Mero Beach, Dominica

It was warmer this morning at Manicou River cause the winds had died down. We were glad we were moving to a place with a/c for the next few days.

We had breakfast, packed up and drove down the steep driveway one last time.

The road south follows the coast, about 90 minutes from tip to tip. The road was in pretty good condition and well-marked. It gets a bit of traffic, as you might expect between the two largest towns in the country.

We stopped for lunch in Mero Beach, based on a recommendation from Kayola, our host at Manicou River. Mero Beach is a cute little beach community, hidden from the main road. We parked at the first place we saw, Vena’s Snackette. Snackettes are typically take-out places, but Vena’s had a few tables in the shade. Got our food (fried chicken, plantain and a deep fried dough) and asked Vena what she had for drinks. She asked us if we wanted a local juice, sure! She ran over to her home across the street and got us two cherry drinks, made from cherries from the tree in her front yard. Later we figured out ‘local’ means homemade.

Anyways the food and local juice were excellent. Washed our hands using the tap on the street, and paid up. For some reason, Vena gave Heather a free package of cashews :)

Got back on the road continuing south. It got progressively busier as we approached the capital, Roseau. Google maps showed some of our route as red! This is normal in a capital, just a bit of a shock compared to the north.

The stop-and-go traffic in the heart of Roseau allowed me to sightsee from the car. It’s a very lively city, with brightly painted colonial buildings and busy sidewalks.

The road becomes narrower about 10 minutes south of Roseau, no longer a major thoroughfare. We passed through Loubière and Pointe Michel (cute little communities) before cutting inland, winding up and down a rocky outcrop. Finally we reached Jungle Bay! It was about 90 minutes driving time from Portsmouth, just as Google maps had predicted.

We checked in, and sorted out our snorkeling excursions over the next couple days. We had originally tried to book with Nature Island Dive, but they were swamped with divers. It was easier all around for us to just organize with the hotel. So they texted Simon at Nature Island and it was all good.

Our room was available so we got ourselves situated and relaxed for a bit. Caught up on laundry. Manicou River is a truer eco lodge and had a limited water supply based on rainfall, so we held off on doing our laundry there. We could have got laundry service but we’re nervous about our dryfit and merino wool stuff getting shrunk.

We went down to the restaurant in the main building for a coffee around 3pm. They had local Dominica coffee on the menu, from beans in nearby Giraudel. It was slightly muddy and excellent.

There’s lots of birds in the trees outside our front deck. I took a lot of pics. I started tracking our sightings in the Merlin app. We recognized a few based on our birdwatching excursion a couple days ago.

Later we went down for dinner. It was packed in the restaurant, with a lot of groups chit chatting away. Quite a difference from the last place where we were the only guests!

We went to bed early-ish. We heard some wings flapping in the dark and thought maybe a bird had flown in earlier. When it flew around it sounded like a bat. Turned out to be a black witch moth, with a wing span of 7" (!) Set up the mosquito net to keep it away from us.

The a/c was nice :)