We had the perfect forecast, winds in the 15 knot range from slightly north of east, and seas 5 ft or less... Bruce prepared to raise sails as we motored out between Les Saintes and immediately found the big water! We were ready and set our sails, settling in nicely for a beautiful ride.
![]() |
A boat followed us out but never caught us, nor did the rain! |
![]() |
The reading on our Oh-Shit-O-Meter was low |
![]() |
No words needed! This is IT! |
![]() |
The ferryboat from Martinique did pass us however... |
![]() |
Eager approach to Dominica! |


![]() |
Where are the REAL Boat Boys??? |
Warnings about renegade Boat-Boys were fresh in our minds as we spied a long boat speeding toward us before we even made it into Prince Rupert Bay... We effectively fended him off (well, sort of effectively... it wasn't easy to convince him to leave us alone, and when he left, he was mumbling unpleasantly) and proceeded to the northern end of the bay where we were NOT approached by another boat...
Where are they? Why aren't they coming out to greet us??? It didn't look like there were any sort of proper mooring balls in the Bay... plenty of boats anchored on this end... We motored slowly along the shore looking for any sign of a friendly PAYS boat headed our way.
![]() |
The fisherman's dock - OK for us to use but stay out of the way |
SWEET! A nice, non-pushy type of Boat-Boy!

OK, so this was not one of the PAYS moorings... That explains why it looks so ratty. We were a little bit confused, but this guy seems like he knows what he's doing, so we're rolling with it.
N15°34.726
W061°27.649
N15°34.726
W061°27.649
We dinghied over to the Fisherman's Dock where we thought Alexis had waved us. (turns out there is another dock further up the beach and very close to C&I) A fisherman gave us a hand up... Other than the one guy on a surfboard trying to sell us ugly fruit, the people have been very nice. We secured the dinghy and set off on foot through town.
![]() |
Frigate birds hovering over the fishing boats. |
My eyes quickly grew accustomed to the overall shabby-ness of the place as I made the mental adjustment to my new reality.
That's something that needs explanation, if I can... Each place we stop is in many ways similar to others, but in so many other ways, unique. We always have preconceived notions about a place that we have to deal with when presented with the reality. So there is always a period of mental adjustment between the images in our mind's eye... and what we actually see upon arrival.

We didn't hear the sound of a single TV and nobody had their face glued to a smart-phone screen... People were walking and riding bikes and the vehicular traffic was light and sluggish as cars and small trucks wound their way through a maze of obstacles. Just behind the row of buildings to our right was the sand and the Bay, sparkling in the lowering sun.
![]() |
Jungle in the middle of town and even the graffiti is positive! |
![]() |
Boats moored in the Indian River's mouth |
I breathed it in. The smell of forrest and smoke. Clean and dirty together. There's nothing like it and each island has its own, distinct scent...


We were happy to see other late-comers ahead of us just finishing up and our worries that we would have walked all this way to find them closed disappeared!
![]() |
Tiny homes right on the waterfront! |
We paid $30 US for the privilege of clearing in after hours... I don't know how much of that was extra but it wasn't the $50 US extra the guide book prepared us for... So the inaccuracies aren't always a bad thing... But then we had read that you could request a coastwise pass which allows travel to the Capital city of Roseau when clearing in here... but they wouldn't let us have one. They said we have to come back and get clearance to either Roseau or out of the country when we were ready to go. But, it wouldn't cost anything but our time... as long as it was during normal working hours...


It was a very basic place with several pizzas offered by-the-slice... We picked out one that looked good... until the girl told us that it was hot dog pizza. Um... better give us two waters and the pepperoni then! We ate our pizza and I decided that if they were serving hot dog pizza, it must be good... so I picked up one slice of hot dog and another of veggie pizza to go. We carried these back to the boat and had them with our sundowner... Yep... it was weenie pizza! That's all I'll say!
The anchorage is blessedly flat. I've heard that it can be rolly, but so far we've had wind funnelling down from the mountains making it nice and cool, but no fetch and no swell. Jezabelle is catching up on lost sleep from our recent anchorages and passages between islands...
We are growing accustomed to the smell of wood fires from the beach and cooking over open fire from some of the homes ashore... Guess we'll bear the scent of this island with us when we leave...By now we kinda like it. We're HERE! We're settling in and we have adventures to look forward to on the beautiful and mysterious island of Dominica!
No comments:
Post a Comment