface at times. We are fortunate to have a reliable motor as it ran for 3 days, nonstop. Except for listening to the motor (which I’ll take any day over beating into the wind and waves), our trip went by uneventfully. Uneventful is always a bonus on a crossing or anytime for that matter. We put our trolling lines out during the day and reeled in a small skipjack tuna and our second dorado that measured 37”.

At 1:00pm of our 3^rd day we dropped anchor in the bay at Boqueron, Puerto Rico. Arriving in a new country the first stop is always customs to check in, technically your vessel is only supposed to anchor at a check in port, that would have been Mayaguez. We had heard however that here it was possible to get a cab that would drive you to customs and back and skip the not as pleasant harbor of Mayaguez. We had a little trouble reaching Raul, (the cab driver) on the VHF and for the first time since we left the states started missing having a cell phone. We did finally reach him, and very efficiently got checked in at customs and dropped back in town. Boqueron is known as a local college party town, being the wrong season and not a weekend the town was mostly empty, many places not even opening till evening if at all. I hear in peak season you can barely walk down the street for all the people. We made our way to Galloway’s, recommended as the best restaurant in town. Not only did they have good food and quiet relaxed dining on the water, but also a bustling friendly pub. The owner’s son, Eric, happened to be in town for the St Patrick’s Day festivities and we had an enjoyable time meeting him and his girlfriend.

After St Patrick’s Day, we headed around the corner to La Parquera and had our first encounter of the trade winds. As soon as we rounded the point to the east coast, the winds hit us head on, the seas picked up and we beat into wind and waves for the couple of hours to our destination. At least it wasn’t far. After this day we would learn to leave before dawn to arrive at our destination around 7am, this would allow us to take advantage of the night time lee as the winds coming down off the land would reduce the trade winds, making for a slightly more comfortable trip. It was still rough. La Parquera is a quaint little town, that comes alive after dark on weekends. We were serenaded to a variety of music late into the evening.

And moving on, before dawn, we headed over to Cayos Caña Gorda, locally known as Gilligan’s Island. The island acquired it’s name as someone decided it looked a lot like the set of Gilligan’s Island. Upon visiting the island most of the similarities were lost on me, there was a nice shallow lagoon though. We had heard that it was often crowded on weekend’s as a ferry from the mainland would bring locals over for the afternoon, we went on a Monday not realizing it was a holiday. The place was packed. A large portion of the small island is all mangroves and inaccessible. Near the lagoon is a sandy beach and picnic area. People were everywhere, packed in like sardines, so we went back to the boat. Tuesday had no ferry’s running so we headed back to the island; it was barely recognizable without a single person in sight. Two small rivers flowed through the mangroves and opened into the lagoon; empty of people it was quiet and relaxing just setting in the calm water.

Onto Ponce. Ponce was not particularly special, although the historic downtown is supposed to be nice, we didn’t make it there. We did however rent a car for a day and do some shopping. Wal-Mart, Kmart, groceries and Pizza Hut. It was great to be able to pick up the little things on our shopping list that we had been unable to find for a while, but were easy to locate in Kmart. The following day before returning the car we decided to drive up into the mountains to see the Radio Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory. With what sounded like easy directions, we were glad to have a gps as the roads were a bit hard to follow, winding and curving up through the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, thick tropical foliage everywhere, and steep mountains. We just had enough time at the observatory for a brief look and a few pictures before heading back down the mountain to return the car.

After Ponce all of our other plans fell apart with a break in the trade winds. We ended up with one quick stop overnight and then headed straight to Vieques and the Spanish Virgin Islands. One of Vieques main attractions are the bioluminescent bays. They are said to be a spectacular sight, however to enjoy the underwater light show a dark sky is necessary, since we were here during a full moon and didn’t want to wait a week or more for a bit of dark sky we skipped by this experience. We also found that a couple of the nicer bays on the eastern end of the island were closed to anchoring during the week due to the military performing artillery cleanup form when the US Navy used this as a practice firing area up until 2003. Of course we were here early in the week, oh well, with still having some settled winds we popped up north to Culebra.

Having skipped a large section of Puerto Rico to take advantage of calm winds to get here we decided to take a ferry, costing $2.50 one way back to the mainland. There we rented a car with our friends on Spirare, and drove into Old San Juan for a day. Along the way we stopped at a West Marine and picked up a few much wanted boat items. In Old San Juan we toured the Castillo de San Felipe del Morro. A fort built in 1953 under orders of the King of Spain to defend San Juan from naval attacks. It was a good trip and a long day, having arrived at the ferry dock at 6:00am and not arriving back at the boat until 11:00pm.

Our overall view of Puerto Rico was a very pleasant one. We enjoyed the small towns along the coast, found the people very friendly, and equally enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the coast and mountains. Traveling east along the southern shore in a sailboat…. Not fun at all, every mile was hard won. The water was not very clear at all and snorkeling was a disappointment, but there were some pretty beaches. As for the food: We usually enjoy trying local fare and are drawn to local restaurants, however it did not take long to discover Puerto Rican food = pork. I think they have managed to find a way to put it in everything. Since pork, chicken and beef are not a part of our dietary menu, we quickly shied away from anything advertising “local”. Pizza Hut was a welcome change.