Sunriser

Dominica is sandwiched between the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and is a world apart from the ‘civilized’ French territories. 

The rastafari culture is deeply rooted in the daily Dominican life. 

The Rastafarians believe in the principles of a natural lifestyle, (hence their characteristic uncut, uncombed dreadlocks), they dress in yellow, green, red and black (symbolizing royalty, medicinal herbs, blood force and Africa), follow a vegetarian diet and smoke marihuana to achieve a meditative state with God.

To us, westerners, they seem high the whole day long rather than in communication with God, but they are very friendly and of course never in a hurry. Yeah, man! Is their answer to any question.

Dominica is not favored by sailors as it does not have protected anchorages having a rather flat coastline; the upside is an unspoiled island with great diving and stunning nature. We dropped anchor at Portsmouth, a broad bay never too crowded in front of a small town and spent there a week with some friend’s boats: Blue, Migaloo, Abayomi and Flegma.

Dominica is one of the poorest islands of the Caribbean but also the one with the most centenarians, including the world’s oldest living person, who died at 125 years old. The locals explain their long lives are due to healthy food and ‘bush medicine’. There is a plant, herb, root, leaf, tree bark or fruit to treat any imaginable disease. The bars have a display of interesting looking bottles containing rum infused with a variety of herbs and spices for the improvement of masculine performance, would that be needed.

We took a lovely boot trip with Titus, a local guide, in the Indian river, followed by a walk in the forest where he picked all sorts of herbs for us and explained their medicinal properties, while leisurely smoking his joint to exemplify the principles of bush medicine: Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.

The inland of Dominica is largely unspoiled with lots of waterfalls, sulphur springs and lush jungle. We made a rainy hike to Middleham waterfall but did not swim in it, being already rain soaked. By Titou gorge we did go in the water, swimming between stone walls to a waterfall. Near the anchorage we walked uphill in Cabrits national park.

The sea life in Dominica is very protected. Some potentially good anchorages are not allowed for boats to preserve the corals, like at Scott’s’ Head, where we snorkeled at a drop off of 30 meters, like being at the top of a mountain under water! 

Only one sea creature is not protected and divers are even encouraged to hunt it down: the lionfish.

This invasive fish, originally from the Pacific, is full of poisonous spikes and threatens the local wildlife having no natural enemies, but is very tasty. After a diving trip, Jos came back with two of them, already cleaned by the dive master, which went that evening into a delicious fish curry soup made by John aboard Migaloo.

Although in our plans Dominica would be the most Northern island we would visit, we still have a lot of time until hurricane season forces us to go back south; so we decided to add one more island to the list and sail direction Guadeloupe and the Iles des Saints in the company of Blue.