We had visited Dominica before in January/February of2017 (and Martinique too) when we judged it our favourite Carribbean island and were therefore looking forward to our return visit. In September of that year Hurricane Maria year hit the island causing widespread destuction to life, property and environment, including damage to 90% of the country's housing stock. How had the island fared since, I wondered?
We spent Easter Monday recovering from the excertions of our little walk and on Tuesday tackled our jobs list, provisioned the boat and checked out.
Mick spent most of the day contriving a fix to the water pump, which, despite his best efforts, failed again the following morning. The purchase of a new pump was therefore added to our final pre-departure duties to undertake on the Wednesday. Filling our emergency water containers (2 x 20 litres) and collecting previously ordered medicines from the pharmacy and stowing the dinghy on the foredeck, being the other main tasks
We finally, weighed anchor at 1445 and motored out of the anchorage.
A fresh east by north east wind was forecast and so once in the obstacle free water of the outer bay we put one reef in the mainsail and made sail. Our route was to be up the west coast of Martinique, across the gap of about 20 miles between the two islands and then up the west coast of Dominica to Portsmouth near the northern extremity of Dominica.
The only navigational challenge of the passage was finding the optimum balance between maintaining a course as far east as possible to allow for the west setting winds and currents, whilst staying sufficiently far off shore to avoid the 'worst' effects of the wind shadow that the high ground on both islands would inevitably create.
I didn't get it quite right because we were reduced to motoring on a few of occasions for periods of 30 minutes to an hour when in the lee of hills on both islands.
As expected we experienced the strongest winds when in the gap between the islands. Unfortunately this coincided with Mick's period off watch. He wasn't quite quick enough closing the fore hatch, and so his bed got a good soaking; (the hatch isn't completely water tight in heavy weather even when closed).
He therefore decided to relocate his bed. Regrettably, the most obvious candidate for a new bed, the pilot berth, was unavailable, being full of clutter, due to me having ceased to use it as a berth, because in the tropics, being high up, it just got too hot.
Therefore, on one of my trips below decks I found him on the forward bench seat (these run across the boat either side of the table) which, when on the starboard tack, are on the leeward side of the boat, with his head on the higher end of the seat, his trunk (sort of) lying on the seat and his legs and feet propped upwards on the pilot berth. Quite how anyone could be asleep in such a position I couldn't imagine, but he appeared to be!...
For the most part we had an enjoyable early morning sail up the Dominican coast interrupted only by a couple of spells of motoring.
After a passage of about 18 hours we dropped anchor off Portsmouth in Prince Rupert's Bay at 1030 on the 4th April.
Our Swedish friends Birgitte and Lasse on board Aura had arrived a couple of days before and we invited them aboard for dinner that evening. Before then I dropped Mick off at the town quay to shop and I went off to check in with the authorities.
Our friends arrived at 1800 in time for us all - armed with G&T - to watch the sun go down...
Mick produced one of his excellent signature dishes - spaghetti Bolognese!
Like us, Birgitte and Lasse had both been to Dominica before (on separate occasions). Birgitte had made good friends with locals back in 1987 and was on a mission to try and track down the family and the next day they were heading into the mountains to look for them.
We agreed to team up the day after to take a tour up the Indian River, something we had all done on previous visits to the island.
Thus far, it seemed to my casual observations, that the island had recovered well from the devestation caused by Hurricane Maria. I was to find out more on our trip up the Indian River!
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