Beautiful Dominica

Part of the sustainability plan for the new blog involves an easier process for posting photos. Most will be from my phone, not Dan’s camera, so sorry about that as he is a much better photographer. He will be providing photos though, so please don’t dispair.

The divers headed out on the first day and enjoyed a fun day underwater. The Fort Young hotel is perfectly situated on the water and the dive boat picked them up at the attached pier! I was able to watch the process from our balcony right above! The afternoon activity was a whale watching trip to try to spy some of the resident sperm whales. After over an hour of fruitless searching my amazing cousin Kelly let out a shout, grabbed her binoculars and got the boat to make a turn. We spotted our first sperm whale, a juvenile. Then, a little bit later, some more spouts were spotted and we came across two adult females. The took in some oxygen and prepared to take a deep dive.

Not to be out done, Dan and I saw some activity to port and we headed that way for a while without seeing any more whale signs. But then we came across a bunch of dolphins feeding on flying fish. There were even some spinner dolphins. They swam and jumped around the boat for quite a while. Then the crew broke out the juice and rum punch! When we reported what we saw to various locals their reaction made it clear we had a great day! Several advised us to purchase lottery tickets!

The next afternoon, we set out on a tour of parts of the island. Dominica is a volcanic island and has several peaks over 4,000 feet. The roads are narrow and take lots of tight turns, they were a British territory and drive on the other side of the road, so always “interesting” driving. We drove out to Scot’s Head to see where the Atlantic and Pacific meet and enjoy the amazing views. We also learned how French Settlers got the English soldiers stationed at a nearby fort drunk and spiked the cannons with sand so French troops from a nearby island could attack and take over.

From there we wound our way up, and up to the rainforest toward Emerald Pool. We left the blue and sunny skies and got a rainy inland walk toward a lovely waterfall. Dan and I, always looking ahead to Adventures, had brought our rain coats but the cousins didn’t. Fortunately there were vendors at the park entrance who were able to supply Ann, Kelly, and Angel with coats to keep them dry.