Some first impressions of Portsmouth

A short walk to “Fort Shirley” at Cabrits National Park

Just a couple of minutes walk from our anchorage. A nice afternoon distraction from the cleaning morning. As the park was also part of the Dominica National Parks System, we could get a weekly pass to be able to enter Cabrits as well as almost all of the other natural attractions of the island.

A long and fun day tour with Kish to the south part of Dominica

Fun Kish picked us up at 7am in the morning. A bit early even for us. Our first stop were the Trafalgar falls. The rain made it difficult to take pictures. Either the camera was full of raindrops or we had to secure it in our backpack while “slimbing” through the woods. Not good for taking pics but very impressive for us as the water was falling down with an enormous amount and huge energy. We had a long walk up and down to our next stop the Middleham Falls. It took us about an hour to climb and slide there. So worse the effort!!! And fortunately before the intense hike we stopped at a “snackette” to have some breakfast.

Titou Gorge

The hike through Titou Gorge was actually a short swim from the base of a waterfall through a series of natural “rooms and ponds” formed by high cliff walls canopied by interlaced trees. The undulating sides of this deep, narrow gorge were formed as molten lava cooled and split apart (said google). Truly a nature wonder to experience! The fun part was trying to reach the rear of the gorge. Despite the fact that it was only about maybe 70 metres to the end, it was a challenge to swim against the strong current. Only once you figured out where to swim and hold best, it was possible to reach the fall. Going back was just an easy relaxing float with the current. Thanks to a hot spring which tumbled down a short wall just outside the entrance of the gorge, we could warm up from the cool waters of the falls. Nice, it felt so great! A last gaze absorbing the canopied light filtering down the mountainside within the gorge was just spectacular.

Unfortunately the pics didn’t come out very well…

Botanical garden

Before heading to the very south tip Scotts Head, we had a short stop at the botanical garden in Roseau the capital of Dominica.

Scott’s Heads, Champagne Beach and a late dinner

The next highlight for us was the Champagne Beach, which is part of the Soufriere-Scott’s Head Marine Reserve and located in the southwest. From the outside or better to say from the shore side it was not a spectacular beach, big pebbles made the access to the water rather difficult and uncomfortable. Though once we were in the water with our snorkelling gear it was sensational. The killer feature of this beach were the fantastic to watch bubbles in the water. Lots of sometimes tiny, sometimes bigger bubbles appearing from small openings of the sea bottom finding their way up to the surface in their own individual pace. So nice to watch!!! All that was happening due to the minor geothermal activity of the volcanos. The volcanic underwater objects contribute to the release of gases from volcanic cracks, which, like air bubbles in champagne go to the surface. No wonder it was called champagne beach. Meanwhile it was already late afternoon, also called sunset time, which deserved a quick sundowner at the little hut at the beach. And finally we took off to get some dinner somewhere on the west coast on our way back to Portsmouth. We got back to Altimate at 10:30 pm – that was a very loooong excursion!