Morne Balvine

When you first anchor in Portsmouth, there is a system/company of boats and one comes out to greet you and make their touring services available to you. Being new to the harbor I was weary of this boat guy coming out to welcome us. But now I know….

About 10 or so years ago this harbor was unsafe until a group of men made it safe. They patrol the waters at night and keep a general look out during the day. If any issues or questions arise you look for one of these guys. They’re referred to as P.A.Y.S. And they are phenomenally great. That said, Mike and I enjoy off the beaten track adventures, the kind that involves meandering and less so guides and fannypacks. Which is why it took about 3 days to finally agree to one of the PAYS guys to take us on a river tour. Our boat guy was Alexis.
We started the day with a tour down the Indian River. Our main man, Alexis, spoke Creole, English, French, German, and Spanish. Crazy impressive! We were with a French family so poor Alexis had to explain everything twice French and English, for all to understand.
Our first stop was Calypso’s digs in the tropical rainforest. If it looks familiar, then I know you’ve seen Pirates of the Caribbean II. That’s right, 10 years ago the amazing cast including Johnny Depp Orlando Bloom Bill Nighy stayed in Dominica for some time going out to the local bars. (title of this post is a Jack Sparrow quote from P. of the C. II). The water was far clearer than I thought it would be. I was anticipating swamp and algae. The brackish water supports fish, mainly mullet fish, which we saw plenty of.
We left our boats and went on a stroll where Alexis told us about the local vegetation. Coming from a farming background he was able to give us insight on how simple yet difficult life can be living off the land. He pointed out cinnamon trees to us and then THWAK! With his machete he took a piece of the tree and showed us how it smelled…. like a perfect Martha Stewart Christmas… but better. It was incredible, we strolled around this farmland with Alexis and his machete. He was slicing off passion fruit, star fruit, coconut, coffee beans, bananas…. for us to try. We ended our stroll at a brightly colored house where we had fresh passion fruit juice. And Mike and I standing at the bar, noticed bottles that looked like rum. We were correct and tasted the homemade rum. We bought a bottle that had coconut and cinnamon mixed in it. YUM! And sure enough, our friends from Aggressive and Alpha Crucis wandered in and we all enjoyed our rum drinks after a fresh snack of fruits. In the end, Mike & I enjoyed our tour immensely!Read more