Today we are stopping in the port of Roseau, Dominica. Dominica had been hit hard with a tropical storm on August 27, 2015, and we had initially been worried that we may not be going there when we had booked this cruise. They received about 12 inches of rain in 24 hours, and we could see some of the devastation from the flooding and landslides on our tour. However, before we get to the tour, we need to start from the beginning of the day.
We were scheduled to meet our tour group between 9:10 AM and 9:30 AM, with the ship scheduled to arrive at 9:00 AM. We got up about 7:30 AM so we could eat a good breakfast before the tour. Unlike our previous tour in St. Lucia, they are not providing any food on this tour, but had informed us to bring some snacks. We had forgotten to go to the International Cafe last night to get some sandwiches to bring today, they usually have a good selection, but only serving them after lunch. In the morning, all you can get there are some sweet rolls and croissants. We first looked at the International Cafe before heading to the buffet, hoping we might be wrong, but we were not surprised when they only had breakfast items in the International Cafe, nothing that would suffice as a meal for lunch.
We headed to the buffet, hoping that they might have something better, but settled for getting a couple of rolls and a couple croissants after we finished our good breakfast.
We headed back to the room and gathered up our gear for the tour. There was a snorkel stop on this tour, so we packed our snorkel gear in our dive bag, along with some towels and camera gear in a separate backpack.
We got off of the ship about 9:05 AM, and headed to the meeting place outside of the main terminal. There were about twenty people on this tour, so they separated us into two groups of ten, and we loaded up in the waiting vans
We drove about 35 minutes before we made our first stop at the “Champagne Reef”, which is a snorkel spot along the beach that has some gaseous bubbles coming out of the sea bottom from volcanic activity. After signing a waiver, we headed down a boardwalk to the beach.
A lot of the boardwalk had been washed away by landslides during the storm, so much of the walk was on a rocky shoreline that had been restored after the storm. We finally made it to the area where we entered the water, and it was very rocky. The rocks were mostly round stones, but some were quite large. In addition, we could see that the visibility of the water was not going to be good, there was a lot of silt washing onto the water from the beach area restored after the massive landslides.
We put on our snorkel gear and walked into the water from the very rocky beach before we put on our swim fins. Once the entire group was in the water, our guide took us out to the reef. The visibility got better as we got farther from shore, but was never great.
There was some interesting coral and fish on the reef, and on the outside of the reef, the water got deep pretty fast, going to a depth of about 75-100 feet. The guide had informed us that before the storm, you could easily see the bottom, even at that depth. However, it was not clear enough to see the bottom now.
The guide showed us some old cannons that were on the bottom, but we did not get much history on how they had gotten there.
Then we swam over to the area where the “champagne bubbles” were coming out of the rocky bottom. It was only about 10-12 feet deep, and the gasses were venting in a lot of locations, mimicking the bubbles in a glass of champagne. It was pretty interesting.
The guide went to the bottom and collected some of the venting steam/water in his snorkel, and then brought it up and poured it into our hands, it was pretty warm compared to the sea water temperature.
That was the end of the snorkel tour, so we headed back to the rocky beach to remove our gear and walk back to the waiting van, first stopping off at the main building to rinse off and pack our gear.
The next stop was in the Botanical Gardens, which highlights many of the trees and plants that grow on the island. There was a very large Banyan tree that was quite impressive.
Next, we headed to the Ti Tou Gorge, which was used in the filming of the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was an area carved out of the rocks by a small waterfall. We put on flotation belts and swam into the dark gorge.
The water was about 65 degrees according to the guide, and it took some getting used to, it was cold.
We went into the gorge as a group, and posed for some pictures at the waterfall in the back of the gorge before swimming back to the entrance. It was a really nice experience.
The next stop on the tour was the Trafalgar Falls. During the ride up into the mountains to the falls, you could really see the devastation from the rains, there were many areas where landslides had occurred, many of them right next to the road.
There were several areas where work crews were rebuilding the roads from the storm’s damage.
We had about a 10 minute walk out to the falls on a trail through the rain forest. When we got to the falls, there was a nice observation platform for taking pictures of the two waterfalls here.
The guides explained that there were pools for swimming at the base of the falls before the tropical storm, but that the excessive rain from the tropical storm had cause a lot of the areas at the base of the falls to be washed out, and now the pools were filled with massive boulders, and were no longer accessible for swimming.
It was hard to image the power of the water, the boulders were huge, and it had to have taken a lot of water to move them around.
The falls were still beautiful, even without the swimming experience.
We drove back down the winding roads and re-entered the Botanical Gardens, this time for some more detailed viewing of some of the horticulture. There was a bamboo cave, made out of bamboo plants that have been trimmed to make sort of an enclosed area, with four entrances around the perimeter.
We also saw a large tree that had fallen on a school bus during Hurricane David in the 1970’s. The tree was still growing, but the crushed bus underneath the fallen portion of the tree was crushed, but still visible.
The last stop was at an area called Morne Bruce, which had been some type of military fort many years ago, probably in the late 1700’s. The remains of the fort were not the attraction, it was the panoramic views of the city below, along with the views of the ship at the pier.
We headed back to the port and unloaded. It was about 3:30 PM, and we were tired from the days activities. The tour had been really nice, even with the effects of the tropical storm, which luckily, had only been a rain event, there had been no damaging winds.
We stopped off in the terminal to look at some of the local handcrafted items being sold. We purchased a couple of items, a handmade basket, and a hand painted Christmas ornament.
We got back onto the ship, dropped off our gear in the room, and headed to the buffet for some lunch.
We spent some time out on the pool deck until the ship departed at 6:00 PM. The sun was setting, but there was a large thunderstorm forming over the island’s mountains. The reflected sunset colors against the thunderstorm clouds was beautiful, there were hues of pink, orange and purple.
We headed back to the room to finish watching the ship’s departure from our balcony, there was a lot of lightening in the storm, and we did not want to be out on the open decks.
We got cleaned up and headed to the buffet for dinner. We were quite tired from the all day tour. After dinner, we did not stay out long since we have to be up early for our stop tomorrow in Grenada. The ship docks at 7:00 AM, and is only in port until 2:00 PM, so we need to get an early start.
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