SCUBA Diving Cabrits Point, Dominica

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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.

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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:

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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 →

Syndicate Trail, Dominican Foods, and Milton Waterfall

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Continued from yesterday”¦ We just kept going up, into the misty heights of the mountain tops. At one point, we passed a sign for the start of the trail to the top of the Morne Diablotin summit with a warning that it was a strenuous and dangerous 3 hour hike up. Morne Diablotin is Dominica’s highest mountain at 4747 feet tall.

Finally, we came to a point where Continue reading →

Indian River Nature Preserve

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Today we arranged to do two sightseeing tours with Arielle. The morning excursion was up Indian River, the second was a trip to the Syndicate Trails rain forest hike. Andrew picked us up at our respective boats and took us to the dock at the mouth of Indian River. Dominica boasts 365 rivers, but Indian River is one of the few that are navigable. He directed us to the gas station/mini market to buy tickets into the wildlife preserves. Both Syndicate and Indian Rivers are in preserves, and we asked for a day pass for both parks. The clerk sold us the tickets, and assured us it was a day pass good for both parks, and sent us back to the boat. We picked a great day for sightseeing. It was clear, sunny and warm out. Actually, it was a little on the hot side.

Beyond the dock, it is forbidden to Continue reading →

Hoisting the Smoke Stack Back Up

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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.

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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 →

Where in the World Are We?

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We interrupt “blog time” to bring you a “real time” announcement”¦ Yesterday, April 21st, 2009, at 1730 Pacific time, we officially completed our world wide circumnavigation! No, we aren’t back in San Diego yet. We are in Ensenada, Mexico, but since we have been to Ensenada on Kosmos before, we technically “tied the knot” when we arrived here.

We plan to complete our San Diego to San Diego World Circumnavigation on Saturday, May 2. Several people have said they would like to see us physically pull into San Diego, so we are going to have a “Welcoming” at the public dock on Coronado Island, which is behind the restaurant named Peohe’s at 1210 First Street, Coronado, CA 92118. Our welcoming is not associated with Peohe’s, so don’t wander in there looking for us, come right out to the dock.

We should be arriving to the dock around 10:00 am, depending on how long it takes to clear customs. We plan to stay at the dock about two hours or so. This is not a party there won’t be food or drinks. It is not an open house, either we won’t be giving tours or rides on board Kosmos. But we will visit with everyone who comes out to welcome us home. We are excited to see our friends and family again on that day, and looking forward to meeting any blog readers who may decide to come out.

We know, we know”¦ you probably want to know why the blog says we are in Dominica when we are really in Ensenada. Think about it logically. We write a journal entry every day, but we only post 5 days a week. Over the 2 years, we have fallen progressively farther behind real time.

But wait”¦ now that you are done, will the blog postings stop? No, we’ll continue to post our daily journal in “blog time” through to the end of the trip, so you have several more months worth of posts to look forward to. And there are some good stories coming up! For example our trip through the Panama canal, white water rafting in Costa Rica, anchoring in 40 knot winds in Nicaragua, eating tacos pastor in Huatulco, our trip summary, and many more.