Sat. Dec 27th, Roseau, Dominica

A bright morning with lots of sun and some wind and waves. The motions of the ship are stronger than ever but they are longitudinal and not felt too much. A beautiful approach into the Roseau harbor.

We hired a local taxi driver who was born and raised in Dominica (his parents grew up here too). He drives us through the island and stops often to show us things or to allow us to take pictures. We taste a grapefruit fresh from the tree, try a passion fruit, try locally baked bread (cassava yucca bread), he shows us lemon grass and cocoa beans, coconuts, bananas, and even shaves of some bark from the cinnamon tree – apparently leaves can be used as well. We get to the other side of this small island where the only remaining original island inhabitants still live, the Caribs.

The Caribs build their houses on stilts. Many homes are very simple and primitive. Most are catholic on this island. Both neighboring islands are French where the streets work like in the US, but Dominica is British ? Chinese made it to this island as well even build hotels that were later abandoned. We get to see the Pacific side of the island.
We buy a basket and a small purse for Bianca with carvings from the Caribs and coconut oil.
Later we are pretty sure that those two products actually come from China.
We stop to take a look at an old person who dries coconuts in a little hut for extracting oil.

Visit a water fall and a pool that sits in the middle of the forest. There are vines and fern and vegetation is very lush.
Li and I do a second quick trip into the downtown area but it shops are shutting down since it is about 5pm and the bigger cruise ship that’s in town gets ready to leave. We leave late (7:30pm-ish).
BBQ dinner back on the ship is hit by rain. I meet and sit with Jenny’s family again and talk about today’s events – they went river tubing. Others went whale watching and had big success. The Bothell family went sea kayaking and snorkeling and had fun as well.