Yesterday it rained for most of the day. It was a good reason to stay home and do much needed chores. Dominica has a ton of activities to offer, but almost all of them are outdoors, and most involving hiking. In the morning and early afternoon we worked on the bottom and water line. When Christi hopped in, she was horrified. It was the worst she has ever seen it. The grass was thick and long, and there were barnacles galore. She worked on the bottom for 45 minutes, until her tank was empty (the tank wasn’t full when she started). When she came up, Eric decided to give it a go. He hooked up a tank and jumped in. He was in the water a total of an hour. Like Christi, he worked on the bottom until he ran out of air (he also was not on a full tank), then worked on the waterline. The bottom looks a heck of a lot better, but we still have a long way to go. Sigh. The good news is that the water in the bay is amazingly clear. And we are amused to report that we have some fish living under our boat. Check out the beautiful rainbow.

There are three restaurants that have dinghy docks for the cruisers to use, so we went to one of them for dinner. We both got a conch plate, which was served with an absolutely delicious sauce. The conch was perfectly tender, and not at all rubbery. It was served with mixed veggies, including christophene. It also came with a cooked banana or plantain (delicious), a piece of plain yam and a couple pieces of plain taro (both quite tasteless), lightly seasoned rice, and beans that had a little zest (quite good). It was nice to see such a full plate of food with so many little side dishes. It is almost a Guadeloupe style meal, except in Guadalupe all the sides would have been more elaborate.

Check out the pretty sunset from the resturant:

While on shore, we booked a dive trip for this morning. We grilled the poor owner, asking her dozens and dozens of questions before we committed to diving. She must think we are freaks, but after being so unhappy with our last two dive companies, we figured we were being prudent. The fee was $88 USD per person, and that was the discounted price for having our own gear.

Today was another gloomy, rainy day. We prefer to dive on sunny days, when the sun illuminates the colors, but the weather was what it was. The owner had told the dive boat would be by at 0900 0930, but they arrived at 0845 to pick us up from Kosmos. The boat is ideal for diving. In fact, while it isn’t even close to being the nicest dive boat we’ve been on, it is probably the best in terms of getting in and out of gear and on and off the boat. It has a platform big enough to stand on with fins that makes jumping in and getting out extra easy. We have come to appreciate a good dive boat. And having two crew to run the boat!

The first dive site was just off the Cabrits Peninsula, which forms the north side of Prince Rupert Bay. It is not far from where Kosmos was anchored. Unfortunately, we forgot our log books again, so we don’t have the name of it. It was a drift dive that lasted for a full hour. The dive site was beautiful. It is a wall dive, with a gently sloping wall, quite similar to the first site we went to in Antigua. The current was gentle, so it didn’t need to be a drift dive, but after all the complaining we did about the place in Guadeloupe, they probably weren’t taking any chances with us in any current. After all, they don’t know what we consider too strong to swim against. So, we slowly meandered along and had lots of time to really look at our surroundings, which we love.

Since we were moving so slowly, we had a lot of opportunity to see the little things that live in cracks and crevices that we usually miss. We saw some bright bluish-purple shrimp living in a barrel sponge. We also saw some cleaner shrimp living near some sea urchins. The guide pointed out some tiny spinyhead blennies living in little holes. They are cute little guys.

We saw some fire worms, which are not the same colors here in the Caribbean as the ones we had seen on our dive in Crete. Here the red is more muted on them. There were a lot of those worms that look like feathers around, and many of them were huge, by far the largest we’ve ever seen. And, a lot of colorful little Christmas tree worms.

There are lots of fish at this site, though not very many big fish. There were lots of damsel fish in many colors, including the bi-color chromiums we mentioned the last couple of dives and tons of gray chromiums. We saw some parrotfish, including a few of the bridled and red female stoplight and a few varieties. There were some goatfish, lots of little soldier/squirrelfish, sergeant fish, a few species of angel fish and a few species of surgeonfish. There were several trumpetfish, in both white and yellow. We saw a few more of those cute little black and white trunkfish. We saw a school of big eye snapper. There were more schools of similar fish, either another kind of snapper or grunt fish, but we couldn’t identify the other species. We saw several “jewel fish”. We need to find out their real name. They are particularly eye catching. We also saw a school of Blue Tang, which are iridescent blue fish that were incredible looking. There were several sand divers lying in wait at the bottom and saw several species of grouper hiding under ledges and in gaps.

There were a couple red porcupine fish, and one of them was absolutely enormous. We chased the porcupine fish around for a while. We also saw a white porcupine fish. The porcupine fish are neat looking. Theirs eyes are kind of iridescent. We also saw an interesting species of filefish that we have never seen before. It was also quite large, and we also followed it for a bit. We saw a barracuda, as well.

There were a couple varieties of moray eels with their heads sticking out of holes. Both species were black with white dots, though one variety’s dots were smaller and more dense than the other’s. We saw a couple snake eels, which is something new that we have never seen before. They look like regular snakes and slither along out in the open, as opposed to hiding in the sand like most eels. They are a medium shade of gray dotted with a few largish white spots.

The coral and sponges were similar to what we saw in Antigua and Guadeloupe. There were a few sea fans, as well. We also saw some anemones, which we hadn’t seen in Guadeloupe or Antigua. Of course, the anemones are different in each part of the world, and here the tentacles or fingers of whatever they are called are short, fat, and have purple tips. But, sadly, there were no anemone (clown) fish with them.

During our break, they offered water, hot tea and cookies. The hot tea was nice. Christi is always cold after a dive, and since it was a cool day, the hot drink was especially appreciated.

The second dive site was close to the first site, in Douglas Bay. Douglas Bay is just north of Prince Rupert Bay, and is also formed by the Cabrits Peninsula. Douglas Bay is a marine park, and we found out that the marine park includes the first dive site we were at. We hadn’t realized it went so far. The dive spot was at the southern end of the bay, and was called five fingers. There was no current here at all, so we did a loop. The dive lasted a full hour, and once again, we happily ambled along at a slow pace.

In terms of types of fish spotted and scenery, it is similar to the first spot, but not quite as good. There were just a touch more fish and better coral/sponges at the first site, but in general, we saw pretty much the same variety of sea life. We did see a few more things, though. Eric spotted a peacock flounder in the sand, which are really hard to see. The peacock flounder had light blue rings on its body. He also found a huge crab hiding in a giant barrel sponge. And we saw a spotted drum, the very weird looking black and white fish we mentioned in Antigua.

The highlight of the entire day came in the middle of the second dive when we saw a big turtle lumbering along. We tried to catch up to it, but it outran us. They are faster than their stereotype makes them out to be.

All in all, we were very happy with this company. We found them to be professional
And well run. But we had also told them in no uncertain terms exactly what our expectations were, so that may have had an effect on our service. We do think it was expensive, though. We know the prices are in line with what Antigua and Guadeloupe charge, but they are both more expensive places to live. Dominica’s cost of living is a fraction of what it is in those other two places, although, given the extraordinary number of boat wrecks in the bay, maybe the insurance costs are crazy.

After the second dive, they dropped us back at Kosmos and we got cleaned up. Not too long before sunset, we headed to shore for dinner. On the way stopped, we stopped by to say hello to a Kady Krogen that arrived a couple days ago. Kady Krogen is a brand of trawler that is similar to Nordhavn. We wound up chatting with Barb and Chuck for 4 hours. They have been in the Caribbean for a few years now, and have spent a significant amount of time here in the past. Given how late it was when we left, we wound up making a quick dinner aboard instead of going to shore to eat.