Indian River and Island Tours

Our Cobra water taxi driver, Jack, picked us up a little after 7 o'clock yesterday morning for our Indian River tour. On the way to the river we picked up another American couple, David and Rorie from Aurora, and two French Canadian couples joined us too. Cobra himself was our guide, and he was very impressive. While rowing us up the river (no motors allowed), he told us stories about the history of the river and island and about the flora and fauna, all in both French and English and including the Latin genus and species for all of the plants and animals. Although I'm sure some of it was standard spiel, we peppered him with enough questions to know that he truly is fluent in both French and English and definitely knows what he's talking about. At $20 US/person, the standard rate, this was money well spent. Because we were on a Cobra tour, we also got discounts at the jungle bar up the river.

Mouth of the river protected by freighter that grounded in a hurricane

Cobra rowing. No motors past the bridge.

Some of Pirates of the Caribbean (the second one) was filmed here

Two kinds of crab. The big one is edible.

National flower

Tree lizard

Wild ginger

Then we negotiated for an island tour by taxi. It ended up being $125 US/couple, not including our no-host lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the island. That seems a little expensive, but we haven't done an island tour since Grenada, so we splurged. It's always nice to see more than you can from the boat, and our guide, Robert, was good. Plus, we got a little exercise when we hiked to a waterfall. With its rugged mountains, Dominica really is very beautiful. And we really lucked out with the weather! There was no rain at all for our tours, but it's been raining off and on all day today.

Robert

Iguana

Waterfall

View from the restaurant where we had lunch

The rugged windward side of the island

Rainbow in the anchorage

We'd like to spend more time here in Dominica, but it's still rolly in the anchorage, so we'll be going on to the Saints tomorrow morning. We decided against attending the PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services) barbecue this evening. It's for a good cause, but we've spent enough here for this trip. Maybe next time.