Still in Prince Rupert Bay
Wind Charger
Bob and Elizabeth Frearson
Sun 15 Dec 2013 23:40
Andrew appeared promptly this morning, indeed 30 minutes early and we
bustled about getting together our bits and pieces for a day’s sightseeing:
cagoules, camera, copious quantities of water and caribbean dollars. Our
first port of call was Customs to check in and out after a very long ride in his
pirogue across the vast open space of Prince Rupert Bay. Customs turned
out to be less formal than we are used to, Bob filling in the multitudinous
forms at the customs man’s kitchen table. Normally pristine in their
startling white shirts, this man was in contrast green from a good Saturday
night partying, his friends threatening to return for a repeat performance
tonight apparently. Even his two dogs, Port and Customs, looked somewhat
jaded. He was obviously a conservative and thought that the Dominicans had
gone for independence too early and that the latest government were wasting
money on a spend spend spend campaign.
Our next port of call was the Indian River, one of 365 rivers on
Dominica. It was gorgeous being paddled between banks of lush vegetation,
artistically twisted trunks, enormous land crabs, being flashed by a variety of
birds, kingfishers, humming birds and herons ending up at a surprise tranquil
bar in the middle of the jungle where a very nice lady doctor greeted us and
made us all a Dynamite, a variation on rum punch but even stronger, while her
two delightful children argued over the IPad. The whole family returned
down river with us where we saw twice as many birds, or perhaps that was just
the Dynamite.
Andrew then handed us on to Winston for a land tour. He was an
advocate of the socialist way of government and thought all the spending on the
poor was a really good thing. He applauded all the investment from
“friends” such as Venezuela and China but couldn’t see that they would be
looking for anything in return, ever. We set off and took in the usual
photo opportunities, and numerous diversions to look at villages, admire their
schools, health centres and churches, including very proudly Winston’s own
village and home. Apparently Mr Wesley himself visited Dominica to set up a
village named after himself.
We partook of lunch in Calastrie where we tucked into delicious anonymous
fried fish and salad washed down with a compulsory beer, Bob’s Heineken and mine
local, something got lost in translation, overlooking the Atlantic ocean with
the mesmerising waves racing in over reefs making it hard to hear anything
else.
We then drove on down the Atlantic coast to the Carib reservation, the only
one in the Caribbean for the original Bronze Age settlors of the islands, it
seems that the Europeans enslaved or killed the others on the other islands so
there aren’t any left to be reserved. We had a fascinating potted history
of the Caribbean guided by a lovely girl whose roots were Carib, visible through
her Asian features, although there appears to have been considerable racial
intermingling.
Our last stop was the Red Rocks, a curious anomaly of a volcanic fissure
with smooth red rocks undulating on either side in curious mounds and
curves. It reminded us of Petra as there was even a carved out cave.
Winston proved a friendly and helpful guide and spontaneously bought us a bunch
of apple bananas from the roadside as we headed home.
We arrived back in Portsmouth to be met by Andrew, who looked as if he had
been having a very relaxing afternoon indeed, who spirited us back across the
bay as the sun set. We are now back on board after our busy day, settling
down with Gerry humming cheerfully in the background, beer in hand, working up
the energy to put on the spag bol for supper. A good day.
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