The Voyages of "KINGDOM": Portsmouth, and Northern Dominica

Wednesday morning December 17th, we moved the boat up the coast of Dominica to Portsmouth Harbour, a very protected harbour that has no significant swell during the prevailing easterly winds. We love this bay, and the local people here are welcoming and fun to be around. We had stopped here overnight in June, on our way south, and promised the locals, and ourselves that we would spend more time next time we arrived. Since the weather was not allowing us to move northward, we were able to spend three days exploring the northern part of Dominica.

Lawrence (of Arabia) is our local contact here. He is the principal boatman who provides transportation, tours, entertainment, and can fix you up with anything you need while you're in the bay or ashore. He arranged for a tour of the northern island with his associate, "Uncle" Sam. Sam is an officially licensed and trained tour guide, and knows all the local lore. He drove us to points of interest, overlooks, tiny restaurants and pubs, and generally regaled us with information about the islands flora, fauna, history, and culture.

We had a wonderful day with Sam, which included a stop at a fabulous cliffside restaurant, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. There we were served a sampling of nearly all the local "provisions" along with our BBQ chicken and fish; breadfruit, pumpkin, yam, eddo, and plantains. And ice-cold local beer, of course. During our lunch, Sam crafted a bird from palm leaf, and presented it to Susan as a small gift.

After lunch, we stopped at a National Park, and hiked into a lovely gorge, at the bottom of which we came upon a waterfall, with a crystal-clear pool where we swam and frolicked in the waterfall. We rubbed pumice-laden mud on ourselves, as a skin cleansing agent. Our skin now feels smoooth as silk!

We ended the day with a cold one on the beach at sunset...