We came out to see the world,

but we ended up making friends with it.

Note: While this is a family friendly website, in this post, some content may not be suitable for younger readers.  What that means, is that if you only read ONE of our posts on Dominica, this is the one!

We were heading into our last weekend in Dominica.  We had vowed to stay until the opening of Carnival season and seriously considered staying until actual Carnival, which wasn’t for another three weeks.  We went out with a bang, with one fun party after another for days.  At the end of this post, for yes, this is the final Dominica post, I think you will agree that we made the most of every precious moment on The Nature Island.

Day 10, and we’re not even thinking about leaving.

The next day, we visited CALLS, and I had my “Angelina Jolie moment”.  CALLS is the Center Where Adolescents Learn to Love and Serve.  It is a school for teens who have dropped out of high school for various reasons and need a second chance.  We heard about the school from Martin, one of the PAYS guys.  Stan the Man’s wife, Joanne, works there.  Wendy and I walked over with the children and introduced ourselves to the principal, who gave us a tour.  The teens take academic classes as well as learning skills, such as woodshop, art, and childcare.  We made a donation to this great school from the money we raised back at home (thank you to our wonderful community of friends, coworkers, and schoolmates!).  If anyone is looking to support a school like this, get in touch with me.  They only have enough funds to last two more years…

Our kids were especially eager to see the childcare area, which serves the community children as well as children of the students.  Our kids took off their shoes and jumped right in to play with the kids.  It was lunchtime, so they helped feed yogurt to the little ones while Wendy and I took turns holding the itty bitty baby who was there.  Before we left, we arranged to have the children come back the next day to volunteer in the daycare room.  We weren’t 100% sure that it would be a help or a hindrance, but they were keen to return and we were keen to have an hour to ourselves for the first time in months!

 

 

 

Back at the boat, Reese and I somehow found ourselves alone and making lunch.  We sat down together for our poor man’s French lunch, which is cheese, crackers, olives, and whatever veggies we had in the fridge.  It was lovely to sit with her and answer her many questions about what “reasons” a teen might not finish high school.  Uh boy.

Day 11, We’re getting there.

The next day, January 25^th, the kids volunteered at CALLS.  After dropping them off, Wendy, Craig and I went off to look for lunch.  We ended up at Lydia’s, which is also one of my favorite spots for the Friday night dance party.  Chris stayed back on the boat to work on the head and watch Porter, who didn’t feel like babysitting a bunch of kids, as he so delicately put it.  On our walk through town, we ran into Stuff.  Poor Stuff.  He seems to have a bit of a drug situation going on.  He begs for money and is willing to do literally anything for a few EC: take your garbage, get you some grapefruit, show you the way to customs, etc.  Craig has taken a liking to the fellow.  Today, Stuff has promised that he is off drugs and just needs some money for a Coke.

After the fun time I had the week before, I managed to convince most of the crew to come out for the Friday night street party.  Chris, Wendy, Craig, and I met Titus and went off looking for some fun.  It was just as crazy as the week before.  While standing outside the first bar, checking out the scene, we noticed a man to our right, who was just chilling out by himself, smoking, and looking around while swaying to the music.  Enter, stage left, a petite and energetic young woman, dancing up a storm to the loud reggae music.  She is dressed in a very tight, very bright, flaming red jumpsuit.  She is dancing in the streets, dancing in and out of the bar, dancing all over the place, oblivious to everything around her.  I loved it!  (even though I have a sneaking suspicion that this is how I appear when I dance).  All of a sudden, the quiet man to our right takes the joint out of his mouth, which, by the way, was the size of a cigar, and screams out, “You look like a f&*#@ing popsicle!”, which instantly became one of our favorite catch phrases.  We would see more of Popsicle in the coming days, but we never saw her Fashion Policeman again.  He’s probably still working on that dube.

I was happy that the Friday Night Dance Party was going so well.  Wendy and I also got to see our friend Sugar Daddy, who we met at Big Papa’s Reggae Night.  He was dressed in his finest mesh tank top and had clearly lost his toothbrush sometime in the last month.  He gave us big hugs and wet kisses on the cheek.  We quickly moved on to the next bar…

At The Parakeet, we all got to admire the artwork on the walls of the restaurant/bar.  If the posters depicting scantily clad women holding beer bottles in a most loving embrace didn’t do it for you, you could check out the hand-painted murals.  One shows a woman leaning over a bench.  The artist has not yet learned to paint clothing, so it was a bit much for a public restaurant, but no one seemed to mind.

I looked up as a man with a joint braided into his goatee walked by.  I thought to myself, “What a clever way to carry your joint around!  Just tie it up in your goatee hair.”  And then I thought to myself, “You have been in the Caribbean waaaaaaay too long.”  It turned out that it was not a joint.  It was one of those white, plastic bunny rabbit barrettes that little girls wear in their hair.  I’m still wishing that it was the other thing.

Ross, which was his name, wanted to dance with Wendy.  “She gets ALL the guys!” I silently complained to myself.  Just kidding.  Forced to choose between Ross, Sugar Daddy, and Stuff, I’m not sure who I would pick.  Not to worry.  When Wendy needed a break, Ross gladly punched my dancecard and swung me around the room.  As I watched the nudie posters stream past my eyes, I noted that even the sketchiest of Dominican men can dance, damn it!

Just to get Wendy jealous, I managed to snag a dance with Stafford, who is one of the quieter PAYS guys by day, and apparently a relentless, dancing womanizer by night.  He was all kinds of excited to dance with me, even though he barely came up to my shoulders (or because?).  All I could think about was how he really knows how to barbecue chicken at the Sunday PAYS barbecue.  I searched the room for Chris, but he was outside on the patio, so I grabbed Titus from the bar and danced with him until we could slip outside to join the others.

All in all, it was a successful and memorable Friday night.  And just like I got crepes out of the French, I got dancing out of my Dominicans.

 

Day 12: We’re in like Flynn

If you don’t know where Secret Beach is on Dominica, join the club.  Only us locals know about it or how to get there.  Okay, us cruisers who are tight with the locals.  Martin, Anything Goes’ PAYS guy, was excited to share this special place with us and asked us to join him, Joanne (Stan the Man’s wife), and her kids for the day.  We followed him in our dinghies a good way out of Portsmouth and he pointed out the rock cliffs as we approached.  The cliff looks like a horse with his mouth bent down to drink water from a trough.  It reminded me of the red sculpture on eastern Long Island, which depicts a deer bending down to eat some grass.

 

the rocks on secret beach look like a horse drinking water.

As we came around the bend, we saw a secluded little beach, tucked away between the cliffs.  It was adorable.  We anchored the dinghies out in the small cove and carried in our bags, lunches, and children over our heads.  The kids played in the sand while we chatted with Martin and Joanne.

 

Martin showed us a cave in the rocks and told us that you could squeeze into it and get all the way through to the other end, which opened out onto the big harbor.  At first, we were all game.  But Reese and Kate went in with Craig and suddenly screamed.  The waves were at high tide and were crashing into the cave, leaving little space between the water and the top of the cave.  One by one, everyone begged off except for Craig and I.  I’m not sure why I didn’t cave (ugh.  I can’t stand puns.  But I know people who love them, so I couldn’t resist that one.).  I am not one for scary adventures, but it seemed like a one-time opportunity.  It’s not like Martin would suggest something dangerous, right?

Craig and I grabbed our masks and snorkels and picked our way over the sharp rocks to the cave entrance.  Once inside, we had to get down on our bellies and crawl through a tunnel that was filled with water.  We had about 12 inches of air between the water and the tunnel ceiling.  I felt like a Navy Seal.  I stayed close to Craig’s heels.  He called back and told me to look under the water.  He saw a lobster or something.  I put my face under and freaked out a little bit.  It was a whole little world down there, with fish and creepy crevices.  It was also a tiny space and I was inches from all of this underwater activity with nowhere to go if I suddenly saw this lobster or whatever it was.  Backing up didn’t seem like a possibility, so I went on.

I saw Craig stand up in front of me and realized the tunnel had ended.  We were in a dark, circular room within the cave.  It was about 20 feet in diameter and 20 feet high.  It was really, really cool.  For about 4 seconds.  That’s when Craig heard a chirping noise and looked up.  He shined his flashlight on the ceiling, looked at me, and whispered, “b-a-t-s”.  I said goodbye to the magical, cute room and looked up.  I followed the beam of my flashlight and saw hundreds, if not thousands of bats, all fluttering and squirming and shaking and vibrating as they clung to the ceiling.

“Ok!  All done!” I said to Craig as I practically knocked him over heading for the crack of light on the far side of the once-cute, now bat-infested caveroom.  We made for the exit and found ourselves standing on some big rocks that were submerged in 2 feet of water.  In front of us were many other large rocks, some jutting out of the water.  The waves were crashing into the cave entrance every few seconds with a violent thrust.  Just beyond the breaking waves was the reef.  We would have only a few seconds to swim against the incoming waves, between crashers, to get past all those rocks.  If a wave came while we were still swimming in the entrance, it would pummel us against the rocks.

Just as we were calculating how to get out, I looked down and saw sea urchins just below the surface.  They were all over the rocks we were standing on as well as the ones we had to walk out over to get out of the cave.  In addition to these spiny, stinging creatures, there were some primitive sea creatures clinging to the rocks that looked like a cross between a miniature armadillo and a beetle.  Excellent.  I looked at Craig and said, “I’m going back the way we came in.”  I turned and got a glimpse of the bats and then I remembered the creepy tunnel.  I turned back again and said, “Okay.  We can do this.”

Craig was fearless.  He said, “I’m just going to go for it.”  I screamed and told him to wait.  If he got hurt, who was going to help me get out?  Just kidding.  I kept sticking my head under the water between waves to size up the rocks and figure out where I could step.  Craig took one big breath and jumped in on the ebb of a wave and started swimming like crazy.  I saw his arm scrape up against the rocks on the left and prepared myself for some bodily damage.

I would have stayed there all day mustering up the courage to jump in, but keep in mind the bats behind me, which I couldn’t keep an eye on, the sea urchins under my feet, just waiting for me to slip sideways on the rocks, and the dinosaur bugs on the rocks where I needed to put my hands for balance.  No time to waste.  I made the shallowest dive I could and hoped I could swim fast enough to clear the entrance before the next wave hit.  It went surprisingly well and soon I caught up to Craig.  Our fear (he HAD to be a little afraid) was quickly replaced by, “How cool was THAT???!!!!” and we snorkeled our way back around to the Secret Beach.

I’m too much of a baby to jump off a cliff into the water, but I saved some face by exploring that cave.  I still feel like kind of a hotshot.  Craig, and Wendy, who did it later that day, will attest that it was every bit as freaky as I have described it.  No literary license here.  And I will attest that my spelunking days are officially over.

Our time in Dominica couldn’t end without having one last party with all our new friends.  So that night, Wendy and Craig, Christine and Bob (from Virginia Dare), Titus, Eddison, Ken G (who never goes on boats!), Cosmo, and Callie came over to Patronus for a farewell sundowner.  We started down below, showing the guys around, and then made our way to the cockpit so we could enjoy the sunset.  We listened to reggae music, talked about our adventures, learned more about each of our friends (except for the quiet Callie and Cosmo), and toasted the beauty of Portsmouth.  We ended the night with promises to return to Dominica someday and invitations to visit us in New Jersey and Texas should they ever find themselves in the US.

It was a night of perfect balance and connections of our hearts.  It was bittersweet, because we all knew our time left together was short, but we didn’t dwell on that because we were fully enjoying each other’s company in the moment.  I will never forget the laughter, the stories, and the closeness that I felt with each of those precious people that night.  With tears in my eyes as I write this, I remember that I left part of my heart in Dominica that night.

Our Last Day in Dominica:

Sweet, quiet Callie.  The night before, we spent some time talking about the food on Dominica.  We love how no one could possibly go hungry on this lush, fertile island.  Fresh food abounds and all the other kinds of food are hard to get or expensive.  Hmmm.  I wonder why the oldest living woman for years was from Dominica?  The guys had told us how all children, both boys and girls, are taught to cook fresh foods from scratch.  The next morning, Callie proved it.  Titus arrived with a picnic basket filled with breakfast for 12.  We called over on the VHF to Anything Goes and Virginia Dare and told them to come aboard!  Together, we enjoyed salted cod, salad, breadfruit, papaya juice, and chocolate tea.  We imagined starting our days with this gorgeous burst of life-giving food each day.  This was a gift that could not be repaid.  It was Callie sharing his life, his island, and his heritage with us.

 

While we wait out a sudden downpour in Blue Bay, this little guy uses the runoff from the gutters to take a shower. So cute!

We were certainly leaving Dominica with a bang.  The last few days had been wonderful in so many ways.  But we were about to experience some of the best Dominica has to offer.  Carnival season was opening on our last day.  We couldn’t be there for actual Carnival, but we had heard that the season-opening festivities could be just as much fun. We got our boats ready for our passage after breakfast and provisioned for our trip to Grenada.  In the afternoon, we all met at Blue Bay to head into town for the jump up (parade.  Sort of.)

 

 

We weren’t sure what to expect, but we were pumped up and ready for it.  We found a good spot in town to watch what we thought was a parade.  We waited and waited.  We drank beer, bought popcorn for the kids, and took pictures of some people dressed in costumes.  We saw a lot of people we knew, which made us feel less like tourists and more like old friends.  Finally, right on time (on “island time”, which means hours after they say it’s going to start), we saw a parade coming our way from far up the street.  There were a few cars/floats and a few people on stilts in sparkly costumes.

Then, out of nowhere, came Russ.  Remember Russ, from the Friday Night Street Party?  Russ saw Wendy and I and grabbed our hands.  He pulled us onto the street, which was now filled with very loud calypso music.  He took off his football helmet (don’t ask) and put it on my head.  He then took off his sweaty white tank top and put it around Wendy’s shoulder’s.  In the pictures, she and I don’t seem to have registered these two bits of information.  Perhaps the music was too loud.  We just danced away down the street with Ross.  In the middle of the parade.  Going the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of the parade.  I swear, just for the fun of it, I’m going to try that back at home in one of our “very serious” parades.  Just to see what people do.  Because in Dominica, no one even noticed.  Not one person.  We were just part of the scene.

Eventually, we started walking with the parade and got back to where everyone else was still standing, waiting for us.  Behind us was The Truck.  This truck was like a tractor trailer with the sides cut out.  On the roof of the truck was a man with a microphone, singing.  Inside the truck was a whole band and all their equipment.  Oh.  And more speakers than you ever imagined.  Go ahead.  Imagine a whole bunch of speakers on a semi.  Nope.  Not even close.  We are talking a lot of speakers.  The whole ground was thumping and shaking.  You felt the music more than you heard it.

 

Apparently, the “parade” is made up of everyone waiting for the truck to pass by and then they follow behind it, doing a cross between walking and dancing.  It’s hard to do, but we all got the hang of it after a few blocks.  The atmosphere was festive and fun.  Everyone was out to have a great time.  There were lots of people drinking, but it wasn’t over the top.  There were old and young people, white and black people, well-dressed folks and some with skimpy little costumes.  Everyone was loving the calypso music, including us.  We felt like we were a part of the celebration, not just watching “from the sidelines”.  It was joyous and uplifting.

 

As we walked, we saw friends and acquaintances that we had made.  We saw the Minister of Tourism, with whom we hung out at the PAYS barbecue.  We passed by Joanne and her kids (from Secret Beach), who were leaning against a doorway, watching the parade go by.  We saw Lydia when we popped into her restaurant for a pit stop.  We saw some women we met at the beach, whose husbands go to Ross University, the medical school on Dominica.  We even saw Popsicle, dancing up a storm as usual.  We saw Titus and Eddison.  And we saw Ken G.  There were thousands of people at Carnival that day, but Portsmouth felt cozy and comfortable.  Like home.

After a fun dinner with Ken G and Anything Goes, we reluctantly made our way back to Blue Bay for the last time.  We lingered on the beach in front of the dinghy dock, not willing to step off the island for good.  All the PAYS guys were still off gallivanting in town at the post-parade street party.  There was no one to say good-bye to, so we nailed our boat cards to the wood table and made a heart of sand surrounding them.  I scooped up a handful of sand to take with us as a memory of our time in Dominica.  “We’ll be back,” I whispered, as I stepped into the dinghy, holding a very tired Porter in my lap.

Note from Erica: We have been enjoying time together with visitors from the states the last few weeks.  I am posting this from the Bahamas, where we arrived yesterday.  It is so different and we look forward to the weeks ahead, but we have left a part of our hearts in the Caribbean…  I hope you enjoy continuing to read about our amazing time in Waitikibuli.  DOMINICA!

Day 6

It’s Saturday, which is Market Day!  When we last left you, I was dancing the night away at the “Friday Night Street Party” with Titus, Ken G, and friends.   If I hadn’t been out partying half the night, we probably would have made it to the open air market in town at an earlier hour.  But we headed in after all the “very responsible and well-rested” cruisers were already marinating their vegetables for that night’s dinner.

Not to worry.  The fishermen still had their catch lined up on the docks and the market ladies were still harassing people as they walked by to buy their tomatoes, pumpkin, and plantains.  We ran into Titus.  He hooked us up with some fresh coconut water, which helped to rehydrate the system.  We wandered around, buying one or two items from as many ladies as we could.  We were stocking up for Patronus, but we were also getting ready for our Caribbean Feast.

 

 

That night, we got together with Virginia Dare and Anything Goes and each of us brought some authentic Caribbean fare to share.  While we were cooking, the kids played with Al, who is Eddison’s nephew.  The kids played on the beach, collected more mini-clams, and kayaked around the harbor with Al close by, paddling away on his ancient surfboard.

We enjoyed a wonderful night together, sampling foods like boiled bananas, grilled plantains, fresh salad (with all those market veggies), jerk chicken, guacamole, sorrel juice, and coconut-infused mashed sweet potatoes *not the US kind), cristophene, and breadfruit.  The kids were proud to add their steamed clams to the feast.

 

 

 

Day 7

The next morning, Titus, who was surprising us with his boundless energy, woke up and roasted a breadfruit for us for breakfast.  Let me repeat that.  By 0730, he woke up, picked a breadfruit, made a fire, roasted a breadfruit, and delivered it to our boat.  We enjoyed a delicious breakfast with the addition of the grapefruit and guava he brought us as well.  Later, Chris speared his first lionfish!

 

 

 

 

It’s a good thing we started the day off with a breakfast of champions, because we needed every ounce of energy for the famous Sunday Night PAYS BBQ.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the PAYS organization ensures that the local boat boys and guides get a fair share of the clients/boaters who come to Portsmouth.  PAYS also raises money with their barbeques to pay for a security boat to patrol the harbor all night long, giving an additional layer of peace to the cruisers.  It is a system that is working so well that the PAYS President has been asked to present the business model to other Caribbean islands.

Okay, with that business taken care of, let’s move on to the real point.  This barbecue isn’t your typical, run of the mill, laid back affair.  As we approached the dinghy dock in the dark, we saw that it was jam-packed with dinghies.  PAYS guys were there helping everyone to secure their boats.  We headed up to the beach and were served rum punch while the kids immediately ran off to meet and play with the other cruising kids.  We didn’t see them again until dinner was served.  After a bit of a cocktail hour, the PAYS President gave a short welcome and we all had a wonderful dinner of barbecued chicken, fish, salad, and rice.  The PAYS guys themselves cooked and served everything.  It is truly a team effort.

I was thinking that that was it.  But as soon as the last salty old dog finished his last scoop of rice, the PAYS guys swooped in and took away all the tables and chairs.  A DJ appeared out of nowhere and reggae music started to play.  Everyone enjoyed dancing, especially the kids.  Wendy was whisked away by some local guy who danced with her until she told him she was married.  Then he disappeared.  We all danced with Eddison, who is a spectacular dancer.  When even the guys started dancing, we started to suspect that the rum punch was a bit stronger than we thought.  A walk down the beach in the dark allowed some to partake in additional island-grown fare….

No one is sure what time we got back to our boats.  Or how.  But suffice it to say that my Day 8 Log Entry is curiously empty…

Day 9, 1/22/13

On Tuesday, we headed to St. John’s school for our tour.  We were excited to have our kids see how a Caribbean school is run.  We enjoyed the tour and met all the children from Kindergarten through sixth grade.

 

The third graders were especially enthusiastic about our visit and had lots of questions for us.  They also wanted to tell us all about themselves.  A few of them had been to the United States or were born there and they all had something to say about Carnival, which was coming up.  We were there for several hours and really enjoyed it.

The differences that stand out compared to our school at home were minor compared to the similarities in the children, who were curious, polite, shy, and adorable.  They didn’t have lights in their classroom but they had the same stack of Dora and SpongeBob lunch boxes in the corner.  They didn’t have SmartBoards with instant access to the internet, but they had inspirational quotes painted on the sides of the concrete block building.  Their moms picked them up at the end of the day and some stopped by the lady who sat on the corner, selling afterschool treats.  When we left, we hoped that the children would remember us as lovingly as we will remember them.

After lunch and a rest, we headed out for a tour of Fort Shirley, which is built on the north end of the harbor.  I could ramble on and bore you about all the historical details, but I won’t, so you’re welcome.  The kids had a fabulous time running around, climbing on the cannons, exploring the various buildings, and playing guns or war or something that I tried to ignore.  We adults enjoyed the gorgeous views of the harbor, the beautifully restored historical buildings, and the well -kept grounds.

Third up on what was turning out to be quite an eventful day was an awesome boatschooling lesson.  Wendy put together a fantastic hands-on experience for the kids so that they could learn all about the cacao bean and the long and amazing journey it must take to become chocolate.  The kids were spellbound.  They loved doing school together and took turns reading from the handouts Wendy created.

She taught them about where cacao is grown in the world (like Dominica!), how it is harvested and how it is processed.  She had them draw the cacao pod that Eddison picked for us on our farm tour.  Then we cut it open and they drew the inside after tasting the sweet, gooey seeds.  They then learned about the differences between milk chocolate and dark chocolate and tasted several different varieties.  It’s a tough job being a teacher, but someone has to do it….  The information they learned about chocolate that day has stayed with them.  Months later (yes, I’m that far behind on our website), Porter will still ask me the percentage of cacao content in chocolate before he eats it.  He prefers 60%, you see.

That night, Titus and Eddison invited us to the beach to barbecue some fish for dinner.  It was an impromptu thing that ended up being an all night affair, with laughter, delicious fish eaten right off banana leaves, and too many painkillers!  The kids enjoyed roasting marshmallows on the open barbecue pit.  When the guys found out that our anniversary was the next night, they invited us for another fish barbecue to celebrate.

 

Our anniversary barbeque

The next day, we worked on school and did some work around the boat.  That night, we enjoyed another wonderful evening with our friends.  Titus showed us how he marinated the lionfish and Wendy baked us a delicious cake!  Chris surprised me by giving me the necklace I had admired but didn’t buy in Les Saintes, and I gave him a machete, which was a crowd-pleaser, to say the least.  It has proven to be an excellent “coconut opener”.