DOMINICA 2
After leaving Montserrat we parted company with Freewheel as they headed back to Antigua to get some repairs done on their boat and we sailed south to Guadeloupe; hopefully we should meet up with Julian and Anne again in the ABC islands in June. On arrival in Guadeloupe we took the opportunity to hire a car and explore more of the French island. The inland mountainous part is beautiful, more than we can say for the capital Pointe A Pitre, which consists mostly of rundown 1960 apartment buildings; although they did have a huge Carrefour (French hypermarket), which enabled us to stock up with wine and European food. From Guadeloupe we went back to our favourite Caribbean island of Dominica where we met our cruising friends Richard and Laila on Nebula. They had discovered a fantastic secluded anchorage off the village of Salisbury. It consisted of a couple of free mooring buoys in front of a sandy beach with one cafe and small diving centre and it was just a short walk up to the main road where for a couple of dollars you could catch a bus into Roseau the capital. The highlight of our stay there was the rainforest walk we took close the village. We decided to follow one of the forest roads, which ran along the side of a river up into the hills. The small area of flat land close to the river had at sometime or other been cultivated and we found a large array of tropical fruits still growing. So it wasn’t long before our rucksack was full of bananas, tamarinds, grapefruit, melons, bread fruit, mangoes, pawpaw, cocao and of course coconuts. After a couple of hours of walking we were rejuvenated with a skinny dip in the river. We were even saved the walk back as a local ute came by and we managed to hitch a lift down the mountain dropping us off just outside a small rum factory!The rum factory, besides the bottling plant, would not have changed in 100 years. The sugar cane was still crushed using power from a water wheel and the boiler would have dated back to the late 1800’s. It was great how the manager put a spin on it – now saying that the factory is fully environmentally friendly! Needless to say after a few rum samples we would agree to anything.Unfortunately time was running out and there was a need to continue south and back to Rodney Bay (Saint Lucia) where we spent a couple of days in the marina – charging the batteries and getting our mate Vision to do some much needed boat polishing.
