We stayed on Seahike on the 2nd and worked on a puzzle. We tried to rent a car on the 3rd so we could drive to the Boiling Lake Trailhead, but nothing was available. I decided to walk into town to have a good cup of coffee and stroll around.

Roseau is not a rich town, or at least not all of it is. The downtown area seems to be doing well, but that might be because that’s where the cruise ships dock. But the rest is a study in contrasts. Consider the pictures from the walk to downtown compared to the downtown area.

On the way to the downtown area:

Closer to downtown:

Beautiful view from my walk:

The white building pictured below is some kind of government building (I don’t recall which one). We are on the edges of the downtown area now.

I always like to take pics of pretty flowers:

The two monuments below are prominently displayed in the downtown area. The one on the left hand side, located at a roundabout, is the Emancipation Monument of Neg Mawon. It was erected in 2013. This is fitting, because August 1, 2013 marked the 175th anniversary of Dominica’s emancipation from slavery. The Monument was completely toppled during Hurricane Maria in September 2017 and subsequently rebuilt.

The inscription reads as follows:

“This monument is a symbol of freedom and emancipation. It is a tribute to all the enslaved Africans who suffered and were executed in the history of Dominica.

It honours the Maroons who risked their lives to fight for the emancipation of all. It pays homage to those who were sold and executed at the Old Roseau Market and who were held at the Barracoon Building in Roseau before being sold and sent to the plantations.

This monument salutes the memory of our African ancestors and the immense contribution of their skills to our early infrastructure and the development of agriculture in Dominica through the shedding of their blood, sweat and tears.

It celebrates the powerful and lasting influence which our African ancestors had on Dominica’s present day culture, especially in our forms of music, language, costumes and cuisine.

This memorial is a reminder to all Dominicans that we should continue to sustain our African heritage and its many cultural expressions.”

To learn a bit about the history of the incredibly brave Maroons, check out this site: https://qrdominica.com/2022/04/09/neg-mawon-emancipation-monument/

Pictured on the right hand side below is The War Memorial, a cenotaph that honors those who served in World War I and World War II. 

Shortly after World War I, a brass plaque was produced with the names of those who died in that war. Many of the fallen were the sons of small farmers from the country districts who now lie in graves in Egypt, Greece and Palestine. Since the cenotaph had not yet been constructed, this plaque was placed on the veranda wall of the Public Library.

Then in 1928, Chief of Police, and at times Acting Administrator, Major Peebles, laid out the land and designed and directed the construction of the cenotaph. It is made of cut volcanic stone taken from a quarry in the cliffs of Grand Savanna on Dominica’s west coast and transported to Roseau. The brass plaque was transferred from the Library and placed on the Cenotaph facing Victoria Street. After World War II another smaller plaque was added to record those lost in that war and this one faces Castle Street.

Also, after World War II, French veterans, mainly from Martinique, erected a smaller cenotaph on the same land to honor the “Free French” volunteers. They had escaped from the pro-Nazi Vichy government in the French islands and daringly crossed the sea channels to Dominica before moving on to fight in Europe. They are known in France as “Les Décidénts.” Every November, on a Sunday closest to November 11, the date of the Armistice of World War I, a Remembrance Service is held at the cenotaph to honor those who died in those two major conflicts of the 20th century.

You can see the cruise ship at dock in the left hand picture below. The store on the right hand side is where we bought groceries. They have ZERO sodas without sugar.

Back to Seahike and a nice, quiet evening.

Another cruise ship took off under the cover of darkness. They are quite the sight at night!

We finished the puzzle later that same day. It was a fun puzzle:

We decided to head up north and pick up a mooring ball at Tan Tan, a mooring field on the NW corner of Dominica. This would give us a good starting point for our sail to Guadeloupe.

We stopped at Mera beach along the way and were just about the only people there. Here are pictures of us leaving Roseau, the beach, and the mooring field.

February 5th:
We sailed to Guadeloupe with two reefs in both the main and the genoa. We went to the Îlet à Cochon mooring field, which is run by Bas du Fort Marina in Grande-Terre. It was a bit tricky to pick up the mooring ball because it was quite windy, but we managed eventually.

We spend the next several days (through the 10th) on the ball. We took several trips into town, worked on another puzzle, tried to buy a SIM card (to no avail), and to dine out.

About the SIM card. I followed Google maps to an Orange store and it took me to a spot on the side of a rather busy road. I figured out that it was somewhere off to the side of the road so I walked down a rather steep slope to see what was there. What was there was a Burger King (we see them everywhere!) and a mall. I entered the mall and found the Orange store. She would not sell me a SIM card because I couldn’t present a R.I.B. “RIB” is an acronym that stands for “relevé d’identité bancaire” in French (or “bank identity statement” in English). It is a document that identifies an account holder and their bank details. It must include, among a bunch of other stuff, the IBAN of the account (the IBAN is a 27-character code that identifies the French bank account internationally). Well, American banks don’t have an IBAN. (I should note that we were also “required” to submit a R.I.B. to secure a spot in the marina in Martinique, but they ended up accepting a bank statement.) Well, this lady wasn’t going to budge. She would not sell me a SIM without a R.I.B. I even offered to pay her in cash (why would someone need a R.I.B. to pay in cash?), and she still refused. I have a feeling that she is someone who follows rules blindly without truly understanding their purpose.

Anyway, back to the post.

Here are a couple of pictures of the mooring field. This was a busy mooring field, so it was a lot of fun to watch the goings on. Sometimes the “baby sailboats” (as I call them) raced here.

Guadeloupe has its share of cruise ships, so we got to watch some leave at night. And we saw some fantastic sunsets from the mooring field!

We finished another puzzle. To tell you just how dedicated I am to puzzles, when we realized that the puzzle had gotten wet (we have a leak in the ceiling hatch in the cockpit), I bought some glue and proceeded to glue together (there are about four layers to each piece) almost 50 puzzle pieces so we could finish the puzzle.

After all that, we realized that we were missing some pieces. We are guessing that they blew away because we’d had some really windy days in the mooring field. Anyway, here is the finished product. (This is the first puzzle we’d assembled on Seahike, two years prior. It was a retirement gift from one of my favorite people at St. Catherine University, where I’d been the registrar for over 23 years.)

More nighttime views:

We entered Marina Bas du Fort on the 11th. We cleaned Seahike a bit and made arrangements to rent a car for several days. Our new friends, Cathie and Greg, who we’d met in St. Lucia, were going to be arriving in Guadeloupe on the 14th and planned to travel with us for three days. We decided to take a one-day road trip before they arrived.

We ate at the restaurant right by the marina the first night. Boy was it ever expensive! We ended up sharing this appetizer plate. Boy was it ever yummy! And filling!

February 11th:

View from our berth in the marina.

February 13th:

This was our first road-trip day in Guadeloupe. We planned to visit a waterfall, the zoo, the botanical gardens, and a beach. We ended up doing all but the last one.

Our first stop was a quick visit to the Cascade aux Ecrevisses waterfall. There wasn’t a lot to see and we hadn’t planned to go in the water, but it was pretty.

Then we went on our way to Guadeloupe’s zoo, the Parc des Mamelles.

From the zoo’s website:

“In the heart of the Basse-Terre Massif, Parc des Mamelles devotes over two hectares of tropical forest to the conservation of rare or endangered animal species.

. . . this park is distinguished by its tranquility and perfectly natural setting. A veritable modern-day Noah’s Ark, it is home to around 85 species of animals from the Caribbean and French Guiana, including mammals, birds, reptiles and arthropods – over 450 individuals in all.

All are surrounded by lush greenery and over a thousand species of plants. An ideal temperature and optimum humidity level provide them with a most pleasant living environment.

Don’t forget to take a walk in the treetops on footbridges suspended 20 metres high… You’ll discover species of trees, flowers and plants that are usually inaccessible, such as orchids and wild pineapples…”

And now, some big insects with great camouflage!

You might be able to tell by now just how natural (for real!) the habitats are. In some cases, just as happened to us at other zoos, you can’t see the animal because the space is so large and they must know where to hide. Being at this zoo felt exactly like being in the open forest, except, you know, for the walkways and rope bridges. It was spectacular!

Let’s check out some of the rope bridges and the views from them now! They moved quite a bit as we crossed them but it wasn’t scary at all.

Look at these two jaguar friends! Aren’t they beautiful!!!

I was smitten with the black jaguar. So regal! And look at the spots beneath the black fur.

I was also quite smitten with the ocelot.

This Red-Faced Spider Monkey (below) was having so much fun with this little girl. She was maybe five years old and she just laughed and laughed as the monkey changed positions to look at her. It was adorable. The monkey is blurry because the glass was quite dirty.

It was lunch time! We drove a short distance to Deshaies. Michael found a restaurant that had good ratings. It was almost full. There was one table left. We took it. We waited a long time for them to take our order. We still wanted to visit the botanical gardens and the beach and the longer we sat, the more clear it was that we wouldn’t make it to both.

They only had two things left on the menu by the time we arrived. No biggy, both sounded good! I had chicken. I can’t remember what the other thing was. Maybe beef or fish? But lunch was good, even though it took us 1.5 hours to complete it from the time we sat down until we left.

This was my meal. It was very good. I couldn’t eat it all.

I was going to share pictures from the botanical gardens, but this post is already too long! I will share them in the next post.