PAYS Sunday BBQ / Portsmouth, Dominica

[KDH]

Just left Dominica after a very pleasant but too short (1 week) stay in Dominica. The yacht helpers association, PAYS, runs a fund raising barbecue on Sunday nights. Money raised goes to help pay for the security service run nightly in the northern end of Prince Rupert Bay. Chicken or Fish, slaw and salad, a very tasty and strong rum punch and music with a dj and dancing after dinner with a nice balance of local and more western/European music. Had a really good time and the food was very good and the price quite reasonable at $20 US a head or 50 EC. If you've made it as far as Dominica you know that is quite a reasonable price, especially as we all had several rum punches.

I would also highly recommend tours with the certified guides from PAYS. Very reasonably priced- there were 9 of us (we filled the van) and were charged $100 EC a head for an all day tour which was just great. Included a trip to a waterfall, stopped for souvenirs at the Carib reserve, several beachs and we had an excellent lunch (which we payed for seperately) at a small local restaurant (best local food I've had of all the islands). Our tour guide was Sam, who works with Lawrence. We also did the river tour (very nice) with a guide who works with Lawrence, I think his name was Monty but I have seen a photo of him in the Caribbean Compass where he was called Bounty.
We called him Monty, maybe he was too polite to correct us- we're both a little hard of hearing! Anyway, if you want to do both, I recommend do the river tour, first and go first thing in the morning as you'll see more birds. Do the island tour second.

Also, my two cents on cruiser/local interactions. Please, these are grown men and this is 2012. They now call themselves yacht helpers, not boat boys and these people are for the most part, very polite and not aggressive. Read the Doyles page and you won't have any trouble. Also, while the locals party all night, stumbling drunk at 9 or 10 pm will only lead to trouble for a cruiser- if for no other reason than it makes it difficult to stay in the dinghy on the way back to your boat. Observed one cruiser who was so incredibly rude and racist (sticking fingers in her ears, flipped off the dj, made rude comments about how she paid a lot of money and did not come there to hear "their" music etc when her requests for "our kind" of music were not immediately rewarded. Absolutely rude and racist behavior that embarrassed everyone around her. The organizers remained polite and mature through out the entire exchange and this is apparently the way this woman has behaved before. Her behavior was the only thing that detracted from the whole evening. So please, remember that some of us came to experience the local culture not to be bad ambassadors for our own country and cultures.

[belizesailor]

Incredibly beautiful island. It's been many years since I was there, but glad to hear the "boat boys" are cleaning up their act. They were a bit aggressive years ago -- paid a guy to "watch" the boat so that he would not trash it instead.

Good for them!