Soufriere, Dominica

We woke up from the sunrise before our 7am alarm. The hummingbirds were busy flitting about the flowering trees around our front deck. We had a snorkeling excursion this morning though so had no time to birdwatch and instead got cleaned up and headed to the restaurant for breakfast.

The restaurant was pretty empty except for other guests who also had morning excursions. We were seated by the window with a great view of Soufriere Bay where we were snorkeling later this morning. There was a nice breeze coming in from the ocean. (There’s no actual glass window, just wooden louvres).

It’s a buffet breakfast, with mostly local Dominica / Creole options such as saltfish, smoked herring and callaloo, as well as fresh fruit from their gardens: passionfruit, guava, soursop, bananas, pineapple, papaya and custard apple. They also had scrambled eggs for my provincial breakfast tastes :) the coffee was the same local Dominica coffee that we had yesterday afternoon! Although I stuck with my black tea (Liptons).

We got back to our room and got our snorkeling gear together. Luckily we were in one of the closest rooms to the main lodge - otherwise it’s up to a 10 minute walk or a wait for the golf cart shuttle.

We met up with Weefee, our snorkeling guide, right at 9am. We loaded our gear into the hotel van for the short five minute drive into Soufriere.

We were about to gear up when I realized I’d forgotten my camera in the van. So sort of ran back best I could in my dive boots to get it. On my way back I ran into one of the local characters who chatted me up for a few minutes. Heather and Weefee were wondering what was taking me so long, until me and my new friend rounded the corner and Weefee figured it out.

Anyways we entered the water from the shore at Bubble Beach. Soufriere Bay is a submerged volcano from which geothermal activity still bubbles to the top. The bubbles are more prevalent at the nearby Champagne Beach, but so are the cruise ship tourists.

Weefee led us around the bay, generally heading north. Almost immediately we spotted a couple leatherback turtles, and stingray, and some other type of ray. Not a bad start at all!

We turned back towards land and snorkeled alongside a wall where the rocky outcrop drops straight down into the water. Soufrière Bay has the calmest water in which I’ve ever snorkeled - perfect for taking pictures. Unfortunately it was an overcast day so the lighting wasn’t that great.

Towards the end, we saw an octopus! Neither of us had seen an octopus previously. It was really cool.

Just before we got back to shore, we warmed up by snorkeling through the bubbles. Haven’t done that before either :)

We had been out in the water for over 90 minutes and worked up an appetite. Weefee stopped in at a snackette in town for freshly made chicken roti, and then to another place for a local juice.

We drove back to the resort and had a very tasty lunch :)

That was it for our day, the rest of the afternoon we relaxed in our lodge, had a local coffee and ice cream, watched the birds closer to sunset.

For dinner I had the stewed goat and Heather had a plantain lasagna. Both were quite good. We’re preferring the a là carte menus here as opposed to the three-course set menu at Manicou River which was too much food for us. They also have Kubuli on tap (the local beer) so I had a couple :)