Dominica Trip Report, Apr/May 2008 (Pg 1 of 3)

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RTRski

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This is the report of our vacation to Dominica from 22 April to 02 May, 2008. The wife and I booked an 11 day, 10 night, 10 dive (5 days of 2-boat diving) package from the Anchorage Hotel, which uses its own dive operation. Price was about US$ 1300 per person, and the package included one of the oceanfront/superior rooms with queen bed and refrigerator, full breakfasts, airport transfer to and from Melville Hall (DOM), breakfast, and unlimited tanks for shore diving. We used our own equipment and in addition to the usual I was carrying a fairly large camera rig (Olympus E330 DSLR in an Ikelite housing, with two DS50s on 8" and 12" long arm segments).

GETTING THERE

From the states, getting to Dominica is not too challenging, but will likely cost you an additional night's stay on the way. We flew from DFW to San Juan, PR (SJU), stayed over, and then took the next day's American Eagle flight to DOM. Our return flight was originally scheduled to occur in one day, as the DOM to SJU leg was arriving at 4 p.m. or so and there was a 6 p.m.-ish departure direct back to DFW. But American trimmed this from the flight list and rather than fight an extra transfer thru either Ft. Lauderdale or Miami, we opted to spend a night in San Juan again on the way home.

Luggage allowance for the flight to SJU was usual U.S. limitations of two checked bags, 50 lbs each, with one 40 lb. carryon and one 'small personal item' (NOTE: As of the time of this writing many U.S. airlines are of course changing this and starting to charge for the 2nd checked bag.) The limits for the ATR flight to Dominica however are a total of 70 lbs checked per person. The Dominica tourism website cautions travelers that while they might get a 'bye' on the way in, they are very strict on the way out, and the max overweight is 55 lbs. for one bag but you still cannot have over 70 lbs. total. On our return wait at the airport we saw many people frantically repacking things in carryons and the like. I personally was right at the limit, with a 46 lb dive bag (also had the 8" camera dome and tray-handle for the Ike housing), and 24 lbs in a much smaller clothing bag. The bulk of the UW camera equipment was in a LowePro Vertex 300 AW backpack which was a godsend - very comfortable to carry on the back, significantly reduced my concern about theft reports from checked baggage at SJU, and even fit under the seat on the ATR to Dominica. (My laptop was in a smaller backpack my wife carried as her carryon that went above).

The flights were relatively on time both ways. There was the usual sweaty wait for the bags at DOM upon arrival, followed by a very cursory incoming customs inspection (really just a question about what was in each bag, followed by "enjoy your stay"), with the pushy 'let me move your bags 5 feet to get a tip' type 'greeters' as well as taxi drivers trying to get us to ride with them, despite our repeated statement that we were being picked up by a hotel arranged taxi. The arranged taxi did arrive, and the driver was courteous and professional (and we later realized, very "cautious" compared to the bulk of Dominican drivers to not shock us too much upon arrival). Our return drive was a lot more of a seat-gripper as our driver was concerned we would be late (seems American often closes the incoming line for the 2:25 return flight at 1300, so he wanted to make sure we made it), but at that point we were acclimated and appreciated both the concern and the roller coaster appeal of the drive. Roads there are paved, but for the most part narrow and the island topography definitely makes for some tight turns and fun slopes, especially in a spot of rain. The ride from the airport over to the Anchorage which is a bit south of Roseau on the western coast took around 75-90 minutes, and the return drive about 60-65 (in an early afternoon thundershower, no less).

THE LODGING

The Anchorage, the Evergreen, and Castle Comfort are all along the same short stretch of coastline just south of New Town and north of Loubiere on the west coast. The Evergreen and Castle Comfort (and Fort Young, up on Roseau itself) all share Dive Dominica as a dive operation, the dock for which was visible from our hotel just to the south. Anchorage has its own dive operation and dock extending from its own property. We had really no complaints at all about the Anchorage as a hotel. We'd read a lot of reviews, several mixed, on different travel sites indicating that the rooms were spartan, showing some wear, with some plumbing and/or AC problems, or issues with staff being unresponsive. But we really encounted none of these, and it was clear to us that the entire 'oceanfront' building was getting some renovation (new furniture was being constructed and put into many of the other rooms as we left, since we were there just after the tail end of the 'high season'). The bed was a queen with a very comfortable and consistent firm mattress, the AC unit was new with a remote control and held 16-17 degrees (C) fine without being too loud. The shower was clearly recently retiled and the water pressure and shower head (the one perk I really can't do without when diving) was actually fabulous. In fact my home water pressure seemed inadequate my first night back! :) We had plenty of hot water whenever we showered. The floor was tile and looked a little worn, but who cares when you're going to be walking in and out in wetsuit booties anyway? (We did see another room with the door open had newer looking wood or wood laminate flooring, we didn't inspect too closely though.) If there was anything 'wrong' with the room at all it was the little louvered glass windows in the bathroom (along the shower stall) didn't pivot "completely" closed, so mosquitos could have found their way in a bit...but we just closed the door to the bathroom and turned the bathroom light off so they had no incentive to do so and really had no problems in the room to speak of (the room was supplied with an outlet appliance and 'Bugmat' fogging agent we could have used, but never did). Of course we were there in part of the dry season and it didn't rain the majority of time we were there, so maybe that had something to do with it too.

We found the staff to be mostly quite friendly (some were a little less outgoing than others, but no one was surly or ignored requests). Laro at the bar was excellent and very engaging, as were the ladies who served breakfast in the morning. It felt weird being often the only people there for dinner, but we ended up wandering into Roseau most of the time for dinner anyway so we understand why. You could find yourself waiting a while for food and/or for the check, but that's just "Island Time" in general.

DOMINICAN FOOD AND DRINK

Food on Dominica was not bad, but certainly not "the reason" to visit the island. There are a lot of local roots like dasheen, etc. that are often boiled and ground or mashed as a starch side dish (or stewed with fish or meat), as well as varieties of both sweet and starchy plantains, collectively referred to as "provisions". To the coddled U.S. palate the food might be somewhat uninspired or unrefined sometimes - for example orders of fish - good fresh slabs of mahi-mahi - were substantial, but a bit overgrilled and often 'steak cuts' right thru the fish complete with spine and rib bones intact. If like my wife you have a diner that prefers deboned fish, you might want to take care. Chicken was prevalent, as was (strangely to us, since we never saw a pig) bacon. But we never were at the slightest risk of going hungry. There were a few restaurants in Roseau we really liked, like The Garage (which was perhaps the most Westernized/modernized in terms of having a computerized ordering system, laminated menus, coherent decor and theme, and promotional bar events for Carib beer etc. while we were there, but still served a lot of local Dominican dishes like "salt fish and fig water"). Perky's Pizza gave us a back-to-home break in the middle of our trip, with a few not as normal to us ingredients on the pizza (corn?) that was actually pretty good. La Robe Creole, the well-reviewed, higher end Creole restaurant, was nice inside and okay, I guess, but not in my opinion living up to the hype or worth the price premium. We didn't get to eat at La Maissone due to some sort of official private event the day we tried. We ate most lunches at the hotel (or just snacked on something light) but did try a few of the little snackettes and found them to be good, especially Cindy's which is an unsigned, brightly colored shack in the COURTS building lot, just across the street from the Texaco near the Anchorage/Evergreen/CC sites. That's where one of our DM's took us for lunch and it actually was one of the best experiences in terms of price to taste and quantity (we ordered 'small' servings of rice and lentils with chicken and found it quite filled a reasonable-sized styrofoam to-go container...more than enough for lunch, for about EC$7 per person). Although the hotel offered a full breakfast 'buffet' when it was more full, when emptier we just ordered what we wanted for the package included breakfasts. Eggs and the like were available but most mornings I found myself ordering the "hot belly" which was a bowl of cream of wheat (or oatmeal) with coconut milk, and was quite filling and tasty.

There are bakeries all over - Sukies seeming to be the most populous. All the bread on the island, from that used for toast at breakfast to the breads and rolls used for sandwiches, was excellent. Small pies with fish or meat were available as snacks, as well as pastry type breads stuffed with grated coconut and other concoctions, and it was all very inexpensive (like EC$1 - 1.50 for a good sized coconut roll that would be enough for a light breakfast).

The water is perfectly drinkable right out of the tap - in fact we bought bottles of water only our first day or so, and then kept the plastic bottles for refilling from our sink at the hotel and put them in the fridge overnight to have cold water for the next day's post-dive rehydration. Dominica has so much topology (the primary mountains basically make a lot of the local weather) it has lots of rivers, so its kind of unlike the low-scrub, "desert" Caribbean islands built more on ancient reef limestones where it can be a bit less available. We had no occurrance of 'travellers trots' from either of us from drinking the water or eating fresh fruit, and I'm usually somewhat susceptible to that even with trips in the U.S. just from eating out too much and schedule disruption. Local juices were also superb and plentiful...every morning (and after every dive on the boat) there was a choice of at least two in-season juices like grapefruit, soursop, passionfruit, guava, etc. Some were clearly pureed whole fruit - the guava in particular was practically a shake in thickness. (We were there a little early in the year for mango season, but did see more than a few people eating them as we passed on the road.)

Alcohol wise, the local beer, Kubuli, is extremely good (award winning, as well) and made with local spring water. Small bottles go down fast, but it's inexpensive, served nicely cold (sorry to you Brits out there, but cold beer is my preference when in the islands) and can be had anywhere. We didn't even drink Carib at the Carib promo night at The Garage when it would've gotten us entries into a drawing for promo stuff (hats, drinking bottles, the usual markety stuff). The most recommended rum seemed to be the Soca. Don't buy into the whole Boi Bande myth, even the locals laugh at that. Rum punches at most places were strong and quite good, with the rum well enough hidden (not harsh at all) they could blindside you. Our overland tour guide served us a 'rum punch' that I believe was more of just a cask rum spiced with cinnamon and cane sugar and who knows what else...it was clearly 'home made', smooth, and had a wicked right hook. We heard tell of "Mountain Dew" and other types of moonshine but didn't get off the beaten trail enough to really encounter it personally. More reason to come back, I guess. :)
 
THE LOCAL WELCOME

While Dominica is in many ways a 'poor' country, with apparently fairly high unemployment, a lot of agriculture 'industry' and subsistence fishing, and the like, we never felt the slightest bit threatened anywhere we went, even walking through New Town on our way from the hotel to Roseau and back for dinner. The local taxis (mostly minivans) would stop at a wave for us just like anyone else, and we were greeted with smiles and hellos (or at least tired acknowledgement from those on their way to or home from work) on them and not 'isolated'. (A ride from the Anchorage/Evergreen/etc area into town takes only minutes and is EC$1.50 per person, but the walk at a mile and a half or so isn't bad either. A personal ride will cost you much, much more.) People on the street in Roseau would say hello, or offer directions if we looked lost (one very nice young lady on her way home from work actually said she'd take us there and made the stroll with us rather than just trying to point and count streets). I should note though that we intentionally avoided going into town on cruise ship days to make it very clear we were not off the cruise ship...I suspect those hordes get treated a little differently (more as marks to get a few bucks from on their few hours off the ship?).

There were a couple of beggars in Roseau at night, who were for the most part at least polite...they'd engage in conversation a bit, then hit you up for money, and leave if you either gave them some as we saw others do, or just say good night and head off if you didn't. There was one exception who was a little pushy, demanding cigarettes and saying something about 'big guys are better targets for a bullet' on our last night in town (I'm about 6' 2", 240 lbs or so), but I took it as more frustrated bluster than any sort of real threat. My wife got whistled and leered at a little when she wore something a bit lower-cut in front than she intended one night, but again it was no worse than you'd expect to see anywhere, and in fact much more restrained than a lot of places I can think of.

One thing to get used to is many people carry machetes on the street all the time. Machetes are digging tools, coconut crackers, prybars, etc. and are pretty much the 'Swiss army knife' of the island. Don't be alarmed if a boisterous but proud Dominican starts talking to you and waving around his machete, it's just punctuation. (One one such occasion the individual suddenly stopped, looked at the machete in his hand, held back-gripped with the blade against his forearm, and said more or less "Oh, excuse this please, I wasn't thinking how this might look." We had to laugh.) Like I said we we never felt threatened in any way. We clearly didn't blend, there was no question we were outsiders, but we weren't made to feel like invaders or "marks" and in fact were invited to attend a local fish stew type event, invited to come swim by some young kids on one of our long walks down toward Soufriere (I said I didn't have my swim trunks and they replied "go change, then come back!") chatted with a guy linefishing off the shore who'd landed a 3 foot gar, etc. At the worst we were treated with indifference, which some might find insulting but I found refreshing compared to getting some sort of tour or ride pressure. There is a little selling pressure if you go to the big produce market late on Friday night or (very early, reportedly it really gets hot about 5 a.m.) Saturday morning, but that's what the market is FOR, isn't it?

We also had the great fortune to hook up with a Dominican resident as a result of my endless "we're planning on going to Dominica...any suggestions?" queries on Wetpixel. "Izzy" as he goes by is apparently a pretty big deal from what we gathered, although little of that from him...although not a native Dominican, he's clearly very engaged in the island and in making it a successful and fun scuba destination. He's an MSDT, apparently trained many of the dive masters and instructors on the island, helps run one of the dive shops up north (Cabrits area?) is a photographer with his own site (maintained with Simon Walsh of Nature Island Dive as well, Images Dominica - Underwater Photography, Fine Art Photography, Dominica Photos, Stock Photography, Dominica Photography), does the marine biology training for the land tour guides, is involved in the hotel and tourism association on the island, penned their tourism webzine, was involved in the creation of the marine preserve, is one of the chamber techs and volunteer 'divers' at the on-island recompression chamber, helped scout many of the island dive site selections, etc. etc. He was variously referred to as Izzy, The Mad Scientist, that crazy guy from the UK, etc. He didn't tell us much of this, we heard it from his dive students, his friend Woody, the boat drivers, etc. He mostly was full of funny dive stories, fish and marine flora ID, local info, photography advice, hilarious rants and raves about politics and cruise ship people and where to go and what to try...you could hardly keep up. Solely based on a couple postings he saw from me on Wetpixel about wanting to try and shoot TiTou gorge with an underwater rig, and a couple of exchanged emails as a result, he joined us for a shore dive, for a day of boat diving, drove us up to and participated in a photo shoot at TiTou (bringing his own D40 in a wetbag for the swim into the canyon, and his son as an additional model / reflector holder), recommended an excellent overland tour guide for us (Woody at adquatics@yahoo.com) and drove us up to Screws in Wotten Waven for an evening's relaxation in the hot sulphur springs with his wife and son and another friend, etc. He shared some of his shots with me (I won't be posting them for obvious reasons as they're his work, but they're quite good) as well as gave me a lot of tips on mine. It wouldn't be exaggerating to say the entire trip was made better by his enthusiastic and entirely uncompensated (well, I left him a partial bottle of Scotch snagged from SJU duty free on the way in, but he never asked for it!) friendly greeting. Hopefully I haven't horribly embarrassed him at this point (fat chance!) or exaggerated much about his contributions to the island or our enjoyment of it (fatter chance).

ABOVE-WATER ACTIVITIES

If you've gotten this far and don't know Dominica bills itself as "The Nature Island" in tourism brochures, please quit reading here and do some Googling. There is a huge amount to do above-water. Not much of it is the sort of vapid westerner thrill-seeking stuff like parasailing, jetsking, ziplines, etc. although there is a little of that (one zipline operator, a couple river rapids/tubing operators, and one that offers what they call 'canyoneering' which is a combination of swimming, hiking, and rappelling along some of the steeper points of Dominica's many rivers, and Al Dive has watersports as well). There are huge waterfalls all over, most with swimable pools. Titou gorge is one smaller example of these that's neat for its nearly cave-like enclosure (the walls are steep and very narrow, with so little opening to the sky above it lives up to its "little throat" name translation). There are hikes both lazy and difficult, including the well-publicized hike to the Boiling Lake thru Desolation Valley. There are rain forests...in fact half the island still looks forested. There are hot springs and the requisite 'spa experiences' that have sprung up around them in the village of Wotten Waven. There is fishing to be had as well as whale watching and party boat charters.

We didn't do too much, too far off the beaten path until late in the trip, having spent most of our mornings diving and afternoons lazing around. We did hit Titou, and Screw's as mentioned above, but we only spent one day really going around the island with a guide (Woody of Adventure Aquatics, adquatics@yahoo.com). He took us to a couple of different waterfalls (one more of a neat cascade along the Diamond River), some scenic overlooks, and three different beach or bay areas, the last of which we hung out at for a good part of the afternoon. He also kept up a running discussion of history, descriptions of all the smaller towns we went thru, and the like. Very nice and bright guy. It really put our 'long hikes' along about a seven mile stretch of coastline up to then into perspective...I guess from the airport transfer we 'knew' how large the island really was, but lost sight of that just diving along a fairly small section of the offshore slope. Dominica really is huge as Caribbean islands go. And don't let people tell you "Dominica has no real beaches". It does, they're just small, secluded, and almost completely uncommercialized. It was really cool to drive up (and onto...Woody has a Land Rover) a beach, find fresh dropped coconuts if you wanted (they were all over), and even see new coconut palms sprouting all over and older palms tipping into the sea with worm tracks and algae growth. The beaches were a dark black and tan, kind of a 'golden brown' sand mix, with a little surf but not much. Our favorite of this type was Battibou (sp?) Bay, which supposedly is in the radar of the Four Seasons for a hotel/resort. When we arrived there with Woody we more than doubled the occupancy count, and when we left I think there was only one family that had arrived after us.

One other high point for me, low point perhaps for others regarding above-water activities: there is currently not a single golf course on the island. So there. Keep your fertilizer and pesticide off the reef, damn you.
 
SHUT UP ALREADY AND TALK ABOUT THE DIVING, DANGIT!!!

Ok, Ok....on to the important stuff. First the disclaimer on where I've been to compare it to: I've dove in St. Maartin (so-so, but worth doing if you're there), Saba (among the best so far), Jost Van Dyke, St. Kitts/Nevis area, some springs in Florida, and repeat trips to the Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuary off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Of all of these Saba wins for overall beauty and drama, but the FGNMS is best for fish life and hard coral cover (no soft corals - too deep and too cold in the winter for theme to survive, and on Stetson bank it's all sponge since even hard coral won't attach to the clay substrate). I won't be able to compare diving in Dominica to a lot of the standard Caribean or Central American destinations like Bonaire, Belize, Curacao, the Bay Islands, or the Playa coastline. That said, I was very satisfied with the diving off Dominica.

I'd say in terms of reef cover and health it rivaled Saba (which is similar in being a volcanic substrata, vs. a lot of spur and groove type coral growth) but was much bigger or distributed, e.g. where on Saba the pinnacle dives are really confined to small areas by the sheer slopes, Dominica has room for much "longer" walls within recreational diving depth. There was a fair amount of coral rubble in the shallows at the top of formations, which I don't believe is still the result of fishing activities but don't know that for sure...once you hit about 35 feet from there on down to our dive limits it was really pretty pristine. There were some crab traps in the Scott's Head Bay area off Soufriere, but people gotta eat. We did not see a single shark, even a nurse, so if that's your main thing you might choose to dive elsewhere.

The primary dive operators clustered just south of Roseau are the Anchorage, Dive Dominica (which serves Castle Comfort, Fort Young, and Evergreen), and Al Dive and Watersports which is newer and I believe has a restaurant but not a hotel on site. At the south end of the island you have Nature Island Dive which is reportedly a much smaller, more 'exclusive' operation (but see my comments on boats to follow), and up north there are one or two around Cabrits or Portsmouth (don't take my word on that...I was getting a bit fuzzy on that side since we didn't spend much time there.) With the Anchorage they have both larger and smaller boats to dive off of. Check their site at dive.anchoragehotel.dm if you want stats. Most of the time we were diving off their smaller powerboat which was rigged with outboard benches for 8 dive setups, had a central rack for 8 more tanks for the 2nd dive, and plenty of seating and stretching out area...definitely no cattle-boat. My wife and I got spoiled being the only two divers the first couple days aside from Izzy and one or two DM's (they clearly didn't need that many to guide us, I think it was a fun day for them too). Over the weekend a big group came in from Barbados for diving just Sat and Sunday and we went out on the catamaran "Passion" which was more configured for whale watching, but wasn't bad for diving really....plenty of seating, you set up your tank and BC and just laid it down to keep it rolling on the (fairly calm) trip out to the site, and entry and egress was via a ladder (stair) arrangement that went down between the pontoon hammocks. It was a bit narrow but if you were careful it really wasn't a problem. I won't say anything bad overall about the big group - some of them were clearly good divers - but my wife and I sat out Sunday after enjoying the Saturday dive with them, and resumed on Monday where two other couples joined us for the days that followed. On Wednesday we were alone with one DM again. By contrast every morning we saw the bigger doubledecker Dive Dominca boat leave the dock to go pick up a slew of divers from Fort Young. We did meet a group of 6 divers who stayed at Castle Comfort and who said they went out on one of Dive Dom's smaller boats separate from the bigger 'cattle boat', but overall we were kind of smugly congratulating ourselves for our choice of the Anchorage.

I have heard great things about Nature Island Dive down in Soufriere and hoped to meet Simon while there, but circumstances didn't allow it (apparently he was recovering from a minor illness). Especially during the slower part of the season, and avoiding cruise-ship days, I don't see any reason any of the operators would 'force' you into a cattleboat situation except perhaps if you were staying at the Fort and they just picked you up together with whatever other divers were staying there. (Had we known about the big group from Barbados ahead of time I bet with a minimal charge we could've gotten them to still take us out separate on the smaller boat.) Dives usually left dock between 9-9:30 am, hung out on the water for the safety stop drinking juice or water and sunning, then returned usually between 1 and 1:30 pm. Even the southmost sites were not a far 'drive' from the Anchorage site. They will do diving to the north but only upon request with larger groups (I didn't get a minimum, but I'm guessing a full boat like 6-8.) Our divemasters and guides, Kian, Sherman, and Kevin, were all enthusiastic, friendly, great divers and fish spotters, and worked hard to make sure we had a good time. Fills were uniformly 2800 - 3000, dive rules were usually to try and hit the boat with 500 margin, and a large rinse tank was right at the top of the dock for gear. They'd do full setup/teardown if you let them or let you handle your own gear...storage in their locker room between dive days was plentiful with hangars for both wetsuits and BCDs. The boat had a large cooler on it for a rinse tank for my camera.

Being heavily volcanic in origin and geologically 'young', Dominica has pinnacles, shallow boulder-rubble slope shelves that drop off, and sheer walls and holes. A lot of the diving along the whole southwestern coast is actually in the sunken caldera of a huge former volcano. (In fact there are places along the shoreline, and dive sites, where volcanic gases are still bubbling up and heating the water and sand). Current was mostly effectively zero, and seas were quite calm; I'm sure time of year has a lot to do with the latter if not the former. The dive briefing frequently went something like "the buoy is in 20-25 feet, we'll go down the line, head west or away from the island to the drop, and then keeping the formation to our (left/right) we'll track along the (wall/slope) to 80 feet. Bottom there quickly goes to 1500 feet or so, we suggest you don't." The walls had very little current with one site exception to be noted later, which meant it was a matter of leveling at your max depth (80ish for the first dive, 70ish for the second, although they weren't overly strict about it - I frequently hit high-80s and saw one couple who was a little less cautious well into 100), toodling along until someone (usually me) declared 1500 psi, curve up to 50ish or so and turn around for a nice level profile there (negating the need for a deep stop even if you like to do one), and make our way back. Almost all the dives were managed where our last 5 minutes or so returning to the mooring area were well into safety-stop range, and then the DM's would let those with lots of air left hang out to their limits, both deco and tank, assuming they'd repeat a 3-minute stop if they dipped back below 25 feet. The planned dive length was about 50 minutes bottom, 1 hr safety stop, then 60 minutes bottom; most of my logged times personally (new camera, big lungs, typical American male excess weight) averaged about 46 minutes for the first dive and almost 50 for the second, with the very last dive a nice leisurely 66 minutes without the camera. Most dives were average depth in the low 60s to high 40s all told. I'm sure for those of you who find oxygen optional, longer profiles and safety stops could be had with prior arrangement. Afternoon dives were also available with prior arrangement; although I thought I'd want to dive more we ended up just taking our time, processing photos or hanging out at the bar and reading in the afternoon. I'm no pro photog and this was a vacation after all.

The soft coral and sponge color was incredibly vibrant and sometimes overwhelming (at least to me, so for those of you who want to chime in about how much better the South Pacific or Coral Triangle is, please back up to the disclaimer paragraph above). There didn't seem to be a lot of algae except in the shallow boulder field and rubble areas. Dives could be a bit darkish especially for the first dive of the morning (the diving is on the west coast of an extremely mountainous island, and depending on the formation most of the slopes and walls had you diving with the formations to your east so you're in the shade until at least late morning) but even on cloudy days was still very acceptable. Visibility in terms of water clarity typically was around 50' with the occasional dive at 60-70 and the occasional dive at less (one shallow section in a bit of current over the top of the formation the visibility dropped to probably 25-30 due to 'blown sand'). So it wasn't as clear as Saba (regularly 60-70+) or the FGNMS on average, but was still quite satisfying and blue and made for good picture taking. Fish were not hugely plentiful in large sizes, as there is subsistence fishing around the island, but there were many juveniles, many of the smaller fish like squirrelfish and chromis and the like, and on at least one dive there were large schools of midsized jacks that cruised thru while we were at the site. My guess is the bigger stuff is more off the east side of the island where the Atlantic currents hit and flow, but not currently considered diveable (we did ask about drift diving over there and were told it would be more like a speedboat race to keep up with you). We did see dolphins on one of our trips out to the dive site, and turtles were seen almost every day on the surface and on three out of six days while diving. Eels were always visible (black and white spotted moray, goldentail moray, yellow spotted snake eel, even a huge green moray which is supposedly not often seen in this particular region), there were a lot of urchins where there was a very large die-back elsewhere in the Caribbean, crinoids and gorgonians everywhere, anenomes, barrell sponges almost large enough to use as a bathtub. While there weren't any really large predator fish or pelagics visible during most dives there were many puffers (huge on some sites), chromis, squirrelfish, triggers, trunkfish, the occasional parrotfish, southern stingrays, and the like. We were shown several frogfish, stonefish (and I found a couple on my own), sea horses, an octopus, a whole 'orchard' of garden eels off the shore dive and Champagne sites, and we spotted a Flying Gunard on the appropriately named dive site. Typical spiny lobsters, smaller crabs, arrow crabs, and cleaner shrimp were in abundance. Trumpet fish ranged from tiny to around 2 feet in length.

The shore dive off the Anchorage dock was surprisingly nice and will let you get as deep as you like, too. A boulder scree slope which looks initially unpromising gives way to a sandy shelf (veritable FORESTS of garden eels) with occasional coral cluster and then suddenly slopes off with coral all over the place. Before we knew it we were over 80 feet down, no where near the end of things available to see if you were intent on heading deeper. Paralleling the shore and using the various mooring points as markers, we went well past the moorings for Dive Dominica before we headed back. I really wanted to do more dives here after the first, but somehow we always were lazy and content after the morning boat dives and it just didn't happen. But I'd think you could easily make a couple days out of just diving right there, especially with a camera.

My photos are still a work in progress, but I think at this point all the below water shots are culled from our six days of boat diving (we paid to add a day from the original package). I'll be adding from the abovewater pics for probably as much as a month after this post. They can be found at Flickr: rtrski's Photostream if you're curious. Don't let any lack of photographic merit influence your decisions please, I'm still learning! Bottom line we really enjoyed the trip, the people we met, and while we're still new enough to diving (hit my 80th dive here) that we'll likely try out new places for a few years to come, Dominica is firmly filed in the 'would do again' category once the sampling urge dies down a bit.
 
DIVE SITE BRIEF NOTES - PROBABLY REQUIRE SOME EDITING/CORRECTIONS

La Bym (The Abyss in creole). Wall dive, formation nearly vertical with only a little rounding at the top. Almost completely volcanic, the path from the mooring point follows one of a very few visible sand channels that falls down the wall. We did this site twice, heading left one day and right the other, and liked it a lot both times. Chromis and all sorts of juveniles hugged the corner of the wall, frogfish, gorgonians and the like spraying off the wall, sponges everywhere, turtles both near and swimming by much deeper, several spotted morays sighted and pictured. Sheltered in the curve of the shoreline and not too far down to the southmost tip, this dive had great visibility but could be darkish in the morning.

Soufriere Pinnacles: pinnacle formation with a bit of coral rubble near the top, but becomes very wall-like off the edges. A little bit of 'mustard water' occasionally mixes in here from one of the vent areas along the shoreline. (unless I'm mixing up this site with another...I'm pretty sure that was here). Vis was still good. This is where we saw a yellow spotted snake eel, more turtles.

Dangleben's pinnacles: really dramatic pinnacle formation with lots of bright colorful growth - you'll see pics in my gallery from here of me and Izzy dueling with cameras on either side of a neat bend in the 'wall'. Eels, turtles, etc here too. There's also a site Dangleben's north that we did not get to.

Carib's Leap. So named because of the mountain and cliff above, where according to local lore Carib aboriginal wives who strayed were given their last kiss before being 'divorced'. I think this was reported as part of the same formation as La Bym, just further in where it drops into another hole nearer shore. Come to think of it this might be where you could see the water staining from the vents? Sorry, it's all starting to blend together now...

Point Gunard (or Gunard Point). Named for the famed Flying Gunard which can still be sited here although they were hunted down quite a bit. More of sandy patches with scattered reef formations and a shallower slope as I remember it, although like all sites around the island deep water is never far away.

Scott's Head Drop-off or Wall or Outer (DM naming varies). Outside the point, so more dependent on wind and current conditions as a dive site; this is the outer edge of the Scott's Head bay formation. Nice drop, fair amount of rubble in the shallows, sand on top of the formation. This is the dive that current picked up a bit on our return. It was never too much for swimming against, fairly mild by the standards of a 'current' even compared to places like the FGNMS (definitely not near drift dive type current conditions). But enough that the sand whipped up and visibility got pretty low for the navigation back to the mooring line. DM had to double back and 'pick up' a couple stragglers on this dive who weren't playing follow the leader closely enough as the silt came up.

Swiss Cheese. This site is also on the outer edge of the marine park, way to the south, and so somewhat more limited access. But it was probably the most fabulous on the island in terms of coral coverage, gorgonians hanging off the wall in solid sheets, and had a couple of swimthrus. This is where we saw a couple of southern stings as well as more turtles.

Scott's Head Bay. As the name implies this is the dive site inside the bay, so it's very sheltered and calm with probably the best visibility we had the entire trip. Being a wide shallow(ish) bowl you just lazily head down to your target depth (as a second dive, usually in the 60s) and toodle along masses of reef with some sand channels and spurs until you turn back, make your way back toward the shallower part and then parallel that back to the mooring. I saw billions of harlequin bass here which until now hadn't been very forthcoming about being photographed - and of course had no camera with me this dive. This was our finisher on our last dive day, a nice 66-minutes of just relaxing and sightseeing in the sun. Puffers were also relatively prevelant here.

Coral Gardens. Used as a 2nd dive site as its a little shallower and less steep than the wall or pinnacle sites. This was the fishiest dive site we saw, complete with a couple very large schools of jacks passing thru like silver rivers. I think I got the most 'keeper' photos from this dive with Swiss Cheese as a close second - something about the lighting, the reef and sea life, and my strobe aiming just came together for this dive. Eels, schools of chromis and jacks, damselfish, the ubiquitous squirrelfish, lobsters, all the usual suspects and lots of pleasing sponge and coral cover. Vis was a little lower here perhaps (50s vs. 60s), but a sunny day and the sites own merits won out.

Champagne (Reef). This is the dive site where the 'champagne bubble' effect of volcanic gases can be found in the dive. Further in toward shore there's a shallower reef section good for snorkeling as well as a volcanically warmed area great as a shoreline hot-tub. The mooring point is in a sandy area in around 30 feet depth (turn away from shore where it slopes off to 35-40 feet or so and there are all sorts of garden eels again) and you head toward some scattered reef clumps which are just thronging with puffers (most populous I've ever seen in any one dive, both in terms of absolute number and relative number vs. other fish), to where it comes together into a more continuous reef formation where we spotted some really large lobsters and a green moray in an overhanging corner like area. I kind of lost my 'navigation sense' on this dive but somehow you end up where the vents are which are mostly just bubbles like the nucleation sites in a glass of beer or champagne, but one or two larger (almost fist sized, but don't test it if you don't want to try out a nice shiny new prosthesis) vents visibly emit really really hot water. There's also from the briefing a wreck on this site, mostly broken down with just a couple cannon visible, but this was one of the dives with that 'big group' so my wife and I hung back with one of the DM's and kind of made our own slower way since the DM and I were both lensmen. Vis here started at probably 45 over the sand until the masses passed and churned it down to about 30', but it settled back out as we let them get ahead. In the bubble region it was probably high-40s to low 50s again.
 
Thank you so much for your report. We are heading to Dominica in few weeks.
 
Thanks for the feedback folks. I think the last of my worth-showing pics are now up. Didn't get as many topside shots I liked as I thought...or maybe I'm less forgiving of them since I was an acknowledged underwater novice, but should know better in air. :)

Flickr: rtrski's Photostream - same as in my siggy below.
 
Great job on the photos, thanks again for sharing.
 
Thanks for the informative trip report RTRski. I have a couple more questions since I'm not finding too much information on the Anchorage web site.


  • Is unlimited shore diving included? When I looked at the listing for the package, it didn't say anything about shores dives.
  • What are the hours at the dive shop? Can you keep tanks out for night or dawn shore dives?
  • Do they have storage lockers for your gear, a locked facility, or do you keep it in your room?
  • What days do the cruise lines come in? Does the Anchorage ever pick up cruise divers? I personally would enjoy the small group experience you had on your trip.
  • Were the top side excursions expensive?
Nice photos. How long have you been shooting underwater photography?
 
Thanks to those of you who have PMed me for more info. Here's a brief distallation of what I know as of right now, to get things a bit more current:

1. Anchorage did take MINOR damage from Omar, but is fully operational.
2. To my knowledge, Anchorage still does not take the cruise ship divers. They do still offer pretty much the same package deals (breakfasts, hotel, air transport, boat diving, and tanks for shore diving).
3. Izzy, the guy I credit a lot of the extra enjoyment of our trip, is now running dive operations for the Anchorage.

Hope this helps! I can't claim Anchorage was "the best" pick of stays or dive packages, since I haven't experienced them all. But certainly they satisfied me and knowing Izzy is there, I'd go back in a jiffy. But overall it is the islands, so you're not getting 5-star lodging or dining. If you want pampering I guess Ft. Young is the best choice in the south - don't know much about the north end as I never really got up that way except for our overland tour with Woody.

Happy travels, everyone!
 
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