Day Nine, March 2, 1997 Roseau, Dominica

Red watch was on during the night and were hit by squall after squall, they were able to practice over and over again raising and lowering the sails. They have now become quite adept at raising and lowering sails. Green watch was awakened and for the first time, someone other than them had lowered the anchor, all by themselves. So there was anchor watch until we taxied into shore.  

We were all taxied ashore by 7:30, and got a jump on the day. On shore we grabbed two taxis, one of who was the illustrious Johnny Williams. Johnny Williams was a native of Dominica, and the wildest character we had met so far.  His taxi was something of that more typically found in North America, he had mag wheels, dark tinted windows, the van had been lowered and had an amazing sound system within.  

Johnny Williams made the day quite fun, he stopped for a coconut drink, then as we were climbing the steep roads (about a 40° incline) straight up into the mountains, Johnny stops along the roadside and picked grapefruit and tossed them into the van for us. We drove all the way to the top of a dormant volcano, and looked at the caldera which had been filled by a lake. Johnny told us that the lake had an unknown depth. We hiked away from the vans, up the path to view the streams feeding the lake.  

We moved on in the day, and went to Trafalgar Falls, where we saw two water falls, Johnny Williams told us that the one which was short and fat, was called the female falls, while other which was tall and slender, were called the male falls. 

Many of us went in for a quick dip below the falls, the water was refreshing and cool. Not to mention a nice bath for those of us who had not showered in the past few days.  
 
 

After a wonderful break, we took a long drive out to the sulfur springs. We climbed up a well kept trail of steps to get to the springs. They were holes in the ground, where sulfur was extruding in hot vapour and crystallizing on the rocls of the openings (the smell was awful). We noticed on the way up the trail, that people were bathing in water which was supersaturated with the sulfur run-offs. Johnny told us, it is a said to be healthy and used as a healing type of medication.   

At the sulfur springs there was a rusted out shack made of corrugated metal. A sign indicated that the shack had been built in 1994, but due to the extreme corrosiveness of sulfur dioxide produced by the sulfur springs, there was little to nothing left except for the frame.  On the right is a picture of a hydrothermal vent, from which the sulfer gas was escaping.

We returned to the boat, which was now docked at the pier, so we could just hop onboard. After dinner, some of the group headed out for some entertainment and relaxation before our long day ahead.