Portsmouth, Dominica - 15 34.77N 61 27.58W

OOJAH's AWESOME ODYSSEY
Peter & Christene Tanner
Mon 18 Feb 2013 18:44
We set off for Dominica from Saint Pierre on the NW coast of Martinique. Saint Pierre was the capital of Martinique until 110 years ago when a huge volcanic eruption took out the whole towm killing all but one of the 30,000 inhabitants in the space of 10 minutes. Even the ships in the harbour were set alight by raining molten ash & sunk. We visited some of the ruins & walked out to a Rum distillery. We aborted our first effort to sail to Dominica due heavy seas & winds gusting to nearly 40 kts. Unfortunately this resulted in a tear on the leach of our jib which necessitated hiring a car to get to the sailmaker at Marin in the South but at least we saw some more of Martinique.

Dominica, like St Vincent, is one of the poorest islands in the Caribbean - both share an inaccessible mountainous rain forest interior unsuitable for agriculture & a reputation for crime. We did not stop at St Vincent as I find the harassment by boat boys very tiresome, & in the end we did not go ashore at Portsmouth - the corrugated iron shacks on the beach did not look very inviting & it was raining. The other factor was the weather which has been unsettled for weeks & is forecast to deteriorate further over the next few days. If we're going to be stuck let's be stuck somewhere nice.

Peter & Christene