Caribbean - Dominica

At the end of the River Tour is of course a bar, serving of course rum punch. Yum yum it was good rum punch and dried us off, on the inside at least.

Indian River Bar, complete with logs turned into tiny rough furniture.

The bar was typically no more than a roof held up by some poles with the furniture and necessary bar to hold the patrons and liquor respectively. Less is definitely more in this place as the lack of walls provides rainforest decor (and i would imagine means less to rebuild after a hurricane). In the middle of the picture below the dangling pink vegetation is their version of our Bird of Paradise. It really is quite astounding how similar the plants and animals here are to home!

Drinking in the jungle. (view and rum punch)

Sailing away from Dominca we realised that the 24hours we had spent in the rain had not been experienced by those a couple of miles offshore. It would seem that Dominica lives under its own, very exclusive raincloud. This does mean that, having the highest rainfall of the area, it is a stunning island rainforest which has luckily been preserved from development, damaging tourism and local poaching (if you are found with as much as a single feather from a parrot you face up to 5 years in prison...)

Dominica and her raincloud.

Leaving Dominica another long but fun sail brought us to Antigua. Less rain and less sun meant more pleasant sailing with less sunburn. You gotta love the Caribbean constant 15 to 20 knots wind. This was a day of absolutely awesome sailing which made me realise just how lucky I am to be on such a fabulous yacht as this particular Swan! She is a wonderfully balanced, 60 footer who simply plows elegantly through the water. The Captain hadn’t lost his fishing touch and we hauled in a biggy! (yes 'we', I was the one with the sailing gloves on that had to hold it still so the hook could be removed) From our handy fish chart we deduced it was a billfish or um maybe a baby marlin or um one of those kind of big fish. It was so big and so beautiful that, yes bleeding hearts and all that, we threw it back. It seemed no worse for wear from its brief yachting excursion, making a speedy swim for freedom after being unceremoniously dumped back in the sea.

Our temporary guest, the BillFish or Baby Marlin or um one of those kind of fish