I planned to stop and spend two nights at the beautiful island of Dominica. Just enough time to see the Indian River, take a short tour around the northern part of the island and know that I must come back next year to spend at least a week here.

As I sailed in late in the afternoon I was met be several boat boys who offered to help me anchor and would return with fresh fruit if I desired.  My friends John and Melody from Second Millennium II had told me to expect this and to politely tell the boat boys who met me that I wanted to meet Martin of  Providence to help me and to arrange for him to take me up the Indian River the next morning.  They told me that Martin was out with some people but that they would send him by when he returned.

Gallant had arrived a head of me earlier in the afternoon and after anchoring had all ready arranged for me to join them on the tour the next morning with Alexis.  So when Martin came by later I told him that un known to me Gallant had all ready set something up.  He was most gracious and was pleased to know that John and Melody had sent their best wishes to him.

Dominica is ... Well when Christopher Columbus was before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain trying to describe the awe-inspiring mountains of Dominica, he had to resort to crumpling up a sheet of paper to illustrate the dramatic form of the land with it's valleys, gorges, and pinnacles.  This might give an idea of the topography but tells nothing of the islands amazingly lush vegetation. Greenery erupts for ever square inch, climbing, curling, stretching and growing until the whole land is covered in a tangle of trees, vines, shrubs, ferns and beautiful flowers.  Add to this thousands of birds, butterflies, rivers and jungle waterfalls and you can begin to imagine the magical nature of Dominica.

Our guide through this wonderful land it to be Alexis. He is a licensed Indian River guide which means he has passed a government certification and course of study in the natural history of the island as well as being knowledgeable about the agricultural crops, wild plants and native birds that we would enjoy seeing the rest of the day.  He also has completed his Red Cross First Aid course including CPR training to be a guide.

My alarm clock awoke me at 6:30 to get ready for the days activities.  After a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and cereal, Alexis was along side promptly at 7:00 having all ready picked up David, Andrea and Alex form Gallant.  We motored across the bay to the entrance of Indian River in his boat and upon entering the mouth of Indian River he raises the motor out of the water and pulls out two long oars.

It is 7:15 and the first thing that strikes you as you enter the mouth of the river is the healthy lush vegetation in the form of Mangroves with Palm Trees and huge Mango and Banyan trees growing so dense as to form a wall along the river as we move slowly and quietly up the river so as not to disturb the morning calls of the native birds or scare the land crabs (right) foraging along the river banks.

In a few minutes we come to a wide place in the river where another small stream enters. Alexis explains that in the 60's this was a sugar plantation.  It was closed and made part of the Indian River National park in the 70's and we can see how quickly nature is reclaiming the land back to it's native state.

One of the unique things along the river banks are the roots of the trees where they fan out to form the banks of the river. As we ghost along rounding the next corner, a Herron is standing in the shallow water patiently waiting for a small fish to swim by for breakfast. They stand motionless for long periods of time until small fish swim by and then in an instant, the Herron plucks one out of the water as the others swim to safety in a flurry of water. 

The river continues to narrow and become more over grown as we continue up stream and finally becomes un navigable.  There we find a camp sight and botanical garden where Alexis tells us about some to the flowers and plants in the garden before we take a few minutes to rest and enjoy a cool drink in the camp. 

Here we find boat cards left by others over the years and as we explore the walls I find the boat card from our friends John and Melody on Second Millennium II.  Melody runs the HF "Safety and Security Net" on 8104 each morning at 8:15 which is listened to by hundreds of cruisers every day.  Her motto for the net is "Lock It Or Loose It."  I add Quietly's card just below theirs.

After our break, Alexis rows us back down the river where we pick up his car for the second part of our tour around Dominica.  Our first stop along the way is at a small fishing port where we watch as two fishermen come in.  It has not been a good morning for fishing and they are returning empty handed. 

As we continue along the coast we come to several beautiful overlooks where we look down on the Atlantic Ocean as it breaks across the reefs. The Atlantic Ocean side of all of the Caribbean islands is always the dramatic side of the islands with large reefs and breaking waves.  These are the winds and waves that left the coast of Africa days ago on their march around the globe.  This is also the rainy side of the island where Alexis stops to show me a coco plant.  The white jelly looking seeds in the seed pod is what is dried and roasted to make coco and then chocolate!  Sucking on the young jelly looking seeds, it is almost like sucking on a chocolate gummy bear ... delicious!

As we continue our tour we enter the "Carib Territory" or Carib Indian Reservation which is the only remaining home of the original inhabitants of the Caribbean from centuries before the white Europeans invaded the islands in the 1600's.  Over 100,000 Carib's once inhabited the Caribbean islands, but with Columbus came European diseases for which the Carib Indians had no immune defenses.  Disease common in Europe caused the deaths of tens of thousands of the Caribs in just a few years and the few who survived were often killed by the Spanish conquers.  Today the Caribs are a peaceful people who still strive to live simple lives as their ancestors.  We stopped at a Carib Medicine Man's hut where he cut open green coconuts and taught us how to eat the coconut jelly from the young nuts.  Andrea from Gallant had a sore back and was give boiled boa constrictor snake fat - literally snake oil - to rub on her back.  It worked to almost immediately relieve the pain!

From the Carib villages we continued on climbing further and further into the mountains until we reached the Morne Trios Pitons National Park high in the Dominica rain forest.  The park is designate as a World Cultural and National Heritage site by UNESCO.  Here we walked along trails in the rain forest where Alexis show us many different kinds of ferns and had us rub our hands on the bark of a rubber tree to smell the rosin that was once used to make rubber. The highlight of the walk was a swim in a pool under a waterfall in the middle of the rain forest.

Our day ended when Alexis returned us to our boats at 5:00 PM after a marvelous day of exploring the stunningly beautiful island of Dominica.  Though I have only one day this trip, I am certain I will return to spend several weeks exploring more of the island.

But it is time to make the mad run to Bequia if I am to arrive in time for Mike's 60th birthday on Princess Margaret Beach in Admiralty Bay.  In the next several days I will make brief overnight stops in Martinique and St. Lucia before sailing by St. Vincent's as I approach Bequia.

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