Dominica Indian River (pt 1)
We've been having so much fun in Dominica that we are falling behind on processing pictures and videos! Today was a rest day, and we needed it!
On Monday, we took a morning tour of Indian River with our friends Mark and Elaine on SV Kaimana. The river is part of the national park system here on the island. We've been told that hurricane Maria caused a lot of damage to the canopy, but that things are rebounding. Our experience was quite amazing, I can't imagine what it would have been like before the storm.
Our tour guide, Kelvin. Engines are not allowed up the river, so he rowed all of us up and back down the river while giving us tons of information about life on the island, the plants, places, and animals that we were seeing, etc. He was fantastic!
One of our stops was at a movie set from Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Apparently this was the "witch's hut" that Jack Sparrow and other pirates visited. We should probably watch that movie...Elaine and Lynda refused to cackle like witches.
Our final stop before turning around was at a place called the Bush Bar. I think they are open for afternoon tours, but not for the early morning drinkers. We think they missed an opportunity to serve coffee and pastries/fruit!
We chose to take the morning tour because we would be able to see more wildlife. And we were not disappointed.
A kingfisher tried to be elusive, but I managed to get 2 decent shots as it flew off just above the water.
We got to watch a large hummingbird hover over the river for quite a while
A bananaquit (right) and a nest that our guide identified as belonging to a bananaquit (left)
We saw at least 2 purple gallinule
That's all I got pictures of, there were more things that I was unable to capture.
Part 2 (scenery and flora) will come next, possibly tomorrow. My laptop tells me that it needs a rest... 😄