We left Dominica January 10th, leaving Heidi behind. She loved the Island so much, she decided to stay for a couple of weeks and maybe months. Dominica is indeed a fantastic place!The day after we came into Ruperts Bay, we did the Indian River tour with Spaghetti as our guide.
He's one of the guys of the Portsmouth Association of Yachts Security and is actually named in the cruising guide. The Indian River is one of the places where they shot the Pirates of the Caribbean. The tour was magnificent and at the end there's a bush bar where you can have a drink. There's one guy actually living there and he showed us his place. The place is amazing and we stayed there way longer then just for a drink.
That night we went to the Sunday nights barbeque which this PAYS club organizes specially for the yachts that are in the bay. The food was indeed very good, so was the music and the rum punch :-) 
During the party, the Dominican minister of tourism came over and gave a speech to compliment all the PAYS guys. This was not part of the regular program and they were very pleased with his attendance. He stayed for a while and danced with us :-)We also met 4 Israeli and we teamed up with them to explore the Island some more. Next day we first had coffee at there boat and went ashore. Cobra, one of the PAYS guides was waiting for us. We thought of going by ourselves but eventually decided to go with him. That turned out to be a great decision!!
He took us to the Chadiere Pool, a place we would never found ourselves. The road was actually off road and the path down to the pool was very steep and slippery. The pool was amazing. You could jump in from the rocks or slide in by the waterfall. Unfortunately my waterproof camera turned out to be not waterproof and it died :-(
When we came back to the car, it turned out that the battery of the car had also died so we had to push it uphill to jump start it. Luckily that worked :-)
This Cobra guy was a great guide who enjoyed showing us around. Every now and then he stopped to get us all kinds of fresh fruit, or a bush rum or a pastry. After the pool he drove us through Carib Country. Dominica is the only Island where the original Caribs still live. They have their own land and community and no Dominicans are allowed to live there.After that he drove us to the Emerald pool, the place we wanted to go to by ourselves. He told us not to because all the people of the cruise ship would go there and it would be packed. He drove us there as a bonus on the tour and by the time we got there, they were all gone.
When we came back to Portsmouth we had dinner with the Israeli and went back to the boat. By that time Heidi had decided to stay and during the ride back she talked with Cobra. He's not only a guide but a very serious entrepreneur with a serious business. He started the Indian River bar, was a real estate broker and he was planning to open a souvenir shop so Heidi could come and help him to set it up if she wanted.He picked Heidi and me up next morning and drove us to customs and immigration to settle the paperwork.
After that we left and sailed to Iles des Saintes. A group of small island just South of Guadeloupe.
Again the difference with the other Islands was striking. You're in the South of France instead of the Caribbean... 
We stayed there for the day. Next morning we snorkeled and left for Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe. The plan was to sail through the river that divides Guadeloupe in two and sail to Antigua next morning. However, there is this bridge and it opens only once a day at 05:00 in the morning. We left at 04:30 but missed the only bridge in the Caribbean by 2 minutes ….. :-(So we went back to the marina and will try again tomorrow. There's no point in sailing around the island, that would double the trip to 85 nm. So now I have some time to update my blog and add some foto's, ….from Monique's camera.... :-o
That is... later maybe, the wifi connection over here really sucks, too bad to add foto's :-(
