March 5 Portsmouth Dominica

March 5^th

We departed Roseau early at 7am as we wanted to get to Portsmouth, the anchorage at the other end of Dominica in time to do the Indian River Tour. We had a great run up the island arriving at 10am. We were greeted by a local in a boat before we even entered the bay. He was one of the PAYS members, which is a group that has been set up to improve security and services for Yachties anchoring in the bay.

Edison merely welcomed us to Portsmouth and said he will see us later, very friendly and no hassle which was a nice surprise. We anchored easily and quickly, but Starlet had trouble and ended up with a huge lump of coral rock on their anchor the first time. They finally anchored after about 3 attempts. We were very fortunate to hook into a nice sand patch the first time.

Once we were anchored and settled Edison visited again and we agreed to join the 3pm Indian River tour with him. We also had a visit from another local asking for a donation for the local high school they are looking for funds to repair the leaking roof. Well I couldn’t say no to that one so gave them $20. I was handed a plastic bag with quite a lot of money in it and a sheet with the names and amounts of all donations, to which I added ours. I said to him you shouldn’t hand this bag with all this money to people, some people might steal it. He said well if they do that they will go to jail!

We all headed into shore, walking along the beach with cottages, clothes lines and chickens along the waters edge, and even the odd goat and black faced sheep.

We explored the town, which had market day. We brought some limes 5 for $6 EC and an avocado $7EC, and continued right up to the river where we will do the tour this afternoon. We wandered back down stopping for a piece of pizza for lunch which was very nice. We saw the most unique nail salon we have ever seen!

We headed back to the boats and had a restful afternoon until it was time to get picked up for the river tour. I have spent about 5 hours trying to load the blog which should take about 2o minutes. The internet is extremely slow and it is extremely frustrating!

The river tour was very good, no outboard motors allowed so we were rowed ¾ mile up the river. Our guide was called “Boudah” and he informed us he is a Botanist so he named all the plants and flowers and pointed out the crabs on the mud banks. Unfortunately we didn’t see any Boa Constrictors but they are there apparently. The river was gorgeous with a mini Amazon like appearance, lots of green foliage, bright flowers, beautiful twisted and tangled tree roots and birds including hummingbirds, flitting and darting around the trees.

 We stopped for a drink at the “Jungle Bar” where Robbie had the bar special “dynamite”, Paul had a passionfruit punch, Jennifer had another cocktail, Maree declined and I had a lime shandy. The dynamite tasted like medicine and was very strong. The barmaid was very friendly and the kitchen hand was quite happy smoking his hooch! He lives on site in a hut on stilts the stairs have rotted out and have been replaced by a timber board with zig zags cut out for steps.

The bar is set in a beautiful location with abundant flowers and greenery and all the furniture is made out of trees and logs. While we had our drinks Boudah made the girls (Jennifer, Maree and myself) a cute cricket made out of palm leaf sitting in a red hibiscus flower. It was very well done!



 




We headed back to the boat, all quite weary after our romantic row up and down the river. Robbie has swimmers ear and didn’t feel so good so he had a nap. We cooked fillet steak on the Bar-b-q with potatoes done in olive oil and salt and a salad.