As predicted we had an exhilarating close reach in 15-20 knots of wind to Prince Rupert Bay at the north end of Dominica.   It has had a reputation for rather persistant and difficult boat boys but although we were met by some about 5 miles out they were charming and undemandingly helpful.  Dominica is high and wet and dominated by tropical rain forest.  We thoroughly enjoyed the obligatory tour of the Indian River which is the main source of income for the boat boys.  We teamed up with an American couple from another yacht for a tour of a few sites we had selected which involved some leg exercise!  Although we had warned them of the fact that they would have to walk and it would be muddy, wet and slippery they came with rather inadequate footwear and Marille had a very nasty fall but fortunately did not injure more than her confidence.  We were walking to yet another waterfall fed jungle pool, unfortunately they did not make it, but our guide kept a discrete distance while we had a  swim in the cool fresh water.  We managed to see both of Dominica’s rare parrots in an early morning visit to one of  their favourite haunts.  The vegetation in the rain forest is very impressive with enormous trees soaring well over a hundred feet to the dense canopy above which keeps the undergrowth to manageable proportions.  We saw the parrots and heard them calling in a deep valley from a vantage point high up on one side.  Our guide took us to his home and introduced us to his family.  He cut and cracked for us some fresh coconuts so we could drink the milk and scoop out the delicious soft jelly.

The living is pretty primitive even for him with a lot of land handed down from his grandfather and Dominica is generally very poor. Fruit is plentiful and there for the picking and we have had local avocados, mangoes, papayas, grapefruit, bananas, however the problem for the locals is marketing it. How the farmers manage to make any living out of selling bananas to Tesco and Sainsbury is a question that might cause the respective chief executives to blush.  We had five days in Prince Rupert Bay which is a great anchorage and chilled out with much swimmimg and walking and hanging out in a beach bar where we had a very good and inexpensive meal of calaloo soup (reminiscent of spinach) and fresh water crayfish with a selection of local vegetables most of which we had seen but not eaten.  We have left a lot of Dominica to explore on a subsequent visit,  which we hope might happen next year.  Yesterday we arose at 0230 and with some difficulty in the dark extracted our anchor from underneath another boat,  which had chosen to anchor on top of us, and had declined a polite request to move a little further away.  This was one occasion when we felt that the special close relationship with our American cousins was a little overdone.  We motored through Dominica’s wind shadow and then close reached in the customary tradewind across to Martinique and sailed down to the south coast past Diamond Rock fortified by Rodney as HMS Diamond Rock to prey on French coastal traffic. In the failing light we chose a remote anchorage behind a reef and frightened ourselves somewhat in the process while navigating round the coral patches.  In bright sunlight today it all looks very easy but when the sun is low or in cloud the coral heads are much more difficult to see.  We chose this to avoid some forecast heavy swells from a storm system north of the Bahamas and in spite of the persistent and dire warnings of the forecaster nothing has materialised to disturb the tranquillity of the open anchorages.  We will retrace our steps minimally to Fort de France next week to meet up with another yacht we have been talking to for sometime on the radio.  This long range radio has been a great way of keeping in touch with other yachties and is very good for exchanging news and information.  We plan to spend a little time exploring inland before we head south to St Lucia for a rendezvous with our first houseguests since dispatching the boys.