Natural Wonders in Dominica

Mountains above Dominica

Freshwater Lake, Dominica

Where landrovers go to die (for Kev L.)

Rainforest above steaming sulpher springs, Dominica

It was an early start for our tour with taxi driver, Israel. We had been despondent to see another cruise ship enter port overnight as all the guides warn of overcrowding with the ship-set ashore. Israel assured us he’d give us a great tour and avoid the crowds so we started at Freshwater Lake. This is high in the mountains and the source of the Roseau river. The taxi climbed well over 3000ft and into the clouds. The views were literally breath taking and the temperature drop shocking. We all felt the cold in the mist.

Rainforest, Dominica

Swimming the Titou Gorge

Next stop was the Titou Gorge. The taxi driver had asked if Elizabeth was a good swimmer and if she’d be brave enough to swim the gorge, but we didn’t know what we were in for until we arrived. The Gorge featured in, you guessed it, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3. We stripped to our undies and entered a pool of clear and cold blue water, looking like the turquoise lakes of New Zealand. The water rapidly deepens into a deep, narrow chasm with precipitous smooth walls. You swim around 150m upstream to find a gorgeous waterfall at the head. Elizabeth did brilliantly with several stops on her back to rest.

Trafalgar Fall, Dominica

We then headed for some more natural hot sulphur springs adjoining the freezing river water and off to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Trafalgar Falls. The guide timed our visit to perfection and we breached the end of the cruise ship crowds and the influx of regular day-trippers. Elizabeth stripped off again to wallow in the hot sulphur waters, joined by Matthew.

Elizabeth enjoys the hot sulphur pools

The bird life equally vibrant – Antillean crested hummingbirds, lesser yellowlegs, green heron and smooth-billed ani joined the more abundant black finches, grassquits and bananaquits.

Hot sulphur falls, Dominica

We returned to find an invitation from the hotel to a special January party they hold for all locals with their birthday that month – a fitting way to celebrate another January birthday – Australia Day. Tomorrow, I shall dive whilst the children enjoy the hotel pool, then we shall all go sperm whale watching. The jetty has already been busy with whale-watching boats as a team from the BBC are here filming the whales. They report they have seen ‘loads’ so we are hopeful for tomorrow.

250 year old tree in Botanical Gardens, Roseau, Dominica

Stop press – we came up to the hotel for a drink and spotted Steve Backshall and his team who are filming a new series “Deadly Pole to Pole”. They’re off to Yellowstone next, then the Bahamas and will also include ice diving in Svaarlbard and South Georgia. Steve sepnt ages chatting ot the kids whilst I talked to the real crew. I am sooo jealous.

Fishing for Ballyhoo, Dominica

Martinique to Dominica

Another safe anchorage - St. Pierre, Martinique

Our last evening in St. Pierre was interesting. We met a group from the Ocean Cruising Club who commented on our defaced blue ensign, then as we had a small drink in a café we were hailed by the owners of Gimcrack. They had finally dropped off their first guests and were heading for Dominica en-route to Guadaloupe for their next charter. How anyone would pay good money for a week on such a small boat with no head room and rationed water is beyond me! We challenged them to a grudge match race but left before them in the event. We had to take care lifting the anchor as an American Hunter 41 yacht had anchored far too close to us – I could almost step aboard her at one point in the night – but there was no wind and the glassy clear water enabled us to watch the anchor lift as we winched it in.

We motored north initially in the lea of Martinique before the trade winds picked up off shore. Today was a great day – Dominica is the first of the “Leaward Isles” which meant we were now on a close reach giving us a faster and smoother ride. The winds and seas were slight and we raced along under full sail.

Evidence - James eating a mango (for Hilary!)

We have read that Dominica is a hot spot for sperm whale watching. Elizabeth and I did some research on these unusual whales and she then wrote a story. This included the whale getting hit by a boat propeller and then going to a turtle hospital where a hawksbill turtle was having a plastic bag removed from its stomach by surgeon fish. Matthew is slightly worried because Dominica has several active volcanos and the tale of St.Pierre has unnerved him.

It was refreshing to see a return to our friends, the flying fish. We disturbed frequent small schools of these, but many were much smaller than the ones who caught themselves mid-Atlantic. We are no longer attempting to fish as the guides suggest that the risk of ciguatera poisoning increases dangerously from here northwards. The symptoms can be severe, requiring hospitalisation and cardiac monitoring.

As we approached Dominica’s south coast, we could see why the European settlers were slow to colonise. High cliffs plunge vertically down into the sea and there are no bays or beaches. As we cleared Scott’s Head in the south west, we saw the first villages and bays. The area around Soufriere is a marine reserve and anchoring is not allowed until Roseau, the capital.

Less salubrious Roseau, Dominica

Approaching our stop, we radioed one of the yacht-friendly outfits in the pilot, but had no answer. The yacht behind tried another outfit, but again, no answer. This was in stark contrast to the instant assistance we’d had in other countries. The waterfront looked a bit spartan with few yachts anchored nor moored. We took a spare mooring outside the almost-deserted Anchorage hotel and James motored up to clear in. Again, we lacked a warm welcome – the two week clear in, clear out, move anywhere pass so acclaimed in the pilot seems to be long forgotten. We now need to wait until Monday to obtain a permit to move (another fee) then clear in again at our next anchorage, all during office hours. The hotel was equally unimpressive. We wanted to do a bit of everything – an island tour, use the pool and internet, whale watching and some diving, but the reception lacked enthusiasm.

Rainbow brightens the sparse vista of our mooring

After all our hopes for the natural wonders of Dominica, this was quite an anti-climax. We drowned our sorrows by celebrating Burns Night with a traditional meal of haggis, tatties and christophene, washed down by a fine single-molasses barrel aged rum.

Glorious sunset in Dominica

Happy Children

Elizabeth is a mermaid. She now has the confidence to swim around the boat several times with no buoyancy aid, and will jump in fearlessly from the deck. Matthew has mixed views on swimming, but has finally been bought a lego set which has replaced the Nintendo as toy of choice. He is now reading confidently and selected a book in Bequia – Leroy the Lobster – which he reads most nights. He says “I like reading – can I have more books?"

Happy children with 'Happy Meal' - gah!

We dragged them through the rain forest on a recommended walk past the statue La Vierge des Marins. This edifice of the Virgin Mary ended up blasted onto the road below in the 1902 eruption. We picked up windfall mangoes from the gutter and ate the on the way up, before ascending down a trail through the Jardin des Papillons. It was a shame we had bought bread as it would have been quicker to swim back out to Croix des Gardes rather than walk to the town pier and the rib.

Eating windfall free mangos

Mum was happy too as I dived on a coupe of the ship wrecks in the bay. They have all now been marked by dive morrings with a submerged buoy at 5m for deco stops - very nice. I dived one we'd seen a dive boat on. The wreck started at 42m and was amazing. The hull was one of the steel ones and was intact and erect on teh sea bed - covered in corals. The French don't think twice about deco and there were telltale bare patches on the shot line at 3m intervals on the way up. The second one I tried has been called The Gabrielle. She was a 3 masted schooner, now reduced to a few piles of timbers on the sea bed. I was told the others are also in 35m of water and many are silted up now, but one's rudder still stands erect. We have one more night in France then it's off to the contrasts of the extremely poor Dominica.

Sunset at St. Pierre

Northern Martinique

There is something strangely satisfying to be at anchor in a requisitioned French boat in the shelter of an active and historic French naval base. We stayed below the fort at Fort de France and were joined by boats of many nations, including a tiny home-built Polish sloop, barely long enough to lie in, that the constructor had just sailed single handed across the Atlantic in. He told us he had taken 33 days from Santa Maria and now intended to give the vessel to a Martinique family before flying home to Poland.

Tiny Polish sloop at Fort de France

We sailed up the Martinique coast to St. Pierre. This was the former commercial capital of Martinique but has a sad history. Firstly, it is where Europeans wiped out the last of the native Carib people in 1658. They say that the last ones uttered curses before they died, invoking the volcano to take their revenge. This it actually did in 1902 when Mount Pelée erupted. After many minor mudslides and small eruptions, the entire side of the volcano burst open, releasing superheated gas over the city with energy 40 times the energy of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. 30,000 people died and even ships at anchor sank in the harbour. Of only three survivors, one, a prisoner, only escaped with minor burns as he had been imprisoned in tomb-like solitary confinement.

Photo of St. Pierre after one of the 'minor' eruptions

St. Pierre after the devastation that killed 30,000 occupants

St. Pierre is a wonderful anchorage, away from the charter fleets and inhabited by a couple of dive boats, some fishermen and some rather tatty cruising boats. We felt right at home. It used to be “the Paris of the Caribbean” before the eruption, but now is a quiet large village with small amenities and a few street dwellers. The Chamber of Commerce has been rebuilt to the original plan to show the town’s former glory, but most of the other houses are of mixed appearance.

St. Pierre today

By morning, the clear water was glassy calm and we could see our own anchor on the bottom. There are several well marked wrecks to dive in 10m to 60m of water. Most were wooden vessels that burned in the disaster, but the deepest is a large steel ship which sank due to her cargo of potassium catching fire. All ships were lost with all hands and divers still find human bones in the wreckage.

Fort de France

Today was the Day of Reckoning. We planned a downwind leg from Le Marin to Fort de France, so it was a chance to try the ‘new’ genoa. With trepidation, we hoisted it. It fitted! Off we set in another brisk breeze and it worked beautifully – thanks Mat. We had to gybe a couple of times for traffic and ended up almost dead downwind to pass leaward of Diamond Rock without having to gybe again. Then we just had to continue to harden up, past Solomon’s Point, past Anse Noir where a white sand beach sits next to a black sand beach, then as close hauled as we could set us right up into the anchorage under the fort. The new sail was lovely – slight crease from the clew but not nearly as baggy as the old one and still worked when partially furled. James is very pleased with it and we are now speculating what Mat’s ‘old’ main is like….

A new genoa

On the way across, we took some satisfaction in passing Diamond Rock in a French boat now requisitioned by British owners. Diamond Rock is a jagged outcrop of a point approaching Fort de France. The area’s history is dominated by the Napoleonic Wars between France and England, and the slave trade. The British rather rudely snuck over to Martinique, almost within sight of their main naval base at Fort de France, and occupied Diamond Rock. They installed four cannon and started taking pot shots at the surprised French ships as they returned to port. The Brits held the rock for 17 months, even assigning it as HMS Diamond Rock until Napoleon sent Villeneuve to liberate it. Villeneuve did so but avoided Nelson. When he returned to report to Napoleon, the latter was incensed that Villeneuve had not got shot of Nelson too, so Villeneuve sailed off to accost him directly – at the Battle of Trafalgar. Some French histories claim that they only got the Brits off by deliberately shipwrecking a vessel full of barrels of rum on the rock and then waiting until the Brits were too drunk to defend themselves any more.

Passing Diamond Rock

In contrast to the other settlements we’ve seen in Martinique, Fort de France is far more down at heel and the colour of the population darkens. There is much “negritude” graffiti and many more neglected buildings. The old town centre has the feel of the less salubrious parts of the large French Mediterranean cities, with cheap but gaudy clothes stores and dereliction. We had been recommended a fine restaurant and went ashore to book. We almost decided against it when we found the place heavily shuttered and surrounded by very seedy looking burnt-out buildings. We are glad we didn’t.

'Beheaded' statue of Josephine at Fort de France

Le Cave au Vins in Rue de Victor Hugo is really very special. The meal in this small fine dining establishment was one of the best we have had anywhere in the world but at low prices. The wine list included vintage examples worth up to €795 a bottle. We enjoyed a more reasonable 1998 Medoc with stunning aromas of tobacco, cherries and vanilla. The children enjoyed sea urchin ravioli with fresh bread, whilst we had a sea urchin cassoulette followed by a divine magret de canard “Rossini” served rare with fois gras and a morels sauce. For desert, the Elizabeth and James had a warm chocolate fondue pudding whilst Matthew and I shared a cheese plate. The children’s behaviour was impeccable in the high company so they were given a treat the following day of a Happy Meal at the first McDonalds we’ve seen since Cascais.

Le Cave au Vins