"dome-in-EE-ka"

If you need to take this post in sections, I understand. It’s going to be a long one.

I was awoken Sunday morning around 6:45 by a brilliant sun shining through the window as it rose over the tiny island of Dominica.  After three days at sea, it was nice to touch land again, now feeling like my sea legs were giving me super balancing powers.
I met my group and walked 200 yards to a beautiful, white catamaran rocking in the gentle waves of the Caribbean. We were helped aboard by our guides, who immediately and expertly undocked and began their well-rehearsed schpeal. The only name that stuck with me when I left was the captain’s- Captain Jack Sparrow. No relation. They brought us to the deep waters of the island, past active volcanoes and black-sand beaches, where we were greeted by around 20 sperm whales over the course of the next two hours. The boat celebrated with a choice of rum and punch, passion fruit juice, or water, because this was “as good as it gets”, we were told by our guides.

As we made our way back, I chatted with some of the other kids on the boat and ended up making the best decision of the day. Nine other people, including myself, met up with our whale guide’s friend and spent the afternoon going wherever we requested he take us in an open-air, no doored bus that took a leap to get into. After randomly picking up a Rastafarian on the street corner who acted as our vocal guide for the afternoon, we snaked our way up the incredibly narrow two-laned streets of Dominica to our first stop, the Gorge.

Remember the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 where they are held captive in those balls made of bones? They break lose and eventually fall into a small crevice, dropping into the water while arrows are shot by the natives. THAT is the Gorge. We took the 20 foot plunge into the small space between the rocks and swam upstream though the closing rock walls to a hidden, powerful waterfall. (I think I put up a picture of me about to jump and of me jumping down into the water. It looks closer than it appears, which is probably why it was so easy to jump!) A local showed us ways to climb the waterfall, and after swimming through the clear, clean water, I sat in the stream and talked to him about his life on the island.

After piling back into our monster truck, we hit up Trafalger Falls, a twin set of waterfalls based with hot springs nice enough to sit in for hours (but not more than 30 minutes, said our guide). We climbed the rocks and swam across the pool, directly under the waterfall, and up the side as far as we could. After struggling to get down (somehow the way up is always so much easier), we spider-crawled over to the hot springs, where we sat in water the color of khaki shorts with a native who had been coming to that spot his entire life. Our guides said what we were swimming in was mineral water, good for the skin and magical enough to make you feel 10 years younger. Oh to be 11 again. We finished our day driving back down the mountain, stopping at coffee and fruit trees and more hot springs that were too hot for skin.

This morning I woke up to a green sea turtle floating around outside our porthole, poking it’s head out of the water every so often to see what was going on. A large group of us piled into 3 tour vans and headed to champagne reef, so named for the champagne-like bubbles that floated up through the geothermal streams and cavities below. This is the same place where Captain Jack Sparrow was chased by cannibals to 2 peaks in the movie. He had to jump from one to another. After suiting up in our snorkel gear, we slide into the warm water and were peppered with raindrops as we swam among colorful fish, eels, sunken ship remains, needlefish, and barracuda. After an hour and a half, we made our way back to the shop, where we were given fresh passion fruit juice and loaded back into the buses.

My friend Ashley and I spent the afternoon wandering around Roseau (Roo-soh), visiting the markets and talking to natives. I sit here now, back on the ship about an hour away from the island. Seas are rough, and the pool water is now mostly on the deck because of it.
I learned in Dominica that everyone knows everyone. Literally. A honk here is much different from a honk in the states. They probably have to get their horns fixed as often as their brakes. Over usage can do that to a car. Dominica said farewell through some native music in the bars below, a full moon, a starry night, and a few tears from the sky.

Biggest regret: Not remembering in the end to pack an underwater camera.

Now on to Brazil!