Today I thought I would issue a bit of a warning for those cruising or planning to cruise the Caribbean. The Manchineel tree is very common in the southern USA and across most Caribbean islands. It is also known as the Beach Apple tree because it likes to grow on beaches and has small green apple like fruit that it drops onto the sand regularly. This tree is in the Guinness Book of Records as the most dangerous tree…
Montserrat has the most active volcano in the Caribbean, Soufrière Hills, and hence was high on our list to visit. The volcano erupted last in 2006 and has been smoking since, building its pressure. It is expected to erupt again sometime in the near foreseeable future and hence caution is to be exercised anywhere around the volcano. On our way up to the Volcano Observatory, we stopped at Runaway Guaut. This is the valley where the English drove the last…
As many of you know, Dominica was hit very hard by category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017. While the hurricane lasted only 5 hours over the island, the sustained 200mph winds damaged every part of the island’s natural growth and infrastructure. This is the second major natural disaster in 3 seasons following Tropical Storm Erika in 2015. Some of the damage to roads and bridges caused by flooding from TS Erika had still yet to be repaired. Maria’s high winds…
The Boiling Lake in Dominica is a unique attraction in the Caribbean. There are only a few lakes of its kind in the world and it is a spectacular site. First, the hike into the boiling lake takes a bit of determination and a good pair of shoes. Chris and I left from Portsmouth on a local bus bound for Roseau with a few other like minded cruisers. The trip took a little more than an hour to arrive in…
We went out on a limb this year and decided to try and find our new cruising friends for New Years Eve. We were lucky enough to have AIS (Automatic Identification System) on our boat as did a couple of our friends. There is an online service at www.marinetraffic.com that allows you to see recent location of AIS enabled boats. It only works sometimes and only when the boat has the equipment on near an AIS base station. We took…
Our tour up the Indian River shows us how resilient nature can be. As you can see, many of the trees that created the full canopy are gone but the new growth is filling in. The Blood Wood trees (named for their red sap) are turning green again. Many of these trees have been growing on the river bank for a hundred years. The coconuts are well on their way to making new coconut palms! The small coconut trees…
On our trip down the coast from Portsmouth, we stopped in at Roseau, the capital of Dominica in search of propane. Roseau was hit harder by H Maria than Portsmouth but there was much activity cleaning up and effecting repairs. The biggest challenge is figuring out what to do with the massive amounts of debris. There are still a large number of deadheads (logs and trees) floating off the coast and washing up on shore. The amount of metal debris…
As many of you may know, Dominica was hit hard by hurricane Maria. While many cruising boats bypassed Dominica this year, we stopped in to check it out. Some things were immediately apparent: The damage caused by hurricane Maria was very extensive. Every building showed the scars; broken windows, missing roofs and damaged walls and many were simply destroyed. The trees all showed damage and many were broken. The once full canopy of the rain forest was simply missing. The…