Island Life

We love music.  It makes us feel happy.  We listen to it A LOT on the boat and even shake our booty to the rhythm.  You just can’t help swaying to the music with a good beat.  Dominica is no exception when it comes to the love of music, or any of the Caribbean Islands for that matter.  They play it just about everyday, all day and quite loud, I might add.  Actually, the sound travels from shore across the water very effectively.  You can’t ignore it.  You can’t drown it out.  You just have to go with it. 

The locals know how to dance and put on a party as well.  It's nothing fancy, no black ties or even shoes required.  We enjoyed an evening BBQ as a fundraiser to support the PAYS efforts of keeping us cruisers safe and content.  We had local style fish and chicken with all the fixings.  It was excellent!  Then they pushed the tables and chairs aside, turned up the music and we danced the night away.  It was an eclectic group of cruisers from all over the world that joined in the fun.

Happy girls

Cruising kids from several boats enjoying dinner

Dancing with our friend Titus

Chris and Craig 

Meet Sugar Daddy

Every Wednesday night is Reggae night at Big Pappa's (sorry no pictures).  And every Friday is also Reggae night, but more like a pub crawl.  Keep in mind that these are not sophisticated burger type pubs.  It's basically a bar.  Everyone walks the streets of 'downtown' and stumbles from bar to bar...some more than others.  The music is spilling out of every doorway and people dance in the streets until the wee hours of the morning, literally.  Titus and Ken G. took us out for a night (or 2 or 3...) on the town.  It was awesome to be with them because they knew where to go and acted as our personal body guards.  The men in the islands really have a thing for American women.  Or maybe it's all foreigners, I don't know for sure, but they are very friendly and want to dance really close if you know what I mean.  We became acquainted with Sugar Daddy the first Wednesday night reggae and then we saw him every single time we went out.  This picture was taken right before he laid a big wet kiss on our cheeks!  Notice the mesh 'undershirt' he is wearing.  This is a favorite style (in Dominica) and I almost bought one for Craig in the national colors of red, green and yellow!  Don't you think that would be a good look for him?  HA 

Outside one of the bars we were dancing in the street, minding our own business when a guy from over there (turn your head to the right) yells out to a woman over there (turn your head to the left) "you look like a freaking popsicle!!" (not his exact words, but you get the picture).  She was wearing a bright, red lycra jumpsuit that was tight, way too short and did this wrap around the neck thing.  It was the funniest thing we had ever witnessed.  Sorry, no pictures.  We were too busy laughing our asses off!

Saturday market day

Sugar cane, fresh and sweet

Magpie

Olivia makes a friend on the beach.  He recognized her from our school visit.  They kayaked out to the boat to get her soccer ball.  The funny part was, Olivia asked him if he could swim and he said no.  So she promptly gave him her life jacket and she paddled out to the boat without a life jacket.  She said "he couldn't swim".  Now, let me tell you that the beach wasn't exactly close and she wouldn't have been able to swim either.  But it was sweet she was looking out for her new friend.  We gave her another life jacket to wear on their journey back to the beach.

Maggie, Bryson, Liv and Al

View down the beach

 Erica pours a round of painkillers for the PAYS guys.  They are used to drinking mostly beer or rum and were sort of hesitant to try it.  I'm sure they thought it was a girly drink!  But once they tried one, they were hooked and came back for more

 Titus prepares the lion fish and snapper for the grill.

 They keep going even when the sun goes down!

Yummy grilled lion fish courtesy of the PAYS guys.  They wanted to treat the kids!  And the parents devoured it too.

 Marshmallow roasting at its best.  Al had become a member of our families, paddling out to our boats everyday after school.  If one boat wasn't done with school work yet, then he would paddle to the other boat.  

 Enjoying our lion fish with Stanford, Eddison and Titus

 Kids love to play with fire....no matter what part of the world they are from

 The sun saying night night

Eddison's sister, Nadine, braids Olivia's hair into corn rows.  What a difference it made.  The day to day maintenance was cut down to noth-ING!

Chris, Craig and Bob hanging out after a day of cleaning the bottoms of all our boats.  

 Olivia is in "jail' with the local boys

The kids wanted a bon fire, so they gathered wood during the day and the big boys put this together.  They watch with anticipation as it gets ignited.

Everyone roasting marshmallows.  We went through 4 bags in 2 nights! 

Another pyro kid makes a spiral streamer

 Olivia is missing Secret and Coconut back home (our friends dogs) but she has found a temporary stand in with"CC".  This is Eddison's dog.  

The whole gang after a very special night of celebrating Chris and Erica's wedding anniversary.  The PAYS guys delivered a scrumptious yet another meal for all of us!!