After another lovely day at sea, putting the ABCs in the rearview mirror (Aruba-Bonaire-Curacao), we arrived at our next stop--Dominica. You have to admire the alphabetic order, if nothing else. (BTW, it's pronounced Dom-ih-NEEK-uh by the natives, and Do-MIN-ick-uh by just about everyone else).

Geography lesson - Dominica is located in the eastern Caribbean between Guadalupe and Martinique. It is not the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and confused half the people on the cruise ship. The other half were too drunk to care--half of those just wanted to shop while the the other half looked for the bars.

We were greeted at the stern of the yacht by half the Dominican Coast Guard. The other half of the Dominican Coast Guard was at the bow. They got us tied up to the dock in Roseau, the capital. It was pretty quickly evident that Dominica is a much poorer island than our previous stops. For example, this is the headquarters of both the Dominican IOC and the General Secretary of the Dominican OAS.

But food is not a problem. Just walk down the road and pick whatever you need, be it a few banananananas (I never know when to stop on that word) or maybe lasso a wild chicken. Need a house? Chop a few bamboos, tie them together and toss some palm fronds on top. The kids are cute, like this entrepeneur manning an open-your-own coconut stand (machete provided, bandaids extra), and Bob Marley is nearly a religion. The people seem happy, if this fellow's smile can be used as a measure. Carrying most of what he owns and walking up a mountain to get there, but life is good. Or perhaps a little ganja just helps make it seem that way.

Like in most jungles, everything grows really fast. The tropical rain forest in Dominica is alive and well, no matter what Al Gore says. This guy just parked his truck and ran in the store for ten minutes. Okay, it might have been twenty minutes. ;-)

More to come.