Dominica
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Sat 23 Jun 2007 14:39
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Hello Friends
"15:34.69N 61:27.72W"
We have two new crew and a new Island to
report, in fact we've been so busy that the blog is LATE !! Oops.
Ian Pass (Michael's brother) and Alan
Cornwell (his friend), arrived on schedule on the 15th and we spent the weekend
chilling out in Les Saintes for acclimatisation and getting used to 'island
time' - ie. real slow. We checked out of Guadeloupe on Tuesday and sailed south
to Dominica - (pronounced with long 'e' - 'DominEEca' to distinguish it from the
Dominican Republic, the eastern half of Hispaniola, which is pronounced with a
short 'e'.
Yet another good sail with brisk easterly
trades - just one reef in the main and a reefed genoa though we managed over 9
knots on a comfortable crossing. But you must all be getting bored with reports
of glorious sailing...
Dominica's catchprhase is 'Nature Island'
and is one of the least spoilt or developed islands in the Caribbean. The
population is only about 70,000 and as you can see from the blog map, it's a
pretty big island.
We took the Indian River tour in Portsmouth
in the NW corner - being punted up a river through dense jungle. The river banks
twitching with land crabs and birdsong, though fortunately not with too many
bugs. Here is Charlie who was the very competent helper who adopted
us.
 We had been rather ambitious and asked for a
taxi tour to see the Carib reservation and island sights. We were delivered to
Winston, who, like most of the locals in Portsmouth, seemed to know everyone on
the island. His taxi was named 'more bling' and we thought of 119 King
George Street!
 Winston was a superb guide with great
enthusiasm for his home island - we took a diversion to see his village and
home, where Winston Rum Special is a local tipple. Here he is bringing back a
sprig of citronella (the 'special' flavouring) for us to examine.
 We visited the Carib Reservation or the
"Kalinago Territory" to be more correct, the one remaining home of the native
indians. It is not a theme park - they just go about their lives in that part of
Dominica, but there is a well organised visitor area where the histroy of the
people is explained and the traditional buildings and canoes are on display. We
bought some cassava bread from a roadside 'bakery' and jolly good it was
too.
 The raw vegetable is ground on the wheel
behind the baker on the right, then dried in the kiln on the left before being
baked into discs on the hotter plate in centre of the pic.
In the course of the tour we stopped at
numerous points of interest and can recognise breadfruit trees, mangoes
(everywhere) nutmeg, guava etc. etc.There is a sense of pride in the island
and almost all homes have flowers and ornamental plants around the perimeter of
the garden. Even if home is just a very simple hut, which most of them
are.
Here we stopped at a roadside cinnamon
processor - this is what cinnamon looks like as the bark is stripped form the
branch.
 We had such a long tour that we didn't get
back to the yacht until 20:00, fairly exhausted after the tour but very
impressed with Dominica.
Anyway, as promised, over to our guest
bloggers.....
Ian here :
Having spent a little time on Blue Sky in
2005, I knew something of what to expect, though island hopping in the
Carribean is a whole new dimension in comparison to the coast
of Cornwall.
One thing was the same though ~ if you DON'T
want to be looked after, or well (superbly), fed and watered, then Blue Sky is
not the place for you. Huge thanks to George & Mike from Alan and Ian
for a beyond reproach performance !
I knew that the island of Guadaloupe
was a French territory, but hadn't realised that is was part of France / part of
the EU complete with EU grants for this and that all over the place.
Although Dominica is only a few miles
across, parts of it rise above 4,800 feet, so that vessels downwind of this
pick up fairly non-trivial turbulence ~ trust me, with the deck at
about 40 degrees to the horizontal and see rushing over the ship's rail onto the
deck, it makes it quite "entertaining" ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ in fact, so entertaining, that it
makes a chap turn quite lyrical (or something), and I offer the following
thoughts.
Blue Sky Yacht, Oh! Blue Sky
Yacht
T'is sojourn style that time
forgot
Until our valiant
twain
(In stark contrast to busy
feet
Pacing down their rush hour
street)
Set forth across the
main.
Blue Sky Yacht, Dear Blue Sky
Yacht
Such hopes and schemes from this are
what
The rest of us have
dreamed
To fly o'er waves with
halyards, sheets
straining through their holding cleats
~
~ 'beyond reality' it
seemed.
Blue Sky Yacht, Our Blue Sky
Yacht
as with you we throw our
lot
If from our cares we're
freed
To venture t'ward some western
isle
Or sit at home and nurse wry smile
~
~ and say "You lived, we
dreamed"!
Best Wishes
George, Michael, Ian and Alan
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