Port 31 Roseau, Dominica

by Ed · Published March 11, 2022 · Updated March 11, 2022

Good day!

We arrived at Dominica early on Mar 8th, 2022. Joy was up early to watch for whales! But she saw none this morning. I woke a little later to see this late sunrise coming over Dominica! OK, like Antigua, let’s do a pronunciation check. Dominica is pronounced “domi-NEE-ka”.

The city of Roseau came into view as we sidled up to one of the two major docks. We were informed that only those on sanctioned ship tours or governemtn sanctioned taxi tours could go out on the island. We didn’t have a tour, so we will have to remain within the confines of the terminal building.

Looking at the pier and city entrance it was easy to see that the terminal building is not a building at all – it is a fenced-off area with tents and semi-permanent plywood box storefronts.

As the sun came over the island’s montains the colors of the city began to pop!

The pilot boats serve double duty here. They are used to pull the mooring lines to the mooring bollards placed out in the water.

Since we can’t wander in to town, I took some shots of some interesting sites we can see from the ship. And we took a walk to the “terminal” area so we can claim we were on the island!

There is a frame of a church that peeks above the trees. It is not obvious this is being renovated, so my guess is it is an abandoned site. Sad, because the long arched windows probably once held beautiful stained glass panels!

Just a few blocks away are two more churches. The one in front is small, modest. The one behind is very large ane very old!

The extent of the “terminal building” area becomes better defined as the sunshine shows us more detail. There appears to be about 17 major tent structures and a dozen box storefronts. The white fence hems us in, and chain link fence fills gaps as needed. Two buildings appear to allow us to access them from this area.

We finally venture ashore.

The entry point has lovely murals all over the gables, poles, and floor! Here are a few examples:

The Dominica sign outshines the previous Arube, St Lucia, and Barbados signs! These letters have bounce and jazz!

Inside the courtyard of one of the buildings we can access is this strange structure. If you can read the lettering across the tops you will see it says “Keep the Pavement Dry”. It is part of a drinking fountain, but the inner fountain works are missing.

We spent a few hours checking out the tents and box stores, as well as the museum’s courtyard stalls. It seems like everyone has the same sources – every stall had virtually the same items for the same prices. Joy bought a few baskets and a small dress to create some doggy clothing, and we headed back to the ship. As you can see, it was a cloudy day and rainstorms kept sweeping through. Shopkeepers kept pulling down tarps to protect their merchandise. It wasn’t pleasant hanging out outside of the ship!

So we headed back to the ship, and worked on selecting more excursions for future ports! The sun periodically reappeared, and finally put some nice definition in the mountains along the shore of Dominica! This island is considered a hidden gem – it is a beautiful island but not a lot of people go there yet. So it is relatively unspoiled and the water is crystal clear!