Today we went to Roseau, the capital city on the southwest side of the island, to go whale watching. Around Dominica there are sperm whales in the water all year. One particular whale watch company has a 90% success rate in spotting them. So, we decided it was worth the money. We headed to shore in the early morning. The tour wasn’t until 1330, but we had no idea how long it would take to get to Roseau, and we figured we could get some sightseeing in before the whale watch.
We are sad to admit this, but we have been here for 5 days now and have not explored Portsmouth yet. That is so out of character for us. Usually, the first thing we do after pulling into a new port is check out the town. We mentioned that there are three restaurants with dinghy docks. All are on the northern end of town, so when we have gone to shore to eat, we stayed to the north, and it was usually dark, so we didn’t see much.
The beach here is black sand. We walked beyond the beach and out to the road, heading south toward the town center. The road paralleling the shore is probably the main drag. It is lined with buildings, most small bungalows. Some are in good shape, some are dilapidated, and most are weather beaten but habitable. It looks to us like the individual lots tend to have several buildings crammed on them.
It is only a few blocks walk to the heart of town. The ambiance changed palpably. The buildings became more commercial looking, closer together, and better maintained (though most still looked like they could use a coat of paint and a little general work).
The bus stop is just north of Indian River. It was a parking lot with several nice mini-vans just like the one Winston was driving. We walked up and asked which bus was going to Roseau. We were pointed to a van with just a couple people in it. The busses don’t leave until they are full, and we waited for about 10 minutes before it completely filled up. From what we can tell, it looks like all the busses were headed to Roseau. When this bus is full, another will open up, and so forth.
We followed the same road out of town that Winston took, going all the way to the commercial area in the south before turning on the road that goes past the medical school. But, we didn’t turn off to go to the park, instead following the same road all the way to the edge of Roseau.
The drive was pretty. The road followed shore for the most part, winding up and down the mountains. It looks like most of the land is undeveloped, and it is very green and lush. We did pass through several small villages. A couple of the villages looked to be mostly residential and had an upscale look to them, but most of them looked similar to Portsmouth, with a little commercial area and a scattering of bungalows. People got on and off all along the way. There seem to be no bus stops, you just stand by the road and wave to be picked up, and to be dropped off you tell the driver to pull over here. There were some points where the van was overfilled and the seating was very cozy. The road isn’t the greatest, but it is certainly better than the roads on Antigua.
On the outskirts of Roseau, we passed through an industrial area, with business like a car dealership and a bottling plant in it. Then we went by a small commercial shipping port loaded with containers, and near it are lots of cisterns, which we believe hold fuel. At the port, we turned up the hill into town. We passed a hospital, then turned down a street that looked like to be a mix of residential and commercial. As soon as we made the turn, the driver asked everyone left in the van where they were going. We told him the name of the hotel the tour leaves from, which south of town. He made lots of turns as he dropped people at their requested spots. We were one of the very last to be dropped off. He stopped at a corner in southwest edge of downtown. He pointed down a street only one block long and told us we could catch a bus to the hotel at the end of the street.
We followed his directions and found a bus waiting. Fortunately, the bus left before it was full, after about 10 minutes of wait time. We headed south, and within a couple blocks, the road had folded into the main drag that parallels the water. Just under a mile later, we were delivered to the door of the hotel. It was 1215. We were an hour and 15 minutes early. We checked in at the front desk. The two receptionists looked at us blankly and said that it wasn’t time for the tour yet. Since there wasn’t enough time to do any sightseeing, we got lunch at the hotel, killing time more than anything else.
At 1330, we tried to check in again. The receptionists told us the tour time had been changed to 1500, which irritated us. If we knew at 1215 that the tour time had been pushed back, we would have gone sightseeing! We knew we wouldn’t see much in the hour and a half, but we figured it was worth it to get out of the hotel.
We wandered down the main drag north towards town. The street is a mix of commercial and residential. The diversity between the quality of the buildings is far more extreme here than in Portsmouth. There are super nice places, places that have been reclaimed by Mother Nature, and everything in between.
We could see peeks of the ocean between the buildings. We chose not to bring Kosmos here because there is no sheltered anchorage, it is an open roadstead. We watched the boats roll around like crazy and knew we made the right choice by taking the bus here instead of the boat. Portsmouth may be rolly, but it is tolerable. This anchorage is like being at sea.
We made it over to the edge of down town, just a couple blocks west of where the bus had left from. Suddenly, the buildings looked to be historic and beautiful, with varied architectural style.
We walked down the main street for a couple blocks, but we didn’t want to get too far away from our bus stop, so we turned into an open air market near the bus stop. We wandered around the souvenir stalls for a while. There is an eclectic variety of goods, some art work, including wood carvings and coconut carvings, some very African looking jewelry, some handmade soap made on the island by locals, but most of it the usual tourist junk. It was definitely a nicer selection than Antigua, but not as nice as Guadeloupe. When it was time, we headed over to the bus stop. Fortunately, the bus left right away and we made it back with plenty of time to spare.
At 1500, we loaded into a large power catamaran and set off. Check out the rainbow we saw back towards the shore.
There were four crew. Two are professional whale spotters. One is working on his doctorate on the social behavior of whales, and he is the main guide. The last crew member is his research assistant. From the get go, we were impressed. As we pulled away from the dock, the guide introduced himself and the crew and gave us an overview. Normally, the guides are people who simply memorize a script. You can’t even compare the quality of information that you get from a professional whale researcher to a memorized script.
To be continued”¦