Dominica - In Search of Propane, Lionfish and the Bar at the End of the World

The winds have finally abated, and remarkably have become almost non-existent.  So our trip to Dominica was a motor with some small rolling swells.  This provided a good opportunity to charge up our batteries.  While inspecting the batteries, Roger found salt water in the main battery and cabling compartment and spent the rest of our trip pumping and sponging, and then looking for the source of the leak.  While a number of possibilities have been eliminated, it seems the through hull that was cut in for the watermaker may be the source of the problem, and that will have to get addressed when we haul-out in Grenada. Roger is not 100% convinced on that and is a bit perplexed as the water only comes in when we are under power and moving. When running the engine at anchor there is no leak. Narrowing down the sources of a leak requires tasting it to see if it is salt or fresh (fresh would mean a leak in the fresh water system) warm or cold. (warm salt water would mean it came from the engine exhaust cooling system). In this situation it is cold salt water. More to come on this problem I am sure.

Dominica is a very high island, soaring 4100 feet in some places, so we could see it on the horizon very early in our journey.  After about 2.5 hours, we arrived at Portsmouth, in Prince Rupert Bay on the north west side of Dominica.  

The first thing you notice about Dominica is how friendly the people are.  They are truly happy to have you come to visit their island and will do whatever they can to make your trip more enjoyable.  As we were arriving in the bay, a brightly coloured open boat came chasing after us as we powered in.  I slowed down, and Lawrence of Arabia called out "Welcome to Dominica".  He then proceeded to let us know to reach out to him on VHF 16 or any of the other PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services) members if we needed any assistance.  

As we entered the bay, we found one of the last 2 available moorings and another PAYS member helped us to tie up.  Soon after Eddison, who manages the PAYS group, arrived and offered to assist us with checking in to customs.  He also called the vet, and had him arriving by 2pm as Pirate was not able to go to land until she received a health clearance by the vet.  Eddison also grabbed our 2 empty 10lb propane tanks, and promised to fill and return them the next day.   The PAYS group has made a big difference in attracting yachts to the area and does regular security patrols at night for those that are on moorings or anchored there.  

The other way I would describe the people of Dominica is industrious and honest. There are women selling their handmade hats and trinkets, or with their own stalls selling vegetables in the local market. Instead of having one major grocery store, there are about 10 different minimarts as you walk into the main town.  We were looking for lettuce, which had been difficult to find in Les Saintes.  The first little store we came to had just opened the day before, and the gentleman running it had previously lived in New York City as a nurse's assistant.  With the challenges of Covid, he decided to return to Dominica and was running a men's clothing store, and now a grocery store.  Fortunately for us, he had some fresh looking lettuce so salad was in our future.  I had paid in USD as we did not have any Eastern Caribbean dollars.  He said he would make change with ECD.  While we were chatting, he returned the change and I did not think anything of it, until his assistant came running down the road after us to say that he had not given me back enough change. 

Boat maintenance is constant.  We had also noticed that our bow thruster seemed to be low on power.  Once we reached Dominica, Roger was able to check out the problem. He conversed over WhatsApp (the preferred way of communicating in the islands), with his Rastafarian electrician friends Chip and Boots, back at the BVI Sunsail base. Working together they were able to discover that a number of the fuses in the 12 to 24 volt conversion module which supplies the bow thruster batteries were incorrect or missing completely. Without being charged the batteries simply lost power. Now the problem was that we were in this little remote Caribbean town which has no chandlery (boat parts store) or NAPA. However a walk back into Portsmouth uncovered a small auto parts store which just happened to have a bin full of fuses, several of which were a perfect fit. Back on the boat the fuses were installed and Roger tested the charging system. Sure enough that was the problem and the thruster batteries quickly came back to life when the main motor was started. 

Having dealt with the most pressing boat maintenance issues, we are now taking the time to enjoy Dominica.  We joined the Salty Dawgs, a sailing association that brings sailors together through educational webinars, rallies (to facilitate offshore passages) and rendezvous'.  Our time in Dominica happened to coincide directly with their Caribbean Rendezvous in Prince Rupert Bay, Portsmouth, from Feb 1st to 8th.  So when we arrived we were greeted with a whole program of activities, including a Welcome BBQ and live entertainment.  Pirate was able to participate too, and met up with some fellow Salty Dogs 🐾. 

Roger and I arranged a private tour to the Syndicate Falls so that we could bring Pirate along as well.  Our guide, Shadow, had a wealth of knowledge about the islands, and stopped multiple times along the way to point out or grab various plants which he handed to us and requested we guess what they were. These included lemongrass, ginger and basil.  He even pared back the bark of a tree, and it revealed itself to be cinnamon.  The farms on the way up grew coffee, pineapple, passion fruit, avocados and bananas. Shadow showed us the banana plants and explained that when Hurricane Irma wiped out their banana plants, the UK found a different supplier - Chiquita, and as a result Dominica no longer has an export business for their bananas. Also who knew that a banana tree only produces one bunch of bananas in its lifetime? It was also interesting to learn that the government seems to have close ties with countries such as China, Cuba and Venezuela.  There was some presence from Canada, with the newly built American Canadian medical school for international medical students.  The local students go to Cuba since, unfortunately, they cannot afford to attend this school.  

We hiked up through the lush forest and across a running river several times on our way up to the Syndicate Falls and saw some beautiful scenery along the way.  Roger said he felt like we were in Jurassic Park.  But nothing was more breathtaking than the falls at the end, where we had the opportunity to go for a refreshing dip.  

The next day we joined the larger group, with Pirate, for the Indian River tour.  Our guide, Spaghetti, rowed us up a river of brackish water.  There was a myriad of birds, including green backed herons, hundreds of humming birds and white crabs that made holes in the sides of the river bed.  The vegetation is lush with bloodwood trees and their buttress roots lining the river.  This particular river was used in the filming of Pirates in the Caribbean II and we saw the house of the sorceress and sea goddess, Calypso. 

As we headed up the river, Roger commented that it was like heading to the bar at the end of the world.  Lo and behold, we arrived at Cobra's Bush Bar where they served us rum punch and dynamite (a drink of local rum, gooseberry, passion fruit and lime), both of which delivered a punch.  Shockingly I also enjoyed a cold local beer called Kubuli.  

As I write this, the boat is rolling, and Roger is out on a spearfishing dive to hunt Lionfish.  Roger and I have previously seen lionfish in Mexico, and it is stunningly beautiful - but the spines on its back can sting you and cause paralysis.  They are an invasive meat-eating species that reproduces quickly and are destroying the coral reefs.   As a result, there is an effort underway to try to remove them and a campaign was launched urging people to eat lionfish.   Tomorrow the Salty Dawgs are having a lionfish tasting event.  The freezer broke down that had been storing the lionfish in anticipation of the event, and there is a last minute effort to gather lionfish to replace the stash.  On Roger's first dive yesterday, he did not see any lionfish.  We'll see what happens today.  Diving, speargun and lionfish.  What could possibly go wrong.