The other day, Barb and Chuck had invited us to go visit Cabrits National Park, on the Cabrits peninsula right near where we are anchored. We had mentioned on the day that we arrived that the north end of the bay had a few isolated buildings and a nice dock. We later found out those are part of Fort Shirley, a restored old British fort on the Cabrits peninsula. We had enthusiastically Continue reading
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 Continue reading
Eric went right to work as soon as he got up. He took down the rest of the mountings from the mast. The second shot is of one of the broken mountings. You can see it used to be a perfect square with 4 holes.
Eric had agonized yesterday over how to fix the problem, until he remembered that in his cache of spare parts there is a rubber hose intended for exhaust, so it could stand to get really hot. He dug out the hose and cut it into squares, then made holes for the screws. It was a total pain in the rear to get the shape and holes just right. He is becoming a pro at fabricating spare parts these days.
Eric went outside and mounted the rubber pieces to the mast. Originally, there had been Continue reading
We rented a car this morning and set off to explore Grande Terre. This half of Guadeloupe is low and mostly flat, a big contrast to the imposing mountains on Basse Terre. We followed the main highway east and somehow missed the exit that would take us into Gosier. According to Lonely Planet, Gosier is the main tourist area of Guadeloupe and quite built up with endless hotels. Since we had already seen a little bit of Gosier and it didn’t sound that great anyway, we decided not to backtrack.
Instead we pressed on to a town called St. Anne’s, about halfway down the southern shore. The scenery between Point a Pitre and St. Anne’s is farmland with a scattering of houses about. Most of the houses are the colorful bungalows with metal slanted roofs and gingerbread trim. These farms look more like the kind of crops that have to be planted annually, whereas on Basse Terre most of the farmland had trees/bushes that bloom year in and year out. From what we could see, St. Anne’s was tiny. Like Deshaies, it is only a few blocks big. But, it is a cute beach community nestled along a scenic bay. There were several boats anchored in the bay. The part of the bay on the outskirts of town looked to be super protected, and the boats closer in to town seemed to be rolling a lot in the swells.
We stopped to go into a craft market on the eastern edge of town. We expected it to be Continue reading
Yesterday we woke up feeling like zombies, not doubt still recovering from the strenuous swim the day before. Eric wasn’t feeling the greatest and Christi felt downright awful. Neither of us felt like doing anything at all. If we hadn’t already made plans, we would probably have spent the whole day watching movies.
However, we had invited a family on one of the nearby boats over for a visit in the afternoon. We had no choice but to clean and tidy for our guests. We washed the exterior and cleaned the interior. It seemed to take forever because we were moving slower than normal. We also managed to squeeze a nap in before they arrived.
We had a nice visit with the family. After they left, Christi Continue reading