Dominica (Roseau)
Have been at sea for several days now and forgot what day it is? Don't realy care. Morning (hungover) two tank dive followed by an afternoon 4WD safari into the mountains. The natives were diving for quarter's thrown off the ship in port. We headed out and immediately hit it off with the crew. These guys were quite funny and we had a great time laughing. The island is totally volcanic and the steep sides run right down into the oceans abyss.
First dive.
Today we do our first wall dives ever. The wall was very cool. Slight current and a little sparser than a flat reef but had quite the diversity of marine life. The reef had a big vertical rock swim through. We saw several animals I have never seen. We were only 30 feet or less from the breakers but you could go as deep as you wanted to. We got called back by the dive master at 90 feet. At the time it was the deepest I had taken Ginger (In later dive in Blue Springs FLA she made it to 120 feet at the bottom of a cave) we (the group) had to turn back and swim to the boat.
The capt'n took us to a champagne reef. This portion of the reef had volcanic gas bubbling up from lots of small vents (it looked like champagne). The natives had a portion of the reef rocked in to form a small hot tub. They used the site for healing purposes. We were making fun of the crew for wearing wet suits. The water temp was in the low 70's and the natives thought it was too cold.
The second dive was totally vertical. It was hard to maintain a depth because you were swimming in no particular direction. The diversity seemed quite unique. No dominate species. The area is fished hard by subsistence fisherman. Also, the walls offer less habitat than a flat reef and therefore fewer fish were about. The area was an ideal hunting spot for (large) predators and we were definitely on the look out. Again we had to swim back to the boat because it was too dangerous to pick up divers so close to the shore. (Very few beaches on this island because of the steep volcanoes)
The local dialect is different from the northern Caribbean. It seemed like a French Jamaican lingo. You could understand what they were saying (even though they were speaking english) if they talked real slow. When they spoke to each other you couldn't decipher it because they talked so fast. Ashes the dive master, asked us to come live in his hut up in the mountains. As tempting as it was we opted to go back to the port and take the 4WD safari. The mountains and rain forest were amazing. Later we went swimming in a natural spring that was carved through the top of a mountain. This island is incredible. As small as it is it has 360 rivers that flow continuous. I have never seen an island that had so much fresh water. (it was from the rain forests).
Ginger & Brian Catanzaro
11-26-03