Roger Family Sailing Adventures: Limin' in Dominica

We've been here a week now. Nice to just hang out and take it easy.

We raced to get here to meet up with Axel and Mary Clare on Azaya and had a great reunion. The rum punch at the Portsmouth Anchorage Yacht Services BBQ had plenty of punch and I got more handsome, intelligent and funny as the night wore on. Pam got meaner and meaner. Rum does that to her. Curious, though... she didn't have nearly as much as I did.

PAYS BBQ

I can't even taste the rum!

French Warship

We had agreed to do an island tour with Azaya and our German children, Carolin and Martin. So, on Monday morning Jeffrey aka Sea Bird arrived just after 9 and escorted us to the dock to meet Winston, our tour guide for the day. Winston is no shrinking violet and so in a very short time we were all in great humour listening to his stories of Dominica. We headed south for a few miles and then headed up into the mountains towards a park area called the Syndicate. Sounds ominous. Every mile or so we would stop and Winston would point out a sight or something edible in the forest. There are small farms everywhere so it looks like you don't have to go hungry here in Dominica... even though it is a very poor little island nation.

After our forest walk through the park we jumped back in the van to head to Milton Falls. We were here back in 1998 with our kids but don't really remember too much. It was a good walk and we had a bracing dip in the glacier fed falls. Pam says there are no glaciers here but it was pretty dammed cold.

Excuse me, are your grapefruit fresh?

Farming

Hide and Seek

Can you see the forest elves?

Tarzan

Don't make him mad... he's got a knife!

Milton Falls

Come on in... the water's fine!

Headed back to town and had a great lunch from the food stalls that supply the kids who attend the local medical university. We are going to make a return visit this week.

We are in no hurry to leave here so we've been filling our days with boat jobs. We've put a service coat of varnish on the teak. We are not as good as Winfield but we are learning. And to save our boat bucks we need to become more independent with that kind of thing.