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“YURT LIFE” has just been published featuring our friends on S/V Necesse as they tell about their recent trip to visit to Eben’s brother and his wife Mel up at their Mountain Yurt in Canada. The Stolz men are all about unconventional living!
Guadaloupe was a very short stop. After a late morning nap we gathered ourselves together and prepared for the next leg of the trip leaving just a few hours later for Dominica.
Portsmouth in Dominica treated us well for the next few days. Liquid sunshine glistened on our skin and we enjoyed the quiet anchorage.
Most of the beach bars and restaurants were closed because it was so late in the season. Luckily, one very small local bar called Monty’s was open and serving the fresh catch of the day. If you ever visit Dominica, be sure to find this hidden gem in the northern most corner of Portsmouth, marked by a small rock jetty.
After a bad incident a few years back, several of the locals have gotten together to form what is called the Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security (P.A.Y.S) – a group of trained and certified locals that patrol the harbor 24/7 from November through May. We were told that even if you can’t see them, they are watching. We felt very safe. These guys also double as tour guides each with their own flair.
For our first time in Dominica, Titus became “our guy,” representing the Lawrence of Arabia group of boat boys (also part of the P.A.Y.S. association. We took a wonderful tour up the Indian River with him (stay tuned for pics in the next post) and he even took us out on a private tour to all the best local spearfishing spots!
Foreigners are not allowed to spearfish in Dominica, unless accompanied by a local. Titus was just doing us a favor by taking us out on his boat, but he was pleasantly surprised when Peter slayed one Lionfish after another in just a short two-hour period.
Peter got two in one shot on his first kill!
He carefully handed the spear up to Titus where he clubbed the two monsters and then removed the spear tip, sliding them off the end of the spear into his boat.
We ended up with at least 10 large Lionfish and shared half the catch with Titus. Five Lionfish provided a decent size meal for two people.
Here are two videos we managed to capture on our iPhone 5 in an Otterbox Preserver case:
Peter was happy to get some spearfishing in while doing his part to help eliminate this terribly invasive species. For more information on this serious Lionfish problem click <HERE>.
Have you ever tasted Lionfish before? What did you think?
It was such a short hop over to Nevis once we left St. Kitts. The hillsides and black sand beaches were breathtaking at Pinney’s Beach.
We took the dinghy around the point for a little snorkeling near the rocky points. The water wasn’t very clear that day so we headed back toward where we were anchored and snorkeled off the beach near some scattered coral heads. Peter got a little too close and accidentally poked himself on an urchin. NO FUN!
Our diving adventures were cut short, but we still enjoyed the scenery.
Unfortunately we left our credit card at Salt Plage back on St. Kitts so we had to turn back and get it the next day. The management was incredibly helpful and even bought us a drink for our inconveniences. It’s not so easy to just cancel a credit card and have a new one mailed out when we live on a boat with no mailing address. Oh well. It was an easy sail and it only set us back one day.
As we set out for Guadeloupe, a small pod of spinner dolphins came out to play as we passed by Nevis around dinnertime….
We left St. Kitts at 5:45pm on July 7th. Our night passage started off terribly uncomfortable when we made the mistake of not getting far enough off shore. The shoals south of Nevis stirred up the sea in a violent way and had us considering turning around to wait for settled weather. Our friends Dustin and Courtney were planning to leave Nevis not long after us and we later heard they took a wave on the flybridge of Captiva, a 75′ Catamaran, on that very same passage! We persevered, wearily arriving at Deshaies, Guadeloupe at 10:15 am just in time to see a beautiful rainbow above our sistership, Lunacy.
We were finally a good distance down the island chain!
We’re currently in Grenada wrapping up Hurricane Season and preparing to sail back north to the Virgin Islands… stay tuned for more adventures!
While anchored in White House Bay, we dove this awesome wreck in shallow water. See for yourself!
Would you go explore an underwater wreck? Leave us a comment!
Check out my latest post on Tiny House Blog!
Click <HERE> to read about Adjusting To Simplicity and how Peter and I got acquainted with our new tiny home one whole year ago!
In what ways have you adjusted to simplicity? Leave a comment and share your inspiration!
