Dominica Trip Report

[cmaha76]

Hi all, thought I would pop on and post a report on my trip to Dominica. A group of 14 from mostly Cincy and NE Ohio spent June 8-15th in Dominica with an overnight in Puerto Rico both ways.

Accomodation:
Stayed at Ft. Young Hotel. I thought this place was great, our room was beautiful and it felt like it was right on the water. The pool was lovely and the bar and restaurant were both pretty decent. Staff bent over backwards fetching meds. for my wife from the pharmacy and re-scheduling some land activities based on an illness. Plus my bar tab at the end of the week seemed incredibly reasonable (enjoyed many a Kubuli post-dive of course).

Dive-op:
We chartered with Anchorage for the week and 12-14 divers on a 70' cat the entire week, man it was nice to spread out. They had two divemasters in the water with us and didn't limit our bottom time whatsoever. They would guide dive and depending on the site and conditions either point people back to the boat as needed or provide an escort if a buddy team didn't feel comfortable navigating back alone. The entire staff of Anchorage was phenomenal, they really pulled out all the stops and even took us on a trip to dive Cabrits one day. Heck they even went out for dinner and drinks with us one night at a fanastic fish shack near Soufriere.

Food:
Ate at Ft. Young several times, too exhausted from adventures to really venture out. Also ate at La Robe Creole, that fish stand mentioned above, and another joint that I really can't remember. Food was good, but there were several places that I read about on the boards that I just didn't make it to. (Side note, try Mojitos in Old San Juan, they live up the billing).

Diving:
All of the group agreed, the diving was fantastic but nobody could really put a finger on why. I think it was that all of the dives featured an incredible amount of small fish life and we got to see an occasional frogfish or mammoth turtle to spice it up. Visibility was a little less than expected/reported, but it wasn't horrible either. One highlight was a school of reef squid at Champagne, I'm not exaggerating, there must have been 100+ reef squid that did not appear to be bashful of divers at all.

The sites we hit are listed below with some brief highlights:
1. Soufriere Pinnacle: Saw my first flying gurnard, turtle, couple of eels.
2. Coral Garden: Massive schools of small reef fish, huge barracuda.
3. Swiss Cheese: Swim throughs(as name suggests), couple of porcupine fish.
4. Champagne: Huge turtle, school of reef squid, 1st ever juvie trunkfish (cute).
5. Cabrits Point North: Couple of southern sting-rays.
6. Cabrits Point South: Frog fish... thanks Sherman (Side note... I've never met a DM who enjoys his job so much. I swear I heard him singing under water.)
7. Dangle Ben's Pinnacle. Frog fish, large turtle, really neat formations.
8. Labym Wall (Abyss): Juvie trunkfish, couple of eels, turtle.
9. Craters Edge: Sorry no log notes... I'll review pictures and update if possible.
10. Scotts Head Bay Wall: Two juvenile trunkfish chilling together.

Top-side:
Trafalgar Falls, Emerald Pool, Titou Gorge... all beautiful. Make sure you hit some top-side attractions the rain forest is absolutely beautiful. I wish I could have done more on the surface.

Well, that's all I really have for now. If you have questions, please post away or PM me. I really could just go on forever.

 

[diverrex]

My wife and I are thinking of a 15 day trip there next April, to get in 8 days or so of diving and 7 days topside (we love rainforests and hiking).

A couple questions. We've thought of spending some nights up north and more nights down south, is there much difference in the diving between the two?

How easy was it to do topside activities, Trafalgar Falls, Emerald Pool,etc, after the morning dives?

 

[Rescue Diver68]

We found it easy to do activities after morning dives. We went to The Screws Spa, Trafalgar Falls, & Titou Gorge. We did this with our rental car. You probably know already that driving on Dominica is not for the faint of heart. We found Titou Gorge a little hard to find. It wasn't as well marked as Middleham Falls, Trafalgar, and the Screws Spa-Hot Spring baths.

If we could have stayed longer we have went to the Emerald pool and the many other falls on the Island. We didn't make it up North but we would like to next time.

I put up a Gallery of Topside photos on smugmug of Dominica as well.

www.kneptune.smugmug.com

 

[tuner fish]

Thanks for the report cmaha76.

Nice Pix rescuediver68, love the 2 spotted juv. drum!

 

[RICHinNC]

How were the flights to get there?

 

[Rescue Diver68]

We flew Phila to San Juan on Us Air, San Juan to Dominica on American Eagle. No sweat, waaay easier than getting to Utila.

There is however a 26 mile drive from Melville Airport to Roseau. There are shuttle buses or you can rent a car. The driving was scary first because they drive on the left there, not to mention the narrow roads with steep slopes and hair pin turns. We chose the rental car because I thought I would probably vomit on the shuttle bus. I got use to the driving pretty quickly.

 

[Bob]

You have to experience the roads in Dominica to appreciate them. That drive from Melville Hall to Roseau is a hour and a half drive. The roads are scary there. almtree: Bob

 

[cmaha76]

I thought there was some difference in the diving between Cabrits and Scotts Head. The formations in Scott's Head were more interesting, but I thought the vis. up in Cabrits was much better. The marine life, as expected, was very similar. I thought the navigation was a little easier in Cabrits at was the more typical reef follows the coast setup, whereas in Scotts Head it was a lot of Pinnacle formations that we swam between. The staff was genuinely excited to be diving Cabrits, in fact it was on of our DMs first dives in Cabrits side. The one thing I wished we would have done was hit some of the rarely visited North side sites, but weather just didn't permit for us.

As far as flights go, I thought the schedule was a little brutal. Coming from Cleveland, we couldn't get to Dominica in one day. The overnight in Puerto Rico was ok on the way down, but it was a little tedious on the way back.

 

[RTRski]

I remember Sherman singing in his regulator well. He also clucked at some of the damselfish, and could get them to attack his fingers. (No, he wasn't harrassing them...more like the other way around).

Glad to hear you had a good time; the staff at Anchorage was really great I thought. I'd like to go back, but the direction airline travel is going is a wee scary right now for one, and for another we're still early enough in our dive careers we're sampling new places each time instead of repeats just yet....

 

[GradyDiver]

You have to experience the roads in Dominica to appreciate them. That drive from Melville Hall to Roseau is a hour and a half drive. The roads are scary there. almtree: Bob

Does anyone know how the roads in Dominica compare to Tortola? We're thinking about heading to Dominica in October and Tortola has the most interesting roads (left side of road, steep hills with blind hairpin turns in the middle) that I've driven on so far.