We're hard up for internet access, but we'll try to catch you up with a text only post over the sat phone. Dominica has been an eye opener for us in many ways: to think that we almost past it up. For a quick background, Dominica is an independent commonwealth (1978) after a succession of father lands including Spain, England, and France. Despite the rich fruit produce, from pineapples to oranges to mangoes to ..., Dominica remains quite poor. Dominica is also the last home of the Carib indians, who live a separated life on a reservation high in the mountains. Though you do not see the Caribs themselves, you see their legacy in the dugout fishing canoes that work nets in the bay. The locals we have encountered have, for the most part, been soft spoken, helpful, and proud of their land. Dominica had a reputation only a few years ago for dinghy thefts and cat burglars. The local boat boys have organized into a cooperative to both protect the cruisers from theft (thus protect their business) and to carve out a niche for each, from Christian the fruit man who drops by each day paddling a windsurf to the 'yacht services' boat boys who broker whatever you might need from tours to laundry. They do race out a mile or two as you come in to welcome you and establish dominion over your boat, but they are not the competitive, aggressive breed of boat boy one might encounter elsewhere. With Dominica bounded North and South by French islands, locals catering to passing yachts speak French as well as English, allowing us to maintain our thin non-US veil in public. Contrary to our dread, based on dated reading, we have been most grateful for these guys.

I have yet to see the postings from the kiddos, but no doubt they spoke to the incredible fruit that grows everywhere in this country. Within an acre, you'll see everything from bananas to oranges to grapefruits to pineapple. It will be hard for us to ever go back to grocery store produce after eating the or-so-sweet finger bananas and grapefruit juicier than an orange.

To the extent that one can given a wide economic and cultural difference, we do interact with the locals. One of our best mornings began early with the Saturday market, biggest of the week, to nab some more (can't get enough) fresh produce (cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, and a pineapple for about $3 US). On the way back in the dinghy we happened across a couple of local fishermen in a dugout canoe hawking lobster. I'd like to say we caught lobster, but truth be known, we bought lobster. Hopefully we can reverse the shame in the near future. Closing in on Norska, with Shelby COMPLETELY wigged out over the lobster flipping around in the dinghy (the lobster had a posthumous last laugh when we discovered holes in the dinghy floor (inflatable) from this spines), a guy in the water asked for a tow to the fish market, a good quarter mile down the beach. He was towing a very full stringer of everything from Parrot fish to eel, speared at least another half mile away at the point. Seems that's what he does: go to the point, spear a bunch of fish, and swim the catch nearly a mile to market - yikes! No wonder he wanted a tow. Warily, I invited him to just hop in as I couldn't imagine towing him and his catch all that way. Man and fish delivered, we netted a large conch for the trouble. I am ashamed to say that until this day, I had never cleaned a conch. No worries, Di-Di noticed the conch and my perplexed countenance and remedied that particular hole in my education in short order. Didn't have a machete, but hammer and chisel worked well enough... These encounters define Dominica, in my mind, forever.

As far as boat things go, we've just about finished licking our wounds from the passage from Martinique. Among the larger projects was swapping winches. The main halyard winch jammed up, while reefing down of course. This winch has driven me crazy. One part gave out and I had a replacement custom machined (Barient winch). Now it appears that that part gave out because one spindle had frozen in a gear. The spindle was turning in the base instead of the gear turning on the spindle: another winch abused in childhood. Unjammed, it works, but can't handle the halyard loads so I swapped it with a cabin top winch that is rarely used. Good news is that water maker, with the added water/air separator, now works just dandy underway. We've just about given up on keeping the dinghy in the davits during passages. We always remove the outboard, but on the way to Dominica a splice on the dinghy's grab line gave way allowing the dinghy to swing wildly in the davits. At 85 lbs. the dinghy was literally flying and trying to flip in the davits. It was a bit dicey getting it under control. It seems clear that while a dinghy might behave while lashed in tight to the davits, it doesn't take much to have a situation that could easily lose the dinghy. We'll deflate and lash it down on deck going forward...

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Yesterday (we're writing it now since we didn't find internet yesterday) we had perfect weather sailing from Sainte Anne to Grand Anse D'Arlet. It was so beautiful, a great way to show Mamy what it's like to sail. There we spent second night there and enjoyed a nice dinner outside with the sunset keeping our food mildly warm. Then we move into today. We thought we would never bring out the rain jackets and sweatshirts, but after today we know anything is possible. We started the day with an overcast sail, but half way through we got hit by a rain shower! Boy was that a surprise! However, we would not let this ruin Mamy's last day with us. We sailed to Fort De France where we dropped her off at around 12 to take a taxi (she still isn't on the plane yet, her flight is at 7). After Fort De France, I sailed most of the way up to St. Pierre where we found the internet!!! Tonight we plan on having our very first movie night!! Since we are planning on having 4 days of bad weather, we are headed to Dominica early tomorrow morning.

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