Barbados lies well
east of the rest of the Windward Islands in the West
Indies archipelago and therefore off the beaten
track as far as cruising boats go. Most don't
bother to make the upwind trip out here. When
Aunt Juliana and Uncle Mike were planning their
Caribbean vacation and Zia visit last fall, we
encouraged them to choose the Barbados option.
We had never been here before and were excited to
check it out. The chance to explore an area
relatively untouched by the typical Caribbean
tourist ambiance appeals to us greatly. To top
it all off, the opportunity to fly in the face of
conventional practices and actually sail upwind was
too much for us to resist!
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But I'm getting ahead of
myself. Our visit to Dominica must not be left
out of the Zia blog. We had been to the island
once many years ago on our first Caribbean adventure
as passengers on a Windjammer Barefoot Cruise (the
company has since gone out of business). We
remembered the hike through the rainforest to
Trafalgar Falls where pools of water heated by
volcanic forces lie next to the cool fresh waters of
the river as it churns at the base of a spectacular
waterfall. Other cruising friends had told us
of their trip here and strongly encouraged us to
schedule a tour with
Sea
Cat, one of the many licensed tour guides on the
island. Sea Cat also maintains a dozen mooring
buoys in front of his house on the shore just south
of the city of Roseau. We left St. Pierre,
Martinique bound for these moorings, excited at the
prospect of an inland tour with such high
recommendations.
After a rough passage
north, with a double reefed main and the staysail
(it has been a very windy month in the Caribbean) we
settled into our newest location. We decided
to head to shore for dinner after finishing up our
school day, which we had suspended for the three
hour trip. We established a great wifi
connection, meet up with Sea Cat and arranged for a
tour the next day, went for a swim and then into
shore to scope out a restaurant.
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The
Anchorage
Hotel was close and clearly the most lively of
the three restaurants in our immediate vicinity.
Sitting down in the bar area, we quickly became
engrossed in conversations with people from no less
than three other boats in the anchorage. One
group of three brothers from England were sailing a
catamaran throughout the islands for a few months.
Another couple from Kentucky were sailing a friend's
boat, delivering it south to Grenada for him over
the course of six weeks. Dave and Jan from
Deja Bleu have been living aboard their 45 foot
trawler for nearly three years, slowly making their
way south from Florida. We wound up having
dinner with them and later, buying one of their
Hobie Mirage kayaks that they just didn't use
often enough to justify the hassle of carrying.
Hopefully, we will do better with it.
With three cruise ships
in town, we decided to embark on the more
challenging hike to Victoria Falls rather than
getting caught in the herd of passengers that would
undoubtedly be making the easier trek to Trafalgar
Falls. Sea Cat assured us that the hike was
easy enough for the girls and that he would keep a
close eye on them as we wound our way through the
valley and up to the base of the two hundred foot
high falls.
Our tour began, however,
at Sea Cat's dinghy dock, right in front of his
home. We piled into his fifteen passenger van
and headed south and east, up into the hills.
Dominica's mountainous, rugged terrain is almost
entirely covered with dense, unspoiled tropical
rainforest. Fruits, herbs and flowering plants
abound. Sea Cat wasted no time in introducing
us to his island home. We pulled into a drive
just outside town to say hello to some friends.
Before we knew it, we were drinking the milk from a
freshly picked coconut, still in the early stages of
ripening.
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Before the end of the tour, we would also taste
the milk of a coconut after the fruit had fully
ripened, plucked off a beach on the windward side of
the island and expertly cracked by our wonderful,
enthusiastic guide.
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During the course of the
day, I tasted a larger variety of fruits than I ever
knew existed. I sucked on a raw cocoa bean,
and then ate the dried, shaved cocoa flakes mixed
with sugar. Guava, breadfruit, papaya
grapefruit, tangerine, mango, tamarinds and bananas
all grow in abundance on the island.
Throughout our tour, Sea Cat would pull over and
scan the trees for ripe fruit that he would pick,
prepare and offer to us to taste.
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We stopped at a factory where half a dozen
workers were sitting, processing arrowroot for
pressing. The same factory also has a machine
that extracts the oil from fragrant bay leaves to be
sold for perfumes and solutions abroad.
Agriculture is the primary economic activity of the
island, bananas being its largest export. The
fertile volcanic soil ensures that just about
anything grows.
The highlight of the
tour was our trek into the rainforest to Victoria
Falls.
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For three wonderful hours, it was just the five
of us, crisscrossing the White River, climbing over
and around boulders and up muddy paths to and from
the 200 foot waterfall. Sea Cat patiently and
attentively attended to the girls, helping them with
each ford of the river and placement of the foot.
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Our efforts were greatly rewarded as we ascended
another incline and waded into the pool of water at
the base of the falls.
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We swam as close to the pounding water as we
could get, at which point Sea Cat said the girls
could go no farther. He offered to take Joe
and myself underneath one corner of the cascading
water. We had heard stories from the other
cruisers we had met that the falls were dangerous
with all of the rain the island had received
recently. I think the girls sensed my
nervousness. I elected to stay with them,
partly to ease their minds and partly out of fear.
Flash floods are not unheard of along the river and
I couldn't seem to shake the nagging twinge of
concern from my head.
Wholly invigorated and
pumped with adrenaline, we descended back through
the river valley to our Rastafarian lunch prepared
for us by Moses at his Garden of Eden "Rastarant."
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The vegetarian stew had been prepared for us
while we were hiking and was well received by all.
Served in dried calabash bowls it was full of
vegetables grown on the premises. The girls
couldn't quite get through their serving but did an
admirable job nonetheless.
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Moses was a colorful, friendly host. Joe
had slipped on a boulder during the hike and was
carefully administered to by Moses with a homemade
antibiotic and healing aloe application.
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With a rigid schedule of
school lessons restricting our freedom, we regretted
not being able to see more of this wonderful island.
During breaks from the lessons, we enjoyed long
swims along the shoreline, spotting several turtles
and a variety of fish. We ventured into town
in search of ice cream and to visit the grocery
store. The poverty and disrepair of the city
was a stark contrast to the overwhelming richness of
the rain forest. Hopefully the wealth will
spread to the people as more foreigners discover
this magnificent island.
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