All Natural

Location:
Dominica

Fruits, waterfalls, diving

By Colin Brayton

In March of 2007, I got to visit the island of Dominica in the Eastern Caribbean. Dominica has been know in the past to be riddled with crime and for boaters, not a safe place to spend the night. However, I work on a private sailboat as full time crew, we stopped in Portsmouth, Dominica for about 10 days. It was awesome!

After clearing customs, myself and couple of the other crew members decided to go to town and have a walk around. Dominica is still very rustic shall we say, not many amenities but there was wireless internet being broadcast across the harbor. Anyway, once on land, we were greeted by some of the most friendly and kind people I may have ever met during my travels. We wondered around town for a bit and then headed up this road to get a little exercise. A local guy joined us as we meandered our way up the road, and after a mile and half of climbing steadily up hill, during which we received a fruit and vegetable lesson, the group of us arrived at his friends house. During that mile and half, we passed the following plants: mango, coconut, papaya, guava, bread fruit, cashues, lemon, and lime trees, and wild red pepper and rasberry bushes, and many grasses also used in cooking. Upon reaching the house, we were offered some of the best grapefruits in the world to suck, slurp and chow down on. In the yard of this house, there were obviously grapefruits but also oranges, papaya, avocado, sugarcane, mangos, and banana plants. It blew me away, I had never seen so much fruit just gowing on the side of a road before and in peoples yards. Nearly every house had an orchard of some description.

Well, there is a lot more to Dominica then just fruit, they boast some great waterfalls, spectacular rainforest, and thrilling diving. We (the four crew members of the boat) hired one of the local guides, Providence (Martin is his name) to take us on a tour for a day. In the morning, Martin rowed us up the Indian River at the crack of dawn. Early morning is the best time to see the most birds on the river. There were some beauitful humingbirds, egrets, coots, night herons, green back herons, a skittish king fisher, and a species of land crab that is a delacacy to the natives. There are these really interesting trees that line the river banks called Bloodwood Tree's. You will have to travel to Dominica to see them.

A couple of hours later, we headed off for a tour with Dylan, he works for Martin, (left our dingy tied up to the dock with no lock for a full day, no problems). The trip itinery included a waterfall we could go swimming in and red clay dunes. The waterfall was maybe a 20 minute drive from Portsmouth if driven directly, but no this did not happen. Every couple of miles, Dylan would see a plant on the side of the road, he would stop the mini bus, get out, grap it, come back and describe to us how it could help the body. Most of the plants if crushed up, added to boiling water, and served as tea would cure most illnesses. It was quite amazing. A few of the ones that I remember fondly are if you have a cold, find some mango leaves, crush them up, and make tea. If you eat to many guava fruits, you will become constipated due to all the seeds. But if you consume large amounts of coconut, it will cause your stomach to become upset and will flush your insides out. So there you go, becareful how much tropical fruit you eat.

On the drive out the ridge top to the falls, we were flanked on both sides by acres of pineapple plants and banana plantations. The waterfall was wicked cool, and I got to jump off the top about 15 ft high into the pool. Once again, we were never more than a few minutes between information about the local flora and fauna. On the hike back up the hillside to the bus, we saw vanilla vines growing wild, a cinnimon tree, a balsa wood tree, and parrots flying over head. Very cool! It wasn't until 6 hours later, a stop at a remnant of the set for Pirates of the Caribbean II, a look at some red clay dunes on the windward coast, a bread shop, and after dark did we make it back to our dingy. What a wicked great and educational afternoon it was.

One of the coolest things we did, was go for a scuba dive. Most if not all of the coast line around Dominica is protected, and a local dive guide is requied to accompany ones party. Unfortunately, I forget our guides name, but he was missing half of one arm, but he still managed to operate all his gear. He took us about 100 yards behind our boat where it was anchored, I thought at the time, this it, this is the best you can off us. Well, down we went to 100 ft, I have an underwater camara, he signals for me to watch him. He takes off one of his fins, and wriggles it into the sand, out comes a 3 foot by 3 inch diameter eel. We were all hovering about 2 ft off the bottom and the darn thing swam right undernieth me. It was wicked cool. We watched as it proceed to wiggle tail first down into the substrate a few feet away and disappear. From there we moved over to an area on the sea floor that had a yellowish tinge to it and was emitting hot water out of the surface sand. The water was very warm and I could barely hold my hand over the thermals due to the heat. I tried to put my hands into the sand, but quickly retracted them because it was way to hot. We were a 100 ft below the surface, and I couldn't put my hand into the seabed in fear of getting burned. Now thats neat! Also while we were down there we saw black coral which I had never seen before. I was very impressed with the diving experience.

A few other points of interest are the syndicate rainforest walk, Milton falls, a fishing community dedicated to hunting swordfish, and bubbling sulfur springs that are cold to the touch.

The slogan for the island is that everything is "all natural." I believe it, and some neat triva I learned while there was in regards to the oldest members on the island. The oldest person on Dominica now is 118 years old, previous to this person there were two neighbors that lived to be 128 and 126 years old. Now thats damm impressive. I recommend this island to anyone that wants to get away from the tourist infested areas of the other Caribbean islands and enjoys nature. For there is lots to learn.