The Social Swirl of Dominica
14 January 2018 | Portsmouth, Dominica
Another squally couple of days, but the forecast is now for a more normal local weather pattern – moderate winds from the east, one downpour a day and sunshine for the remainder. Our southbound friends left before dawn this morning, making for Martinique, and five boats have just upped anchor for the north and Guadeloupe, at the more civilized hour of 10.30. We plan to stay till tomorrow – or whenever our laundry comes back from Avin’s niece’s friend’s house – and then we too will head north for either the Isles des Saintes or Marie Galante, depending on tomorrow's wind angle. In the meantime, there is a rumour that there may be one of the famous PAYS BBQs on the beach tonight.
Another sociable couple of days have passed. Cockpit conversations always seem to get round to water-maker performance, fuel consumption and fishing. Our water-maker has never performed quite as we would like, in that it has either made very nice tasty water slowly or salty tasting water much more quickly. Frank on Infinity B is a bit of an expert on the subject so came round to diagnose the problem – we think we now have a solution, so thank you Frank! We look forward to our next meeting.
In between the visits to other people’s boats we managed to get to the Saturday market here to stock up a bit. There’s plenty of lettuce, tomatoes, tough-skinned cucumbers and yams, but that’s about it – if it grew on or below the ground it survived Maria, but if it grew on vines or trees it was destroyed. And anything we buy has been a fight to grow, so our veg stock-up was pricey… The only fruit available is apples imported from France (non!) or teeny pineapples, which are scarce enough to command a gold-plated price.
Lunch with Intrepid B at the roti shop, then a walk up to the fort on the hillside (Fort Shirley) with Minnie B, which is also an OVNI 395. We first met Phil and Norma of Minnie B at the Southampton Boat Show in 2009 when we were looking at Barracuda; since then we have just kept in touch by blog and email, comparing notes and absorbing their wisdom (they have been slowly round the world in Minnie B), so it has been lovely to actually see them here in the flesh and to get a tour of Minnie B. Finally, a thank you-and-farewell to Brisa before their pre-dawn start - great Dark 'n' Stormies!