Dominica March 3rd 2013

Here we are in Dominica, Prince Rupert Bay hanging on to a buoy, its a huge bay, since we arrived we have seen lots of boats come and go including a square rigger named Sea Cloud.

Sea Cloud, we spoke to the crew who said the passengers were from National Geographic.

When we first arrived the boat boy Martin came out to help us tie up and has since told us quite a bit about Dominica its pretty obvious he loves his island and has a thriving business organising tours and fund raising for PAYS which helps to provide funds for the security and many of the events here. Tonight we go to the beach barbecue no doubt to try their local rum punch and juices.

Martin took Don ashore to checkin with the customs department.

Each day boat boys come by to see if we want fruit or selling something or some kind of service or other.

Just the beach

Palm tree, seed washes onto the beach and plants itself.

The dinghy skippered by both of us has ferried us in and out of the beach and town dock when we explored the local town and on Saturday there was a local market selling fresh fruit and vegetables direct from the farmers themselves. You do have to check prices for everything here as some will push their luck if they can.

Our courtesy flag with the Sisserou parrot

The national flag has a Sisserou parrot on it which is their national bird. They are roughly the same size as Beaky my bird at home but the Sisserou is very colourful, bright green back, purple neck, green tipped red tail and purple underneath.  If you google it you will get all the info, its an endangered species and only here in Dominica, quite rare roughly 250 are remaining, as one of the hurricanes destroyed much of their habitat.

Parrots habitat in the canopy, so high, what a view!

So on Friday we took a tour with 6 other people into the forrest and to see a couple of tiny seaside villages. We were picked up by boat from Agua Therapy and taken to a minibus the the driver Paul started the trip inland explaining what we would probably see along the way.
Ok if we were told it would involve trekking I would have definitely taken stronger more robust and suitable footwear. Oh well never mind I ended up wading through the rivers and streams while others balanced on some very slippery rocks at least I only managed to go half way in once, up to below my knee and that was when someone was holding on to me.

This was an easy crossing

Milton waterfall 80ft, it made a lot of noise!

A weird tree inspired by Salvador Dali I think

The hike to the parrots habitat was stunning a little climb passing the most amazing trees some huge and enormous ferns, plants that we have at home as house plants. Our guide showed us huge trees that grow to 300 feet or more, they are used to make dug out canoes, some others which are very hard wood which are used for building. Farmers grow coffee trees, cinnamon trees, cocoa, grapefruit, nutmeg, wild watercress, ginger in the ground in fact so many things that we can't remember everything. He explained that most things are used for herbal medicines even marigolds which help when a baby is sick. Almost all of the trees are protected and permission has to be given to cut down anything.

The bananas and grapefruit here are the best we have tasted, and the grapefruit are very juicy.
No photographs of the parrots sorry they move to fast for any of us to take a decent shot but we did see quite a few and heard them too.
We saw tiny humming birds, bright iridescent blue and green, they too are incredibly fast, just like the large bees we see in Spain but slightly bigger. I am determined to have a photo sometime.

Prizes if you know what these are then, zoom in you will see 

Can you see the bird? Its very similar to a hawk

As we were walking away from the hot spring a "rasta" guy was walking towards us carrying a bunch of leaves so I asked him "what are you going to use those for", he said "if I went with him he would show me" I replied err I don't think that my husband would be very happy and declined his offer. I never did find out and I often think "what if I had gone with him"

On the return trip Paul took us into 2 tiny villages both make their living from fishing, in fact in one the minibus could only get in so far. The first one no way can anything pass by the van. All of us did take a drink and a little roll to eat opposite the local post office.

The post office was closed for lunch

During the walks to the waterfall and hot springs at times was difficult clambering over moss covered rocks to say the least but it was all worth it, I did enjoy the dip in the hot spring but so small only 4 of us went in.

This is just across from the beach oh are those reefs and rocks unkind to boats

Guess this poor yacht was beached then

This little guy had his fill with Don's chips

Last nights sunset but wait

The green flash now you have seen it too.
I didn't even see it myself until I had uploaded the picture to the computer, it must have been a split second 

Ok now going to change ready for tonight, we may leave this island soon but I think we may be back sometime.
BFN
Agua Therapy
Glenys and Don