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| Dominica, the Nature Island |
Dominica is the "Nature Island". 365 Rivers. Source of fruits and vegetables for all the islands. Although Dominica is poor, no one goes hungry as the land is so fertile and productive. The land is too steep and rugged for large scale agro-business so it is hard to turn that productivity into dollars. It doesn't have the miles of white sand beaches that attract the big resorts. What it does have is proud and welcoming people, acres of forest and streams and miles of hiking trails to attract the "eco tourist". Everything is small scale and personal and quite attractive to people who love birds, flowers, rain forests, fish and food. In short, people like us.
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| Haul from the Saturday market in Portsmouth |
Saturday is market day in Portsmouth. All the farmers come to town and set up near the fish dock to sell their wares. We hurried up to Portsmouth to make it in time and this is picture of our haul. Spiraling in clockwise from the eggs (bring your own carton) are: eggplant, lettuce, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, kokoi (a kind of plantain), onions, papaya, bananas, carrots, grapefruit, green beans, tomatoes and pineapple. We restrained ourselves because the two of us need to eat it all before the tropical heat spoils them.
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| Baking "no-knead" bread |
Dominica is a former British colony so Susie's no-knead bread must be substituted for the baguettes of the French islands (Oh how we sailors suffer!) The tuna have been running all along the southern part of the island chain so we are not exactly protein deficient either.
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| Blackfin Tuna |
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| Albacor Tuna |
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| no-knead bread |
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| Watching for Dominican Parrots |
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| Home as art, Portsmouth, Dominica |
All is not without trouble in paradise however. Our Dominican vacation had to come to and end in order to make it south to Grenada for the Oyster Regatta. We reluctantly brought up anchor quite early to make the jump down to Martinique before dark. As we were on the lee (downwind) side of the island, we were ready to motor in the wind shadow left by its steep mountains. 6 miles out I realized that instead of a healthy flow of cooling water, we were exhausting little puffs of steam. This is a condition which can quickly lead to the demise of our beloved (and expensive) little engine and so I quickly turned it off. Bobbing around in the quiet waters, I was able to determine that there was plenty of water getting to the water pump and that none was coming out. I also determined that to fix the pump, we would have to remove the high pressure pump and its bracket. These are big, heavy and very unwieldy objects which had to be threaded out from the maze of wires, pipes and metal that fill our engine compartment.
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| Sunday night BBQ in Portsmouth, Dominica |
Unlike the residents of the Carnival Triumph, we were not immediately inconvenienced at all. Plenty of food, water, power, air and no problems at all with waste disposal. What we lacked was propulsion until we cleared Dominica and got into clear air. Meanwhile, we could just take advantage of the occasional breath of wind and the steady south flowing current of one knot. So we drifted. Very slowly. Very, very slowly. Sails slatting with the rocking motion of the boat. The admiral threatened to put up a "for sail" sign but there was no one to make an offer. A few whales passed but were going north. Dominica is not a large island but it is gigantic when you are bobbing along at one knot.
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| 365 Rivers in Dominica |
We cleared the southern end of the island in the late afternoon and soon were flying along on a steady breeze. Martinique appeared just at sundown but we didn't want to get caught in the lee of Mt. Pele and so we pushed on. We had a beautiful full moon and good wind so we sailed down to the capital debating whether to stop or not. After the long drift, it was hard to decide to stop and face uncertain anchoring in the dark and uncertain winds in the morning. We pushed on.
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| Impeller and bits |
By four in the morning we had reached Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. By that afternoon our heroic boatwright, Simon, and I were wrestling the water maker pump out of the way. We vacuumed out the heat exchanger and found the pictured fragments of the impeller. In addition, we found lots of shell fragments and bits of paper and so came to the conclusion that we need to add a strainer to our raw water input. We were up and running before dark.
Even at the height of the crisis, we could still eat well, sleep in our own bed and avoid the smells of the huddled, unwashed masses. All and all, even the admiral decided not to swap the Queen for a Carnival Anything..
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