A Waterfall and Beach for Every Day of the Year..

December 29, 2007


Well we hauled up anchor on Boxing Day and sailed away from Martinique in search of some more beautiful sights. Next island up, Dominica, the nature island.


"Luke – While we were sailing we saw a big brown thing, it turned out to be a big turtle that was floating at the top of the water. When we got closer it lifted its head up and then dived down. "




Dominica (A waterfall for every day of the year)


The Nature Island – It is said “If Columbus came back today, Dominica is the only island he would recognize.” We arrived in Roseau, the capital city of Dominica and were, once again, greeted by the never ending boat boys. Jason was quick to offer the usual of fruits, veggies and of course a tour of this beautiful island. So off we went with Jason’s cousin, Moses Jr. and his brother Israel (I’m not kidding!) to check out the rain forests and waterfalls of Dominica. After a nice easy walk through the most amazing rainforest yet we came across the waterfall that we had been waiting for. From way up came a steady stream of fresh, clean, salt free water flowing down into a pond that we were able to swim in. Dominica, being an island with many high mountains and valleys attracts many rain clouds that produce these beautiful waterfalls and of course with rain comes the rainbows. It is said that rainbows can even be seen during the night when the moon is bright. We had to do some rock climbing and traversing to get to these places but once we dove into the surprisingly cool pools everything was perfect.



On our way back from the falls Kiana and I spotted a tree that looked rather familiar, a plant that I had missed terribly over this Christmas season, a poinsettia tree. So nice to see growing wild.









"Cole – On this tour Moses Jr and Israel took us to a local restaurant that was kinda like a cross between a buffet and a fast food restaurant where you could look and see what you wanted and then they would put it on a plate and you could either stay and eat it or leave. I had chicken that seemed like it was slow cooked with rice. It was really, really good. I like going to local restaurants because the food is good."


Jason our boat boy was forever fishing, we never saw him catch anything but he tried continuously. On the last day he was disappointed to hear that we were leaving because he wanted to take the boys fishing, maybe he thought that they would bring him some luck.


Moving north from the capital city and all of the rain, we then anchored at a small village called Portsmouth where we took a river tour on the Indian River. The Indian River is part of a national park which means that we were unable to motor up the river to check things out. Martin was our man (Providence was his boat name) to row us up the river and to teach us about the incredible Bloodwood Trees that grow here, the root system on these trees was unreal, seeing and walking amongst them was like being in a Harry Potter book where the trees almost come alive. Along this river the trees were like a canopy that hung over top of us and below us were the huge mullet fish that gently swam around probably knowing that they were protected from fishermen.


Portsmouth also brought with it a beautiful beach with some palm tree swings that the kids took full advantage of. It is always fun to see the local kids (being Christmas vacation there were a few of them) down at the beach enjoying their beautiful backyard playground, our kids always learn so many tricks from them. They spent hours swinging from these simple ropes into much too shallow water and enjoying their skim boards. We find ourselves constantly saying that if we were back in Canada our government would have guard rails around such things.


New Years Eve and Day found us on the Island of Guadeloupe, being the exciting group that we are we were in bed at around 10 pm unable to stay awake to bring in the new year. Like Grandpa at the lake says “8 pm is sailor’s midnight.” We therefore celebrated on New Year’s Day with a bottle of bubbly. We unfortunately had not much time to spend on the island of Guadeloupe, but we did take a beautiful New Years Day stroll down a sidewalk along the waters edge and found some street vendors selling none other than delicious snow cones in your choice of flavors; Mint, Lemon, Fruit Punch, Pomegranate just to name a few. They make these snow cones by scraping a huge block of ice with a special scraping tool and then filling a cup with the cool ingredients. We were also on a mission to find our captain a new pair of sandals as one of his went overboard on our latest passage. The French English barrier is one that is hard to overcome, we could use Coach Norm and his clan to come down and help us out. We finally found a pair in his size and a salesman that could not understand how we could be Canadian and not speak French.



Leaving Guadeloupe we had a decision to make, go northwest to Montserrat, Nevis, St.Kitts, and Statia or head straight north to Antigua and Barbuda. Being the head teacher on the boat I insisted on doing both. Go west to the island of Montserrat to see the active volcano and then head east to Antigua and Barbuda.

Montserrat – the Island with the active Volcano! Now this was a field trip that we will never forget. In 1995 the Soufriere Hills Volcano erupted destroying the capital city of Plymouth. The population here at the time of the volcano was 10,000, many from the US and Canada who were here for some beautiful peace and quiet that the Caribbean offers. After the volcano erupted the majority of people moved away leaving only 4,500 people living on the north end of the island. It is amazing to see how one island can have two totally different landscapes in such a small area. The volcano with its grayness and bareness is on the south side and on the north side is a beautiful green luscious landscape. Sailing past the swallowed up town of Plymouth was definitely a surreal (a word that I seem to be using often now a days) feeling. Houses and more houses, stores, hospitals and schools half buried in lava & ash and now deserted. A whole city just empty of everything. How quickly people’s lives and businesses were turned upside-down and they were forced to start over somewhere else. Technically there is a 2 mile exclusion zone off of the end of Montserrat where you are supposed to stay clear, but with a captain like ours we needed to get closer. In the summer of 2003 the huge volcanic dome collapsed and now the volcano shows signs of settling down to sleep, although with all of the smoke still pouring out it sure seems like it is far from sleeping.


"Kiana – The Volcano on Montserrat was smokin’.(hahaha) There was a town buried under lava and ashes. We were able to see this better than most people because we sailed closer then we were supposed to (opsie!). Seeing the buried houses made me thankful that I do not live near a volcano. When we got to where we were heading (Little Bay) it really didn’t seem like there was much around to do. Dad said that on the other side of the mountain there was a beach. So we hopped off the boat and tried to find our way around a construction zone for a half an hour and when we finally found the path we hiked for another half an hour on a steep path over the mountain. We found a long beach with soft sand and great water and we had it all to ourselves. We didn’t get to stay there for long because we had to save time for our long hike back before dark. When we got back to the boat the boys decided to try and get to the beach with the dinghy and found that it was a 2 minute ride. Oh well at least we got some exercise. TaTa for now folks. "



"Cole - This volcano was a lot different than I thought it would be. I thought that it would just be a small mountain with a small hole at the top of it, but it turns out that it was a huge mountain with smoke coming out of the top and houses half covered with lava. I would have liked to see the hospital that was worth 28 million dollars but it was covered with lava and we were not allowed to walk within a mile of the town. We also hiked over a huge hill and on the way we saw donkeys, goats and wild pigs. Once we got to the beach it turned out that we could have gone on a two minute dinghy ride instead of walking through prickly bushes. We had fun at the beach. "

Sailing straight east when the wind is also straight from the east is not a pretty task. So the captain made a decision, motor from Montserrat to Antigua. Motoring proved to be not as boring as we had all thought, due to the fact that when we are sailing we achieve approx. 8-10 knots in speed compared to approx 5 knots under motor, our fish hooks were not quite a blur to the fish. 6 hours of motoring, 7 delicious fish to stock our freezer. 3 Barracuda, 3 Tuna and 1 Kingfish, how delicious fresh Tuna sushi is. (i-Gen guys, sorry it just won’t keep that long, you will have to come down to try it out)



Antigua & Barbuda (A beach for every day of the year)

I can honestly say that I am in beach heaven and it is killing me to leave the beaches here. I would have thought that we had already seen the best of the best but I was wrong. Barbuda wins the beach contest by far. 11 Mile Beach is the name and that only begins to describe what we came across, 11 miles of beautiful pinkish white perfect sand, only one other sailboat in sight, a hotel that has been closed down (one that we later found out was a special spot for Princess Diana) and fresh coconuts, plenty for the taking. Then we forced ourselves to pick up anchor from this beautiful spot, sailed around to the west side of the island only to see a 13 mile beach in the same state. I really am in heaven.

"Tyler – Barbuda has a 13 mile beach. When we went there, there was absolutely no one there just like on all of the other beaches in Barbuda. When we came in on the Kayaks, with all of our clothes on, me, my mom and Kiana went in the yellow one and Dad Luke and Cole went in the orange one. We in the yellow Kayak came ashore perfect, riding a big wave perfectly onto shore, but when my dad, Luke and Cole tried riding the wave, Luke and Cole got a bit worried so they jumped out, luckily dad had his camera in a bag, because after that the Kayak looked like a surf board. It flipped and took dad with it. I laughed really hard. "

"Luke – In Barbuda we went for a walk down a beach that was really long and had nobody on it. There was a really nice hotel that was deserted. We found 9 coconuts under a coconut tree that we broke out of their outer shells and then we walked back to the Kayaks. We put them in the Kayak and then dad went back to the boat to get us some cold pop, but when Cole tried to pull dad out over the waves he got smoked by the Kayak and hurt his head. We lost one of the coconuts in this accident and dad fell out of the Kayak for the second time. That was one of my favorite beaches. "

On the island of Antigua we anchored off of a beach where there was a beautiful hotel/resort of the obviously very rich. Provided to all of the guests were luxurious beach loungers with thick foam cushions which were covered with a thick beige towel and rolled up for their use were 2 more thick beige towels (which were all collected and cleaned every night) and they were served bottles of water or whatever they wanted to drink by an employee who walked up and down the beach…..and then there was us on our well used beach towels laying on the beach with our little cooler. At our anchorage here the kids spent hours diving down and collecting many starfish which are an amazing creature. They had to put them upside down on the boat or else the starfish would suction himself on to the boat. Cole also had to watch what his starfish was suctioning on to…….

Pushing forward to the island of St.Martin we were amazed once again. Mega Yacht capital of the Caribbean for sure. The size of some of these boats is absolutely incredible; with the size of some of them I would love to see what these people’s houses look like.

While waiting for the captain to clear us into customs, the kids and I decided to take a bit of a walk and what did we find but a McDonalds. In we went for a delicious ice cream, fries and half an hour of watching tv, which they conveniently had hanging on the wall, I didn’t realize how much I was missing that silly thing. For supper we decided to go out to a restaurant, but this was not your normal restaurant, this one was definitely for happy, sun burnt, drinking tourists. Man what our kids are learning now that they can get into places like these, they really are having the time of their lives.


St.Martin was a great place to shop, it is a duty free island which simply meant that prices were finally reasonable. So Kevin stocked up in the sailboat shops and scuba shops (2 new scuba tanks were purchased) and the kids and I in the souvenir shops. Even though St. Martin seemed like a lovely island we were anxious to get going as we knew that one more day of sailing would get us to the BVI where Grandma and Grandpa from the lake were awaiting our arrival.

January 10, 3:00 am we hauled up anchor from St.Martin and headed west for one of our longest passages in our 7 months of sailing, to the BVI (British Virgin Islands). What should have been a great day of sailing turned into another day of great fishing. The winds were just not howling in our favor and we were forced to motor and restock our fish freezer once again.




Kiana Swinging



Cole on the skim board