It is only the 3rd day on the island and already we have met more folks than the entire 2 weeks on Kona last November.
Our first ‘official’ meeting was our hosts at Marigot. The folks run the Coffee River Cottages. S is from Canada and S is from New Zealand. They moved here 27 years ago and jumped right into being citizens of Dominica, cutting all ties with their birth nations. Great company and interesting stories. There was a friend from Barabados visiting. He started life in Britain and has lived in the Caribbean most of his adult life. Once a chef he turned his attention to the sale of exotic cooking ingredients and says he makes a very good living.
Easier to meet are the people on the dive boat. J is from Santa Barbara. His wife rides horses and he gets to dive. There is only the three of us on the boat so we talk a lot, nice fellow who came to the Caribbean for a holiday not necessily to dive. He and his wife C, show up again on Saturday and join the boat to snorkel.
The dive guys F and N come with the boat. They are friendly types born on the island. F is particularly attentive and helps everyone of us don our gear and get in the water. The toughest part of getting to know these two is their accent. It is thick and we have to listen very attentively to decern what dive site we are at and the nature of the impending dive.
Last night we met a couple from Switzerland. They have always traveled but have recently retired and intend to up the ante and travel more. Tomorrow they are hitching a ride with us and going to board the boat to do a little snorkelling.
We did have more company diving today. A young guy, J, who is attending med school here and learned to dive thinking, ‘when in Rome’. He doesn’t have too many dives but he is off on his own spear fishing the dreaded lionfish.
K and N are from Arizona and have been diving a long time but like us are land locked and have to travel to get in the water. They will be on the boat for a few days so we will cross paths again tomorrow.
It is amazing how many Americans we meet and not one of them voted for the new president. Had a short conversation about American politics, nomally a tabu subject when talking to newly met folks but everyone more or less agreed and we all parted with body parts entact.
The stories we get are great and the people are very amenible. Hopefully we continue meeting new friends at the same rate we have up to now. We are about to step into the local scene downtown Portsmouth and see if there are a few stories we can pick up there.