Discovering Dominica 2025
The first excitement our group experienced was the incredible landing at the Douglas-Charles airport located on the west side of Dominica. The pilot has to thread the plane through the mountain peaks to find the valley that the runway was carved from so as to land into the wind. For those on the left side of the plane, they were looking at the ground fast approaching as the plane banked hard left on the final approach. After the screams subsided, the pilot straightened out the plane and brought the plane safely to a landing. Wild applause broke out! The island is truly stunningly beautiful.
 | And that was just the beginning of the excitement. After an hour and a half drive on mountainous switchbacks to Roseau and the Fort Young Hotel and Dive resort, we were welcomed to a group orientation by the hotel, complete with refreshments. Dan and I added on our comments, and we all went to our rooms where our luggage was waiting. That night we all ate at various restaurants at the hotel. |
| The following day, we gathered at the dive shop to begin the sign-in process, assemble our gear, and attend the morning briefing. The resort currently has two new and very nice catamaran dive boats (with great ladders!). There was another dive group there that was on the larger boat and our group of 12 had the exclusive use of the smaller boat named Zelle, which was perfectly sized for us. We were diving on the leeward side of the island, so we were significantly isolated from the winds on the west side of the island. Because of that, we never had more than a foot of chop on the water. |  |
 | After the first dive, our group came up talking about all of the marine life, and the colorful soft and live corals they saw. The second dive was even more interesting, as we saw our first turtle. | ||
Each dive was a full hour long, no rushing us back on the boat, with an implied safety stop in the shallow banks near the boat. Typically, we would leave the dock at 8:30 and get back at 1:00 PM. |  | ||
 | Dive after dive we saw healthy corals (NO bleaching), lots of marine life, colorful soft corals, and turtles. The comments from our divers were that they were surprised by what they saw. | ||
The diving over-delivered their expectations, and guess what? There is a lot of wall diving!!! One of the dives called the “Wall” is the steepest wall I have ever seen, completely vertical and plunging to unknown depths. Tucked away in a coral cavern I also saw the biggest turtle I have ever seen, easily over six feet across. I can’t imagine why he was hiding. There is no predator that could threaten him! |  | ||
 | After diving, we would relax in our rooms looking at the ocean, as all our rooms had balconies. Later, we would join up for dinner on most nights. While the hotel had a very good restaurant, we explored other places including Lacou, The Great Old House, and Oceans Edge, at prices we can only dream about. We got to experience the best of the local cuisine and enjoy each other’s company. | ||
After the diving was done for the week, the group had a tour of Trafalgar Falls and Titou Gorge. The falls supply water to a hydroelectric plant on the island that generates 30% of the power for the county's 67,000 residents. Future geothermal plants will make up the rest of their power needs. |  | ||
 | Titou Gorge was the highlight of the trip for many of our group! In the film Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest, Jack Sparrow (AKA Johnny Deep) used the gorge to escape. It is very narrow, the water is a cold 72 degrees and you have to swim upstream. Our guides gave us tips on how to navigate the currents, so we all made it to the to the falls.  | ||
We celebrated the end of our trip by going to a farewell dinner at Oceans’ Edge that evening. It was a great ending to a great trip! Among the diver comments was how relaxing and surprising the island was, not just underwater but above ground as well. There are a ton of pictures shared on WhatsApp but Steve Potanovic put together a terrific video about the trip and you can see it at https://youtu.be/UmqH-BEnHj0?feature=shared .
Someday we will go back.
Dan and Daryl