Position: 15:34:72N 61:27:65W

We set off at early o’clock for our sail north from Martinique.  Another 25M or so in open ocean, before hitting the lee coast of Dominica.  The seas in the open stretches between islands are generally pretty lumpy, which is only fair when you reason that the swell and wind are coming straight from Africa with nothing to stop them before they get here.  As it’s normally a reach or close reach, it is wet but fast – great sailing if you like that sort of thing (which I do) but not so good if you get seasick (which Sarah and Jemima do…) 

Jemima and Sarah both have a clear routine for managing the feeling of sickness, and it does seem to work.  In Jemima’s case, she sits in the cockpit with Sarah or I, and within ten minutes lies down on the cockpit floor with her teddy. She falls asleep, then an hour later, even if the motion is still bad, she wakes up and is as perky as anything, seemingly oblivious to the swells.  Sarah needs to sleep through it.  We did managed to buy some more Mercalm seasickness pills in Martinique, which is good.

We had decided to push onto Portsmouth, at the top end of Dominica – around 55M from St Pierre.  It was a tiring sail, with gusts up to 28kts as we neared Portsmouth.  The bay is large and open, and the backdrop to the bay is the lush green vegetation of tropical rainforest, carpeting the mountains.  We anchored and went ashore.

It being Sunday, the beach was dominated by local people swimming and picnicking.  This isn’t like any of the other islands we’ve been to so far – it is a lot more 3^rd-world and generally less developed.  We were quickly accosted by a local guy called Steven, who spoke very loudly and frightened the kids.  He told us of how he’d been sent to Libya for “army training” in preparation for a potential Leftist coup.  The beach wasn’t very suitable for buckets and spades for the kids!

Portsmouth is a lovely Caribbean town, very un-geared to tourists for a change, and wonderfully tatty.  For some reason that I didn’t discover, many ships seem to have ended their days here, blown up onto the shore by various hurricanes and inexplicably left to rot, their rusting hulks dominating Portsmouth’s skyline for what it is worth.

Ship stranded by hurricane, Portsmouth Dominica

Our local helper Steven

In the interests of “divide & conquer” (Emilia concentrating better at school when her sister isn’t around), I took Jemima off to customs and immigration.  As a by-product I have found that taking ‘Mima along to these places is a positive for all.  The normally stern officers in these places typically melt at the sight of a small child and the whole process is then done with smiles and cooperation.  Jemima, bless her, just loves watching them bash their stamps down on the various forms.

Right in the centre of the bay on which Portsmouth is situated, is a small river the mouth of which is made invisible from the seaward side by a large freighter which is hard on the rocks and almost blocks the river mouth.  This is the Indian River and we employed the services of a guide to row us up the river. 

Almost as soon as you pass under the road bridge, you enter a different world.  The silence envelopes you and the noise and space of the bay and the road are suddenly cut off.  You find yourself in the most amazing little river, lined with the thick tangled roots of mangroves and swamp bloodwood trees, whose roots look like something out of a horror movie.  Fish glide beneath you and birds watch you from the trees.  A large iguana watched our progress from his branch in a nearby tree.  It is thick jungle to either side.  At the top of the navigable section, one of the guides has opened a small bush bar, and we cooled ourselves with fresh grapefruit juices.

Indian River, Portsmouth

Indian River trip

The following day, we ended up doing a bus tour of the island.  Cynics that we are, (justifiably so after the rubbish day out we had on a bus tour of St Lucia) we needed some convincing that this was going to be worthwhile.  Luckily we were convinced, as this was an amazing day in an amazing country. 

(Our cynicism was aggravated because of the way the boat boys operate here.  Basically, the boat boys are actually the top dogs, with organizations beneath each of them.  They are the salesmen, but they then pass you off to one of their “back office” people who do whatever it is you’ve agreed to (go on a tour, pick up provisions, laundry, etc), and they split the revenue 50:50.  They are the ones wearing the smartest clothes.  Basically, our boat boy (Alexis) did a poor job of selling and organizing the bus trip but was saved because the driver he organized was superb)

The countryside of Dominica is just thick with vegetation. It is dripping with greenery – literally, because there are rain showers every ten minutes or so, interspersed with sunshine. Dennis, our driver, stopped several times and pulled a few leaves, berries or flowers off a roadside plant, to show to us.  There were leaves to make “bush tea”, coffee beans, chilli peppers to name but a few.  Banana plants, coconut palms and grapefruit trees were growing everywhere.

We stopped at one of what seemed like a lot of waterfalls.  Dominica has 365 rivers and it’s topography was described to the King and Queen of Spain by Columbus when he crumpled up a piece of paper.  So I suppose it is not surprising that waterfalls abound. This one happened to be part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, and we had a fantastic walk through the thickest jungle I’ve seen – a real Geography lesson in the tree canopy and the three layers of vegetation.  We had a competition to see who could find the biggest leaf and the girls found ones big enough to use as umbrellas!

Sheltering under a leaf

At the end of the walk was a beautiful waterfall dropping into a pool.  I couldn’t resist the temptation of a swim but couldn’t persuade the kids to come in.

We drove to the only remaining Carib territory in the Caribbean.  The original inhabitants of these islands, before the Europeans and the slave trade arrived, through a long and bloody history, eventually ended up in a reserve on the western side of Dominica.  They are almost Asian in appearance, which was disconcerting.  We met one of the ex-chiefs and learned a little about their communal way of living. 

Dennis took us to a stunning restaurant overlooking the Atlantic, where we drank fresh guava juice and golden-apple juice.  Lovely.  However they also had the best rum collection I’ve ever seen – effectively they just add random ingredients to neat bottles of rum, leave them for a few months and then see what they taste like.  I am not kidding, they had ginger rum, garlic rum, celery rum, you name it, they had added it.  I asked them for a recommendation and was given an “Obama Special” which I have to say I have no idea what it had in it.  All I remember is the first sip evaporated off my tongue before I could swallow it! 

On the “Obama Special” rum

The Girls

Rainforest, Dominica

Caribbean sunset, Portsmouth Dominica