Week 51: Les Saintes to Dominica (23nm)

A week dominated by Dominica (in a good way) as we bid farewell to Les Saintes and Damacha and explored some wilderness with new friends on S/V Arcturus.

Captain’s log

21st Apr: We moved Serenity the short distance from Basse Terre to the Isle de Cabrit where Hugo and Seb plus friends were planning on visiting that day, and managed to snag one of the last remaining buoys. We had expected it to be fairly busy since it was Easter weekend, but the remaining buoys were all gone by lunchtime as this was clearly one of the best spots, so we agreed to move to a slightly less popular nearby anchorage to give Damacha a chance to join us. We then hosted them for dinner (less one crew member who was seasick) and Laura wowed them all with her Thai Fish Curry and Tish’s Coconut Rice in a classic relaxed cruiser dinner experience.

22nd Apr: We awoke to a heavy rainstorm and the light drip that indicated our repair hadn’t been entirely successful – but was small enough that we could pretend it hadn’t happened for at least a few days. The highlight of the day was diving at the nearby Pain du Sucre reef, and the Damacha guys let us borrow some scuba gear to renew our PADI – unfortunately Laura had some buoyancy issues, but I was able to see some amazing sealife with Hugo. We then accompanied the broader Damacha crew ashore for a meal and had one of the most laughter filled evenings for a long time that overcame all language barriers, and culminated in the most surreptitious ice-cream order I’ve ever heard from Vivi:

“Deux boules Madam – Rhum Raisin, Vanille…et Chocolate”

[Needs to be delivered with a mostly straight face and the slightest touches of a smile in the eyes].

23rd Apr: We said our sad farewells to the Damacha crew and sailed over to Dominica since the weather was meant to deteriorate the following day. We blasted along on a beam reach at 6.5-7.5 knots for most of the way, and then enjoyed the benefits of returning to an anchorage we have visited before – getting ourselves settled down and checked in in record time. The Atlantic Book Club had it’s second virtual meeting to discuss “The Three Body Problem” and then we cooked up some corn chowder to eat in front of a movie.

24th Apr: Had a mostly chill day aboard, taking advantage of high speed internet (after a blackout in Les Saintes) and removing sargassum (the Atlantic’s floating weed) from the toilet intake line – another reason to hate this stuff! Followed this up with a wander around the nearby shoreline including a visit to Damacha’s favourite cafe, Madiba, which is named in honour of Nelson Mandela. The day was oppressively hot, so we ended up back aboard with limited energy other than to scarf some pasta and fall asleep.

25th Apr: Used the morning for reconnaissance (‘rarely time wasted’) about how to explore / hike the island and developed a plan for the next day with nearby Daniel and Camille on S/V Arcturus. Then went on a tour of the Indian River with Devenson (via Charlie and then Spaghetti…), which was very scenic and learnt a fair bit about the island post Hurricane Maria. Finished off with some ice cream at Madiba where we learnt a bit more about Daniel and Camille’s backstory and finalised the choice of hikes for the next day.

26th Apr: A phenomenal day from start to finish – we picked up Daniel, Camille and then our rental car and worked our way down to the Morne Trois Pitons National Park in the south of the island. We then completed two challenging but manageable hikes through the brilliantly lush landscape that Dominica is famous for, and capped it off with lunch at the secluded Middleham Falls (see Story of the Week). With the mandatory stop at a grocery store completed on the way home, we then continued our laughs with the Arcturus crew over a couple of beers on Serenity before passing out in a coma of physical exhaustion.

27th Apr: We decided to spend a day afloat, mainly due to the lethargy and tightness we were feeling below the waist after the previous day’s hiking activities. Improvements were made to the Beta version of the ‘Flopper-Stopper’ (soon to be added to the Serenity First infomercial product line) and we made a last valiant attempt at eradicating the final drips from around the window. We felt ready to leave the boat by the evening and headed to Madiba ashore to try their famous ‘chicken with double rice’, which also gave a front row seat to some great cruiser national stereotypes.

Story of the week

In addition to recommending a visit to the cafe Madiba (in no uncertain terms), Seb and Hugo had also had great things to say about the interior of Dominica, and had identified two things in particular for us to see. The first was a tour down the Indian River in Portsmouth, and the second was hiking some of the trails in the Morne Trois Pitons National Park. 

The Indian River is short stretch of navigable waterway that is protected wildlife reserve and can only be accessed with a guide. Seeing as the no engines are allowed in the reserve, having a guide saved us the effort of a lot of rowing so it was a double win. We contacted a guide through one of Hugo’s contacts (and thus annoyed another guide ‘Uncle Sam’ who had approached us directly on Serenity), and were given a lift down to the river where we were introduced to Devenson. His knowledge of the wildlife was a bit high level but he was very happy to talk about his experience on the island post hurricane, which was genuinely interesting.  

Devenson employed an interesting rowing style that switched between a forward facing standing stroke and some Venetian gondolier style poling (without the singing). We made our way up to the river head where there was a slightly ramshackle cafe serving various fruity concoctions. Laura spent some time there trying to film an adorable little hummingbird, but he kept changing position every time she got anywhere near him and clearly wasn’t interested in appearing on our blog. Other wildlife was also a bit sporadic, but we saw a green heron, some crabs and a couple of moorhens, and the tranquillity of the journey was infectious. The peace was only shattered by another boat coming into view, who was steered by the same ‘Uncle Sam’ we had offended earlier – Devenson handled it with a fairly brusque salvo in the local dialect and Uncle Sam got back into his box. Devenson’s wry remark that a man steering a boat that had six paying tourists aboard was hardly in a position to complain was worth the tip alone and we returned back to the start point still chuckling.

The hiking was up next, and we decided to avoid the harder trails that need guides and try to make our own way on a couple of the more moderate ones. As we had come into Portsmouth we had spotted another US boat with a young couple aboard and so I dinghied over and introduced myself to Daniel and Camille, and asked if they wanted to split rental car with us – they were super keen and so plans were made for the next day.

We jumped in the car nice and early and made our way along the twisty coast roads, a number of which had been washed out or had bridges in various states of repair and substantiated Devenson’s assessment of the the long outstanding list of Maria repairs. We eventually found a windy road proceeding up into mountains and gamely persuaded our somewhat underpowered rental car to forge upwards into the increasingly remote national park where the majority of hikes were located. 

Our first hike was called Freshwater Lake since it was around a body of non-salty water that had formed up in an old volcanic crater. I had chosen to start with this one as a loosener, assuming that the path would be a flat stroll along the shores of the lake. Instead it was a series of steep ascents and descents as you worked your way round the ridge line of the crater, but thankfully people were so awed by the views that were occasionally revealed when the clouds lifted that they were more than happy to persevere. It was well towards lunchtime by the time we were done, but the group was keen to push onto one of Dominica’s famous waterfalls for a suitable lunch stop.

So we moved onto Middleham Falls, as it was closest trail, and set out from the trail head with stomachs starting to grumble. The landscape was completely different from the earlier hike as we passed through the heart of the rainforest and up a winding path that eventually opened out into a impressive gorge after around an hour of ascent. Our hunger had been largely forgotten in the humidity of the jungle, and as the falls came into sight everyone immediately prioritised swimming over the food. Suitably refreshed and with this captivating spot entirely to ourselves, we had a well earned lunch and rested a bit before the return leg. It was much easier going down, which was good as there wasn’t a corresponding waterfall at the car park to cool off in. We didn’t see any sign of Dominica’s ‘famous’ parrots, but did hear some interesting noises from the canopy (albeit Laura assessed them as belonging to a dying cat, which prompted a lot of follow ups about her past interactions with felines).

All in all, we had an amazing time exploring these different sites, and Dominica has definitely earned its reputation as a first rate back country / eco-tourism destination. There is a two week hike from north to south that we would certainly want to attempt in a world of infinite time and resources – maybe some other day?

Parting thoughts

You may remember that we mentioned running into the crew of Delos back at Saba, who are some of the more famous sailing vloggers around. Since then, I’ve paid more attention to their feed, and noticed they had recently posted an interview with a boat in Dominica called Bamba Maru which I thought was a fun name.

As we sailed into Dominica, I spotted that Bamba Maru was still there and decided to watch the interview. I discovered a very cool cruising couple that have put their world exploration dreams on hold to help provide relief efforts to hurricane disaster areas in the Caribbean. The stories of helping provide water in Haiti were especially arresting and so I thought I’d like to share the interview below.

Note: We ended up having dinner with them the subsequent week, and if possible they are even nicer in person than in the video!