Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua - and 1 of them isn't a country.

I'm fairly sure that people in the Carib have as little knowledge differentiating between Nordic countries as we have differentiating between countries in the Caribbean. But I'm learning every day.

It was 04:03am and I woke up hearing someone hammering away on the door of my apartment in Castries City, St. Lucia. It was mr. Pierre. My alarm had not set off so I had overslept. Check-in at the ferry to Dominica was from 04:00-05:30am. I managed to pack all my stuff in 5 minutes and mr. Pierre drove me through the trafficless city to the port and we said farewell. There was already a huge line and I had only had a few hours sleep. I estimated that around 100 people stood in front of me and that perhaps 200 were behind me. On average they processed 1 person every 5-6 minutes. There was no way this would work!! This was more inefficient than when I had to get the ticket the day before. Unbelievable. However when the people in charge, after about 1 hour, discovered that this wasn't working, then they changed procedures and suddenly we were all through and on the boat.

Standing in line early in the morning for no good reason is not something that motivates me greatly.

 

Dominica is known as: the nature island.

Dominica:
A few hours later we had arrived to Dominique which is French territory. After a few passengers had disembarked, the ferry continued to Dominica. As I set foot on land I had reached country #68. I walked around Roseau, the capital, for a short while and found the Red Cross. But it was closed during the weekend. However I sat down to take a rest. After about 20 minutes Sylvester showed up to greet me. Someone had called him to say that a strange bearded man with a hat had arrived. I gave Sylvester my story and told him what I needed. He immediately started calling everyone and anyone on my behalf trying to arrange for a place for me to stay, onward transportation and what not. I was going through some local couch surfing profiles on my phone and showed Sylvester 1 of them. "That's my friend!" He said and gave her a call. Arlene replied to Sylvester that it was all good. That's not normally how couch surfing works but it was very efficient. 

You can have fresh fish every day.

Arlene and her housemate, Elaine, came to meet us. Then we headed out shopping groceries for dinner and ended up at her house. I was so tired. So after talking for a little while I was given a guest bed and didn't wake up again until dinner time. Elaine had made a delicious curry chicken and after devouring it we ended up playing advanced video games of the sort where the game registers your movements and you jump around on the floor like an idiot "jumping over and ducking for stuff". I had become a real life Donkey Kong. It was great fun! :)

Sylvester on the left and Arlene to my right. I love those smiles!

Sylvester had arranged for me to head north the next day up to Portsmouth where we believed I would have a good chance of finding a connection to Antigua. I was being picked up by Lennox Honychurch who was heading up north anyway. Arlene and Sylvester decided to join for the day. So I sat in the open back of the truck together with Arlene looking at the spectacular nature whizzing by us throughout the winding costal road. Every once in a while Lennox would stop the small truck to pick up people at the side of the road who would get in the back with us. People would get on and off all the way for about an hour as we headed north. A nice little service, I thought to myself, where Lennox was helping out the community since he was going that way anyway. Then we turned up a lonely road and drove underneath a stone gate, continuing up a very old cobblestone road, through a forest, and eventually arrived at a restored 18th century fort. Here I was introduced to my room for as long as I needed it?! I was...I was...I don't know what I was? I was certainly surprised!! And grateful. The room I was given had multiple beds and is intended for school trips and one day eventually a dorm room function. Arlene, Sylvester and I each picked a bed and we all fell asleep in the serene surroundings. As the evening approached my friends left to go back to Roseau and I was now alone at the fort with Lennox. Unbelievable!

The part of Fort Shirley where I lived.

As the days progressed I was waiting for the verdict of a cargo ship which could potentially carry me from Dominica to Antigua. Making a long story short I was given permission to get onboard the ship although the captain originally responded with the somewhat standard: "we do not take passengers". But Beverly, the owner of Beverly Shipping, swayed the captain and brought me the good news. I was very happy and headed back to the fort to pack my belongings. While at the fort I checked my emails and found a message from Sylvester stating: "bad news". Oh no?! Beverly had called Sylvester and Sylvester now instructed me in getting back in touch with Beverly. Beverly who had been so helpful explained how the passenger and crews list had already been submitted to someone in Barbados(?) and that it was now to late to resubmit a list with my name on it. Sorry.

The amazing forest surrounding the fort was full of crabs and lizards.

So all I needed was a ship heading from Dominica to Antigua with a captain who would accept my presence. And that I had. But due to a technicality I could not get onboard. And for the second time in the Caribbean I could wave goodbye to a ship I needed - and should have been onboard.

Lennox, a great man with vision and decisiveness: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Honychurch

Luckily Sylvester advised me not to "carry all my eggs in 1 basket" so I had been speaking to a tour operator called Cobra. Cobra was very helpful too and advised me to mingle with the yachties at a beach party which I had done a few days before. Food, alcohol, yachties and lots of conversation. I met some really interesting people which opened up for a few options (which I didn't need because I had the cargo ship). But now it became relevant again. 

 

I had to improvise a long hard walk in the forest after learning that I couldn't board the ship. But I found myself discovering how far Lennox had come with the restoration of the fort.

Among the people at the beach party I met 2 fellow Vikings. Ådne and Ruben (http://symaasen.com). These two 26 year old friends from Norway had made it across the Atlantic Ocean in their sailboat "Måsen" or "Maasen" in English. (It translates to seagull). Now they were cruising around in the Caribbean and were heading north. I received a message from Ådne saying that they had reached Guadeloupe and were planing on continuing up to Antigua for a few days. I was welcome to join them if I could make it to Guadeloupe in time. In reality these 2 Vikings were splitting up for a few days as Ådne had a friend flying in for 2 weeks and Ruben was expecting his girlfriend and 2 others to show up. So it was really Ådne and his friend Ørjan who were heading north. It doesn't get much more Nordic than that! Add to it that my name is Torbjørn and then you are sure to confuse some people completely :) 

Thats Rune in the back, Ådne in the middle and Ørjan onboard "Måsen".

Guadeloupe is a French territory more or less in the middle between Dominica, where I was, and Antigua, where I was going.

 

 

His name is pronounced Buddha and he gave me a ride when I needed it the most. Caribbean hospitality at work!

Originally I was told that the ferry to Guadeloupe would not depart from Dominica that day so I was desperate to find a sailboat or something else that could get me there in time. Something I put a lot of effort into. However the ferry would go that day, and once I realized that, I was racing the clock to get a ticket (EC 295,00!! Pirates!!), pack and make my way back south to the port in Roseau in time. And it all worked out. I reached Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe late that evening. Naturally after waiting an eternity in another senselessly long line at the ferry terminal and being harassed by the supervisor of port security who confiscated my leatherman wave multi tool for no good reason. But let's forget that unbelievably ignorant little "nazi-I-must-demonstrate-whatever-little-power-I-have" man because he is no good representative for Dominica! Dominica, a country I have grown very fond of and which in its culture has developed a strong ability to make guests feel like if they belong. It's rather peculiar. I almost always felt like I was "one of the gang" when I was with the locals. And I clearly stand out :)

Guadeloupe:
Guadeloupe was kind of like arriving to a slice of Europe. It's a very flat island, they drive on the RIGHT side of the road, it was fairly modern in its appearance and I saw many tall buildings which I hadn't seen throughout the Caribbean since I left Trinidad. The currency in use is euro and the prices were high. I had a late night pizza with a beverage and had to pay a fortune. But it was worth it to regain some energy. I then marched for about 40 minutes to meet with Ådne, Ruben and Ørjan. It wasn't until after midnight before I had reached the "Seagull".

 

Captain Ådne standing up. Ørjan sitting down. My Viking brothers from Norway.

Next step was to get up early the next morning and head towards a bridge which connects the west of Guadeloupe with the east. The bridge only opens once a day (at 05:00am) and by cutting though the island in this way we could save a lot of time. The bridge never opened as we sat patiently in front of it in the dark waiting for something to happen. If it opened then Ruben would get off at the bridge and head towards the airport to meet his girlfriend. Ådne, Ørjan and I would continue north to Antigua with an estimated arrival around 3:00pm. Perfect! But it never opened. Because of the tight quarters onboard I had slept outside on deck under the stars. For a few hours only of course because we ventured towards the bridge shortly after 04:00am. The last few days of stressful events and tight logistics was building up on me. Add to it all that I had recently received notice that the couple occupying my apartment (which I have been very happy to have as my tenants) in Denmark were moving back to England so I needed to find new tenants or plunge into a financial downfall. And then of course the bonus feature of having a timeline for the remaining countries within the Caribbean which was looking awfully tight. I was sooooo tired.

Coming around the south east of Guadeloupe shortly before I got sick.

We made the decision to turn around and go east around Guadeloupe extending the voyage with several hours. And so it had begun. We reached a port where we handled customs and immigration and Ruben got off the boat to go and meet his girlfriend.. Then the 3 of us continued around the island and started heading north. Unfortunately the wind was not quite as strong as we were hoping for and it was head on against us. At some point my body responded to it all by giving me severe seasickness. It was horrible. My mind was begging for a way out. If only I could get off the boat and stand on dry land for 5 minutes. But that was impossible. I continued screaming at Neptune over the side of the boat for the remaining 10 hours. We arrived to Antigua on December 18th at 11:00pm. I was done for.

Antigua and Barbuda:
Antigua is the main island and we had arrived to the southern part at English Harbor. It is a short drive to go from the south to the north where the capital, St. John's, is located. I really like Antigua although is is very much set up for receiving tourists. I had the opportunity to cross the country more than a handful of times as I had things to attend to in St. John's while Ådne and Ørjan had invited me to stay onboard the boat for as long as they would be in the port. As you can imagine Antigua is a very small country and it is also the first country I have arrived to which has no natural freshwater supplies. All fresh water needs to be imported or come from the desalination plant which currently isn't operating.

Christmas has arrived!

December 19th was my birthday. And it was also the day where Antigua felt the most powerful earthquake since some time in the 80s. Although it didn't last long. I spent the first part of the day making my way to St. John's for the first time and locating the Red Cross. After formalities I was set on finding a connection to the next country: St. Kitts and Nevis. I had researched the internet and several sites noted that there were no international ferry connections within Antigua and Barbuda - only the domestic connection between those exact to islands. So I knew that the most likely options would be cargo ships or a private yacht. Being that it was friday I had no real trust in getting in touch with the shipping companies until Monday. So I went all in on locating a yacht heading west. In the evening our Viking trio celebrated the eventful day with good food and alcohol. I had some coconut shrimp and lobster with white wine. It was as earlier mentioned Friday and had I been on vacation, younger and single then it would have been the right environment to loose control. We had a good night with some water pipe, more alcohol and card games at a club.

I must have asked around 10 mega yachts where they were heading. No luck.

The next day I started early on the VHF radio calling out for information regarding anyone heading towards St. Kitts. I then proceeded to speak with all the local service companies and anyone I thought might have any information I could use. I was advised to put up a written notice at all the most strategic locations around the various yachting ports. So I wrote up a greeting and walked for hours putting them up. In the afternoon I discovered that there is a ferry to Montserrat and another ferry from there to St. Kitts and Nevis! Dow!! All that effort and energy waisted. How is it possible that there is a ferry and that no one tells me - furthermore that searching the internet confirms the opposite? Oh well, I received confirmation that the ferry would leave Sunday morning at 09:00am so I needed to be there at 07:00am. That meant that I needed to find a bus around 06:00am so I would have to get up earlier than that. Especially because the "Seagull" was at anchor and I first needed to get from the boat to land.

A great guy named Elvis gave me a ride back to English Harbor. We counted the churches along the short road: 21! This one is pink :)

That Saturday I had been invited to a Christmas party in St. John's which I attended. I had a good time although I was really low on energy. My personal batteries were certainly in the red. I reached the beach at English Harbor at midnight which was already to late for me. From the beach I could easily have dropped my clothes and swimmed out to the "Seagull" but I had my VHF and radioed for the Vikings to pick me up at the beach.  No response? I tried a few more times without luck and started to realize that the dinghy was not anywhere near the boat. They must have been out enjoying the nightlife? I would have swam if it hadn't been for my daypack which I didn't want to leave behind. So I waited for the 2 fellow Vikings. I waited for hours without result. The coastguard arrived quite suspicious of me. Perfect I thought! They could give me a ride! But they would do no such thing. I then slept an hour on the beach and woke up freezing, realizing that they had still not returned. I tried calling for a water taxi but without result. This was ridiculous. The boat was right there!! I eventually borrowed a nearby kayak and supplied myself with a paddle from a motorized dinghy. I then paddled out to the "Seagull" packed my bag, transported it back to land (more or less dry) and left the paddle and kayak where I found them. I then walked off into the dark towards the main road. I reached that road after about 40 minutes. Having had to take a rest several times especially due to the steep road I was on. But probably also the lack of sleep, rest and food. It was now 05:00am and I found a parking lot where I set my alarm so that I could sleep on the ground for an hour. The first bus came to pick me up at 06:30am...so I had 30 minutes of swaying like a zombie while staring at the road and at the time.

The "secret" ferry to Montserrat.

Well, it all worked out. I got my ticket, I got on the boat, reached Montserrat before noon and was told that the ferry to St. Kitts and Nevis would not depart until in the evening. Montserrat looked very pretty from where I arrived. But it was polluted with laud music from several sources and with the remains of beach parties and BBQ's. It's sometimes sad to see what we do to our planet.

However there is no doubt about Montserrat's beauty.

The ferry which should have left at 4:00pm actually left around 10:00pm taking me to St. Kitts & Nevis. I eventually arrived and life did not get much easier. But it eventually got better. Read about it on Friday ;)


Best regards
Torbjørn C. Pedersen (Thor) - let's keep smiling :)