Taia (English): Dominica

We got to Dominica a little bit after lunch. About a mile away from the anchorage in Portsmouth, we saw a local boat approach us. They want to "guide" you to the anchorage and become your local guide for anything you may want. They do this as a way of living, of course. And this is how we met Alexis, our guide to Dominica.

We anchored closed to Almost There and soon enough, Robert and Shena were informing us that they had bought tickets for the local beach BBQ. Thanks to them who also paid for our tickets! The BBQ consisted of chicken, rice and salad and quite a lot of rhum punch. We met a lot of other cruisers, all heading south towards Grenada, our final destination. As always, we all shared memories and plans and had a great time.

The following day Alexis picked us up on his boat for a day trip. First we went to the Indian River and, while he rowed, he taught us a bit of history. We stopped at his brother's plantation and were shown to quite a few of local plants: passion fruit, papaya, cinnamon, cocoa, bread fruit and, of course, sugar cane, coconuts and bananas. This is one of the kids' favorite parts as they got to taste everything! We also learned how to make fresh passion fruit juice, something that we're making quite regularly now as we all love it.

Next on our list was a walk down a mountain to get to a small waterfall and 25-foot rock to jump from. As usual, Ernesto was the first to jump and try how safe it was. To my astonishment, Matias climbed next and off he jumped like it was nothing. To the shout of "This is awesome!" he started climbing the rock again. Camila was next and I was, once again, very surprised as just a few months ago they wouldn't have jumped at all. I think all those afternoons jumping from Almost There's arch have payed off.

The last stop for the day was a local chocolate factory. A few years back, a French man was frustrated at the lack of good-quality chocolate on the island and decided to start making his own. He received us on his house/factory, barefoot and shirtless, and explained the whole process of chocolate making (yes, there was some sampling, lucky for me!). The thing that I liked the most about this was that most of what he uses grows in his yard. It can't get any fresher than that!

There's definitely a lot of things to see and explore in Dominica, a land of many natural resources. We had to cut our time short (due mainly to rolly anchorages) but we'll come back again next year.