Dystopian Dominica afore Guadadoop.

X86
Rich Carey
Sun 31 Dec 2017 01:37
15 34.805N 61 27.793W

Another bouncy bouncy inter-Island hop to little Dom - our St Lucian vet, having told us that clearance for Bosun in Dominica would be fairly simple. We headed for Roseau, and pulled into its bay, while half a dozen yachts on similar route, kept stridently north pointed. No boats, none, nowt boaty. Our reports were that Roseau was coming back, after the entire Islands hurricane thumping. Apparently those reports were without meritos, and thus we scurried off northward, after those better informed.
Eventually we pulled in after light gone, to Portsmouth bay, and were greeted by a fast moving totally unlit skiff - Daniel at its tiller. "Welcome welcome to Dominica - you need tour? I come by tomorrow!" Weird, anyway ... in pitchest pitch blackink, we motored slowly into an area marked as a ⚓ good hooky field on chart.  We turned on our 2 million candles hand held and 'wowoa!' we were already in a minefield of boats, most unlit, those lit disguised by shore light pollution. Bit slower even, methinks. Thence selected spot, and slung pick in 15 knots of moving air. Nice one - 45 meters of chain down quick smart, and made perfect bridled attachment to shady bottom. Ate - 1 beer - went sleep - long day.
Next day we should have checked in to Dominica, but as it was the holiday weekend (hard to imagine the process would thus be easy), and the place was pretty beat up (heaps of places still without roofs), and the other boats mostly leaving the anchorage - we binned the idea. Instead, we did bugger all, all day, and resolved to go to Guadalupe the next day. Somehow Chance ended up calling it Guadadoop, so that's now stuck :-)

It's such a shame that the broken infrastructure means no tourists, and no tourists means broken infrastructure. Last season yachties we're complaigning of over 70 boats jammed in the bay - at noon today we were one of six.

Bosun did giant wee in cockpit (to mega praise), and then immediately wondered forward, for more privacy, and did the big job (to more unbridled praise). Then things got a bit ugly. I picked up said big job in some tissue paper and lobbed package over side. Somehow a boat gremlin swiped the paper out of the air (fortunately the contents continued on as intended), and diverted it unnoticed through the back cabin open window! Shortly after, Karen finds paper on floor and notices its got a strange dark smudge on it .... poor girl then checks it out via a big sniff ...  retch ... oops!

x86 shackled to dystopian areas pooped bottom - Skipper and Chance good, Karen recovering well!

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