”Hi – Welcome to Paradise!” said the boatboy as we sailed into the bay at Portsmouth on Dominica. Ok, it isn’t everyday you get welcomed to Paradise.  Before I write more, let me assure our readers (that’s you) that we have not become racists, sexists or any other type of ists.  Boatboys are grown men but they are called boatboys and they call themselves boatboys.  So I call them boatboys.

Back to Paradise.  I thanked him but noted “Hmmm, it seems to be raining here in Paradise”.  He laughed and said, “Dominica is a rain forest island.  It normally rains in a rain forest.”  Well, when someone is right, they are right.  As we would experience over the next couple of weeks, it does rain in a rain forest.  More or less (rarely less).  Sometimes tropical deluges, other times light drizzle (more like the dew is falling hard).

We tied up to a buoy the first few days since we had some problems with our anchor capstan that I had to fix before we could use it (being a cruiser means repairing your boat in exotic locations).  Thankfully, this problem was not a major issue – I could solve it by cutting a couple of strips from an old credit card and jamming them into the locking mechanism that stops the capstan gypsy from rotating and dropping the anchor.

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say – certainly true when you are a blue water cruiser.

Portsmouth is the second largest town on the island.  The capital, Roseau, lies on the southern end and no one, including our pilotbook has anything nice to say about Roseau.

We will stay here until our ice cube machine arrives – that will take a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, we can enjoy the marvelously clear water and play with the very friendly dolphin that swims around in the bay.  Many of the sailors have jumped in the water to swim with the dolphin and he allows them to grab hold of his dorsal fin and then gives them a wild ride through the waves.

As we sailed into the bay, a humpback whale suddenly showed up right in front of the boat.  Vinni turned Capri hard to port so the whale could pass our starboard side only 10 meters away.  When she came up to spout alongside Capri, we could see she was not alone.  A little further out, a tiny spout broke the surface.  This was a mother whale and her calf.  She most certainly chased the calf away from us while she laid herself between her calf and the big nasty boat.

Wonderful to see whales again, especially the calf.  But, but, but – they are big and we like it best when they are a distance away.

The island, Dominica, is lush, very lush.  Everywhere you look, there are flowers that, in Denmark, we pay a princely sum for.  Here they grow wild at the roadside.  We took a canoe tour up the Indian river and the guide made a beautiful bouquet for Vinni.

The trip up the river was not a huge experience.  There was a shed that had been used in some scenes from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. 

That was it, although the guide was very knowledgeable about the local fauna and animals.  That’s ok, the locals do need to earn some money from us, the rich tourists, when we visit.

We were in town one day and were surprised – it is carnival.  Well, not really carnival.  Carnival is in March.   This was the warm-up party and parade for carnival.  Warm-ups begin right after New Year’s.  Each week a town holds a “warm-up” parade to get ready for the big party that is Carnival. 

After all, you need to get in the mood for the serious week-long party.  We were seriously impressed with the stilt dancers.  Many of them were on stilts that were over 2 meters high.  Unbelievable that they could not only walk on them but also dance.  The costumes were grand and the music was loud (very, very loud).  We got back to the boat and could hear the party on land until long after we had gone to bed.

Aside from that, not much else happens in Portsmouth.  There is a big vegetable market, especially on Saturdays, but you have to watch out for the pricing.  Vinni found a nice head of red cabbage and when she asked, “how much” the lady replied, “10ECD”.  That was reasonable until she slapped the cabbage on a scale and said, “35ECD”(14USD).  Turns out she meant 10ECD(3.50USD) per pound.  That was too much for us – we can live without the red cabbage.  Some friends of ours ended up paying $1.25 USD for a tomato.  It is difficult to understand why the vegetables are so expensive, they are all grown locally, they have lots of rain and lots of sun.

There were some exciting times though.  One night I woke at 3 am (needed to pee) and could hear a trumpet blowing.  Wow, they are really partying on land, I thought.  When I got up, I could see a myriad of lights playing about the anchorage.  When I went on deck, I could see a 51-foot catamaran drifting around in the anchorage.  The trumpet I heard was one of the boaters using his foghorn to get everyone’s attention.  Somebody else had a loudspeaker and was saying, “there is no one on board – it is just drifting”.  I woke Vinni and we got out the panic fenders to “defend” Capri if the catamaran should hit us, but it passed by.  Now it was really going “walkabout” and on its way out of the anchorage.  Next stop – Panama!  I jumped in the dinghy and set out after it as fast as our little 5 hp outboard could push the dinghy.  The gallant white knight rides to the rescue!

This, of course, is at 3 am with a gale blowing, winds gusting to storm.

I caught up with the miscreant and climbed aboard (not easy in that kind of weather).  Most cruisers leave their keys in the ignition so someone can rescue the boat if it starts dragging (Vinni and I always leave our keys and we leave the anchor winch remote control out where someone can easily find it).  I climbed up in the cockpit – no keys.  This boat doesn’t use keys; it has a circuit breaker down below that turns the starter circuit on and off.  The owner apparently left the breaker off.

Damn!  I pushed the starter button several times hoping that maybe it would start.  Nada – it was dead.  There was an anchor winch control next to the starter buttons.  I tried them.  Also nada – everything was dead.

Grrr %&”#!#% and so forth.  There was nothing to be done.  Now another couple of dinghies caught up to us.  But there was literally nothing we could do – our engines were too small to tow this beast.  In the meantime, we drifted further and further out to sea.  It really was Next stop –Panama!

Finally a big RIB from one of the superyachts came.  It had a 90hp engine and some heavy rope.  We managed to tie a line from the catamaran to the RIB and with our 3 dinghies pushing we got the boat turned around and now the RIB could tow it back into the anchorage where we got it on a mooring buoy.

The next day the owners were on board – but did they come around to find out who rescued their boat and say thank you?  Nope.  Strange, here some helpful people rescue your million-dollar boat, and you aren’t even interested enough to say thanks.

Otherwise, we spend the days wandering around town and doing a little food shopping.  Dominica is the least touristed island in the Caribbean and it shows.  Cruise ships do stop by, especially in Roseau and occasionally, one of them will anchor up at Portsmouth, but they are few and far between.

The island is lush and so we rented a car.  On the other side of the island is a small village where the last remnants of the original indians live.  They call themselves Kalingro, the rest of the world calls them Caribs, the name Christopher Columbus chose.  They look almost Asian and have a bronze skin color.  We wanted to see this and when we told our friends John and Angela, Angela immediately booked a seat in our car.  We left early in the morning and drove slowly around the northern side of the island.  There is lots to see.  Panorama views open to both the left and right of the road.  We drove deeper into the mountains and were now far into the rain forest.  The middle of Dominica gets over 10 feet of rain per year.  The coast (where Capri lies) gets on 18 inches.  Here, deep in the mountains, there is always a mist in the air.  We stop at a waterfall.  Angela has brought a bathing suit so she hops right in.  This waterfall is well known and there are many tourists.

Later that day we reached the indian village.  There was little difference between this village and every other village on the island. There were some women selling baskets alongside the road.  These women did not look Asian nor did they have bronze colored skin.  An old man came by.  He looked Asian and he certainly had bronze colored skin.  Unfortunately, we waited to take his picture until he was a bit away from us, but here you can see him walking by the road.

Angela bought a basket to go with the 3 other baskets she already has (is there such a thing as compulsive basket collecting?).  When we got back, John didn’t even mention the basket, not even shaking his head.  They’ve been married for forty years so I guess he has gotten used to it.

Back at the anchorage, the anchoring follies continued.  A Swedish boat came in and anchored alongside us.  The family got in their dinghy, came over and asked us where Immigration was.  When we told them it was all the way over on the other side of the bay, they decided to have lunch before going.  Good thing they did, a half-hour later they started dragging their anchor and their boat was going “walkabout”.  Next stop – Panama!

They reanchored immediately and stayed on the boat without clearing in.  Next morning early, they sailed.

I won’t tire you with stories of the many boats that came in and had to make 6-8 tires at anchoring before they finally got the anchor to bite.  There were many.

A couple of days ago, a boat sporting a Danish flag at the stern showed up and anchored directly alongside us.  It was Karsten and Rikke, friends we know well.  We enjoyed a couple of sundowners and agreed to meet the next morning to drive out on the island and see some sights.

Next morning we drove to Syndicate falls and rain forest.  A wonderful trip and since I had brought my machete, we could chop down a banana tree and now Karsten and Rikke can truly call themselves “blue water cruisers”, since they have a very large banana stalk (and bananas) hanging from their targabar. 

We collected some coconuts and the back of the SUV was filling up.  Syndicate falls was a great experience, there was almost no one there so we jumped straight into the pool and let the waterfall give us shower.

The last story about anchoring is here.  Yesterday Rikke and Karsten were out wandering when a sailboat came in and sought to anchor directly in front of us.  They couldn’t get their anchor to hold so thereafter Vinni and I kept a good eye on them.  They tried again and we yelled to them that they were much too close – they would hit us when they swung round with the wind and tide.  They moved in front of Rikke and Karsten’s boat (Penguin).  We could see they didn’t let out very much chain and they didn’t back down on it.  Both the husband and wife stood up in the bows looking down into the water, as if they were asking the anchor to please bite.  Finally, they were satisfied and went below.

Vinni and I kept our eye on them, we were not convinced that the anchor was going to hold and we were proved right.  An hour later the boat began to glide backwards.  The husband came up and went to the bows and stood looking down into the water.  He kept just looking not doing anything.  As they were coming up alongside us, I yelled to him to start his engine so he could maneuver away from Penguin.  He looked at me for a few moments and finally began moving slowly towards the cockpit.  When he got there, he called his wife up and told her to start the engine.  Then he did nothing.

Some more yelling from me and pointing to Penguin and he decided that perhaps he should be at the helm instead of just standing there looking around.  By this time, of course, it was too late.  Their anchor had caught on Penguins anchor chain and was riding it right up to the top just under Penguin’s bow.  Their boat bumped into the side of Penguin and there they sat.

Once more, the gallant white knight saddled his dinghy and motored over.  I don’t know if there was a language problem, but he reacted very slowly to my instructions.  He finally understood that I wanted him to put his boat in forward so some of the tension would come off their anchor.  If it was loose enough, there was a chance I could untangle it from Penguin’s chain and snubber.

It finally came free, although I felt like I ripped my arm off getting it untangled.  Once free, they sailed off.  Their anchor was a cheap Lewmar copy of an excel anchor and much too small for his boat.  I caught the attention of one of the boatboys in his panga and told him he needed to get that boat on a buoy – he was dangerous to have trying to anchor.

Once on a buoy, he was safe and you’d think he would get into his dinghy and come around to see if he had damaged Penguin and perhaps to say thanks to me for getting them untangled.

Did he?

Nope.  Of course not.  What can we learn for this?  Nothing, the world is full of idiots.

As you now know, life in an anchorage is not boring.  Not at all boring, although I have to admit that I feel like I’m getting just a little bit too old to be chasing walkabout boats around in a storm in the middle of the night.  Getting a sore shoulder from lifting a 20kg anchor with one hand and holding it straight-arm while I used the other hand to untangle the snubber hasn’t improved my mood.

Tomorrow we sail for Guadeloupe.  Our packages (ice cube making machine) will not arrive here until next week.  I’ll take a ferry down from Guadeloupe and collect the packages.  If we wait here, the weather will be so bad that we will not be able to sail further for a couple of weeks.

The weather here in the Caribbean has been very strange.  The famous “Christmas Winds” have been blowing, but they should have stopped weeks ago.  Unfortunately, they continue to blow.  There aren’t very many days where it is fun to be on the water.

Here is a screenshot from windy. 

You can see it is impossible weather.  Many days the winds will blow 25-26 knots with gusts up to 35 knots and there will be 3-meter high swells.  The wind and swell predictions are averages – meaning there will be 30+ knot winds with 40-knot gusts and some swells will 4-5 meters.    As you can guess – that ain’t no fun!  Vinni and I have sailed in that kind of weather a number of times (yes – true Vinni and Carsten weather).  We don’t need to do it again.

We’re hoping that tomorrow’s forecast will hold true.  Winds 18-20 knots, gusting 25.  Swells 2 meters with a 10-second period.  That will mean fresh sailing. But not sporty.  We can handle fresh, don’t need sporty.   We’re crossing our fingers, the weather forecasts out here seem to change several times a day; we don’t trust them too much.

But what the hell – we’ll just take what comes.