Friday, April 10th, 2009
Went on a great hike up into the mountains of Dominica today.
WT, Nicola, Susie, Nicko and I took a bus up to the mountain town of Laudat where we paid our $5.00 US
site fee then started our hike by Pitou Gorge.
Our objective was the Boiling Lake and the Valley of Desolation high up in the Morne Trois Pitons
National park. The trail is very good and fairly easy to follow but it is essentially a 6 mile stairway! The
valleys are very steep and covered in lush rainforest. The first part of the trail we climbed relatively
slowly under scattered showers and then we came to the top of a ridge and started a 2 mile up and down
that was a real workout.
Eventually we came to the top of a high ridge and looked down into the valley of desolation with the
steam from the boiling lake rising from the forest on the mountainside beyond it.
After a very steep scramble down into the valley we passed hotsprings and boiling pools with steam rising
straight into the sky. Everywhere there was sulphur coated rocks and bubbling hissing sulphurous steam.
In places the ground was hot and you could here the steam hissing and roaring beneath your feet. Very
cool.
The valley of desolation is indeed desolate the result of a massive phreatic (steam) explosion in the 1880s
sometime. There was a smaller one in 1997 as well.
From there we followed the hot streams down the valley a bit and then climbed up to the edge of the
Boiling lake. This lake is the largest of it’s kind in the world and is a very impressive example of the power
of the tectonic and volcanic forces beneath our feet. The lake is in the bottom of a perfect cylindrical pipe
maybe 300′ across. The center of the lake is in a constant state of roiling boil. It makes a steady rumble a
it does so.
Very impressive.
On our way back through the valley of desolation we stopped to look into many of the boiling pools and
steam vents and followed some of the sulphur mud flows. The guide of another party gave us a hard time
for “analysing” things without a permit?!? Apparently looking too closely at things is considered
“research” and needs a permit of some kind. Go figure.
Susie figures I must have looked like a geologist or somebody scientific. Who knew :-)
Of course every downhill we had done meant a subsequent uphill and vice verse. My knee which
occasionally gives me trouble when hiking was really sore by the time we got back to the Pitou Gorge.
Susie took off ahead on the way back and was down almost a half an hour before Nicko and I stumbled
out the forest. WT and Nickola followed us out maybe 15 minutes later. All safe and sound.
Tonight the Ruin Rock is putting on a BBQ for us so that’s where I will be heading once I get cleaned up.
Thanks for reading
KJ
Here are the pictures from our expedition.
Posted in Ashore | No Comments »
Atlantic Rollers
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
Dominica Apr 6,09
Monday, April 6th, 2009
Spent the day yesterday doing shipwork like sanding and painting, all of which can be done one handed
We also loosed all the square sails so they could dry. Unfortunately I couldn’t go aloft to help. Bruce did
however which was a first for him and I have a photo to prove it!
This morning we had to hoist the anchor and motor a little further out to give the anchor a better grip on
the steep side of this island. We are now anchored in about 100′ of water and almost the same distance
from the shore. Nothing like a little anchor work after breakfast to start the day off on the right foot!
I’m thinking of spending the day fairly quietly today and will join a bunch of people heading into the hills
tomorrow. We will be going to the boiling lake and the “valley of desolation” the most recently active area
of this volcanic island.
More later…
Posted in Ashore | No Comments »
Spent the day yesterday doing shipwork like sanding and painting, all of which can be done one handed
We also loosed all the square sails so they could dry. Unfortunately I couldn’t go aloft to help. Bruce did
however which was a first for him and I have a photo to prove it!
This morning we had to hoist the anchor and motor a little further out to give the anchor a better grip on
the steep side of this island. We are now anchored in about 100′ of water and almost the same distance
from the shore. Nothing like a little anchor work after breakfast to start the day off on the right foot!
I’m thinking of spending the day fairly quietly today and will join a bunch of people heading into the hills
tomorrow. We will be going to the boiling lake and the “valley of desolation” the most recently active area
of this volcanic island.
More later…
Posted in Ashore | No Comments »
Friday, April 3, 2015
Dominica April 3,09
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
Woke up this morning with my hand throbbing. Blah!
Eric our Doctor arranged for a tour guide for the day so I went ashore on the early skiff after a hurried
breakfast. Once there we had a bit of time to kill so Eric bandaged my hand properly. At least this way it
might actually heal in a timely manner.
The tour was fantastic. Kurt, our driver, is actually the captain of the whale watching boat at the
Anchorage Hotel and has access to the hotel’s 4×4 so we were able to get up high in the mountains. The
roads on Dominica are very narrow, many are literally a single lane. Plus there is a lot of road construction
underway which means they are rough and muddy in places.
We went up to Freshwater Lake which is in the crater of an old volcanoe. Very nice high up in the rain
forest covered mountains. We also went to Trafalgar Falls which are beautiful. A quick side trip to Pitou
Gorge was interesting. That is the narrow channel part of Pirates II was filmed in, when they fell into the
gorge in the cages.
The landscape here is very much like the West Coast of Canada but with tropical foliage. In fact part of
the trip today was in deep V shaped river valleys very much like the area around Sandon near Kaslo B.C.
We went all the way across the island to the Carib Territory which is the last indigenous area in the
Caribbean.
Here is a picture of me wandering through the Carib museum.
Note the bandages on my hand!
After we got back to Roseau we had a great dinner of fish and chips and I’m now hanging out with Eric at
an apartment he rented here.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Eric is a bit of a video wiz so check out his latest here: Picton Scullery Ackbar (alas no longer online)
Pictures of my day ashore as soon as I can upload them.
They are here.
Posted in Ashore | No Comments »
Woke up this morning with my hand throbbing. Blah!
Eric our Doctor arranged for a tour guide for the day so I went ashore on the early skiff after a hurried
breakfast. Once there we had a bit of time to kill so Eric bandaged my hand properly. At least this way it
might actually heal in a timely manner.
The tour was fantastic. Kurt, our driver, is actually the captain of the whale watching boat at the
Anchorage Hotel and has access to the hotel’s 4×4 so we were able to get up high in the mountains. The
roads on Dominica are very narrow, many are literally a single lane. Plus there is a lot of road construction
underway which means they are rough and muddy in places.
We went up to Freshwater Lake which is in the crater of an old volcanoe. Very nice high up in the rain
forest covered mountains. We also went to Trafalgar Falls which are beautiful. A quick side trip to Pitou
Gorge was interesting. That is the narrow channel part of Pirates II was filmed in, when they fell into the
gorge in the cages.
The landscape here is very much like the West Coast of Canada but with tropical foliage. In fact part of
the trip today was in deep V shaped river valleys very much like the area around Sandon near Kaslo B.C.
We went all the way across the island to the Carib Territory which is the last indigenous area in the
Caribbean.
Here is a picture of me wandering through the Carib museum.
Note the bandages on my hand!
After we got back to Roseau we had a great dinner of fish and chips and I’m now hanging out with Eric at
an apartment he rented here.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Eric is a bit of a video wiz so check out his latest here: Picton Scullery Ackbar (alas no longer online)
Pictures of my day ashore as soon as I can upload them.
They are here.
Posted in Ashore | No Comments »
Dominica April 3,09
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
(Actually I think this was written on April 4th)
Spent the morning doing osfo and doing spot painting of the starboard bow topsides.
It was nice and cool, sitting on a plank suspended off the rail, as that was the shady side of the ship. This
afternoon we are going to be doing the same but on the port side which is facing the sun which will be
really hot.
The schooner Spirit of Massachusetts was anchored here. Her captain was 2nd mate on the third world
voyage of the Picton castle and came alongside for a visit. When she was leaving she sailed across our
bows and saluted with a shot from her cannon and a proper dipping of her ensign. We responded with a
good horn blast. Very cool.
David and I went ashore yesterday and wandered around the town of Roseau. The town is beautiful and
still pretty much as this area was 50 years ago. The buildings are mostly two story with the lower story
stone and the upper story wood.
The current crew hangout is a fabulous bar/restaurant called the Ruin Rock Cafe. It is built inside the
ruins of an old building and serves an amazing variety of flavoured rums that they make themselves. The
Guava was definitely “dangerously yummy” :-) They also have things like coconut pineapple, ginger,
tamarind, lemon and other fruits as well as very exotic ones like snake and centipede ?!?.
I’m hoping to go on an around the island tour when we get ashore tomorrow.
More later…
It’s later and I have a very sore left hand. Blah.
I’m going to file the following under the “It seemed like a good idea at the time” file or maybe the “20/20
hindsight is a bitch” one.
After lunch I shifted the scaffold over to get at the last spot on the starboard bow. In doing so I tried to position it such that I could reach it from the rail. Well, as I tried to lower myself down I realized that the
plank was about a foot too low! Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I was so far over the rail that I
couldn’t get back up!
Then I made my big mistake. I figured I would just hand over hand my way down the rope to the plank, it
was only 1 foot after all right? Wrong! The line was too thin to hang onto and before I could get both
hands onto it I slid down the rope, missed the plank and ended up hanging off the end! I also badly rope
burned my left hand, ripping most of my callouses off and giving myself second degree burns on my index
finger and the palm of my hand! Ouch.
So there I was hanging over the brilliant blue sea by my fingertips feeling like a right great goof. I tried to
climb back up onto the plank but because my weight was on the end it kept swinging away from the ships
side. I yelled “On deck!” and got an immediate response and then yelled “Help!”. There wasn’t anything
anyone could really do and in hindsight I should just have dropped into the drink to swim over to the
ladder. Ben and Susie were working alongside in the skiff and they came over to see if I could clamber
into it before letting go but I ended up swimming anyways.
To everybody’s credit nobody laughed, which was nice
David, helped me bandage my hand, fresh water rinsed my gear and hung it all up for me while I found
some dry clothes. Thanks David!
It’s a good thing I have a couple of days off to let the blisters break and get a start on the healing process.
Hauling on lines is going to be a pain for a while.
It’s also a good thing I mostly type with one finger :-)
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Ashore, On Watch | No Comments »
(Actually I think this was written on April 4th)
Spent the morning doing osfo and doing spot painting of the starboard bow topsides.
It was nice and cool, sitting on a plank suspended off the rail, as that was the shady side of the ship. This
afternoon we are going to be doing the same but on the port side which is facing the sun which will be
really hot.
The schooner Spirit of Massachusetts was anchored here. Her captain was 2nd mate on the third world
voyage of the Picton castle and came alongside for a visit. When she was leaving she sailed across our
bows and saluted with a shot from her cannon and a proper dipping of her ensign. We responded with a
good horn blast. Very cool.
David and I went ashore yesterday and wandered around the town of Roseau. The town is beautiful and
still pretty much as this area was 50 years ago. The buildings are mostly two story with the lower story
stone and the upper story wood.
The current crew hangout is a fabulous bar/restaurant called the Ruin Rock Cafe. It is built inside the
ruins of an old building and serves an amazing variety of flavoured rums that they make themselves. The
Guava was definitely “dangerously yummy” :-) They also have things like coconut pineapple, ginger,
tamarind, lemon and other fruits as well as very exotic ones like snake and centipede ?!?.
I’m hoping to go on an around the island tour when we get ashore tomorrow.
More later…
It’s later and I have a very sore left hand. Blah.
I’m going to file the following under the “It seemed like a good idea at the time” file or maybe the “20/20
hindsight is a bitch” one.
After lunch I shifted the scaffold over to get at the last spot on the starboard bow. In doing so I tried to position it such that I could reach it from the rail. Well, as I tried to lower myself down I realized that the
plank was about a foot too low! Unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I was so far over the rail that I
couldn’t get back up!
Then I made my big mistake. I figured I would just hand over hand my way down the rope to the plank, it
was only 1 foot after all right? Wrong! The line was too thin to hang onto and before I could get both
hands onto it I slid down the rope, missed the plank and ended up hanging off the end! I also badly rope
burned my left hand, ripping most of my callouses off and giving myself second degree burns on my index
finger and the palm of my hand! Ouch.
So there I was hanging over the brilliant blue sea by my fingertips feeling like a right great goof. I tried to
climb back up onto the plank but because my weight was on the end it kept swinging away from the ships
side. I yelled “On deck!” and got an immediate response and then yelled “Help!”. There wasn’t anything
anyone could really do and in hindsight I should just have dropped into the drink to swim over to the
ladder. Ben and Susie were working alongside in the skiff and they came over to see if I could clamber
into it before letting go but I ended up swimming anyways.
To everybody’s credit nobody laughed, which was nice
David, helped me bandage my hand, fresh water rinsed my gear and hung it all up for me while I found
some dry clothes. Thanks David!
It’s a good thing I have a couple of days off to let the blisters break and get a start on the healing process.
Hauling on lines is going to be a pain for a while.
It’s also a good thing I mostly type with one finger :-)
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Ashore, On Watch | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Dominica Apr 1,09
Wed April 1,09
We took in our sails and fired up the engine midway through our watch.
We arrived in Dominica at 9:30am this morning and am now anchored “stern to” just off shore The shore
is very steep here our stern, which is maybe 40′ from the shore, is in something like 20′ of water and our
bow is in more than 70′! We are waiting to get cleared in currently then I will be going ashore to check out
what there is to see.
Here is a wonderful picture of us anchored "stern to" taken by our ship's doctor Eric Eder.
Thanks for reading
KJ
We took in our sails and fired up the engine midway through our watch.
We arrived in Dominica at 9:30am this morning and am now anchored “stern to” just off shore The shore
is very steep here our stern, which is maybe 40′ from the shore, is in something like 20′ of water and our
bow is in more than 70′! We are waiting to get cleared in currently then I will be going ashore to check out
what there is to see.
Here is a wonderful picture of us anchored "stern to" taken by our ship's doctor Eric Eder.
Thanks for reading
KJ
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