Anyone been there lately & if so need the skinny on this area ie the diving, the food, & topside activities---& the weather also.....TIA......
We got back on the 20th from two weeks in Dominica. We had a great time. Diving was great. I'v been meaning to write up a full trip report and post photos but haven't had the time. Here are some thoughts. We did 5 dives up at Portsmouth and 13 dives down south. Diving down south was much better. The topography is great, deep walls, mini walls, pinnacles and flat reefs. Lost of color in the reefs, coral, sponges, and other stuff. Fish life is not as plentiful as Cozumel but still very interesting. We saw 2 seahorses, but only up north, none down south. Saw flying gunnards, peacock flounders most dives, spotted morays 2- 4 a dive, spotted drums 4 -6 each dive, a turtle on every other dive. Saw very few angel fish, but many of the other normal reef fish, damslefish, parrotfish, lots of trumpetfish in brown, blue and yellow. We did 11 dives with NID and 2 with Dive Dominica. Dive Dominica ran a nice operation, I had no complaints about them or their boats, but our two dives with them were in a group of 11 divers and 2 DMs. In our 11 dives with NID 6 were 4 divers and DM and 5 were just the DM and the 2 of us. That makes for some nice dives. Both with Dive Dominica and NID our dives averaged 60 minutes. Both use Luxfer 80's. There was a group at the Castle Comfort from Kansas staying 2 weeks and planning on doing 50 dives. It was their 4th trip tehre. They said they enjoyed the shore dive at Castle Comfort, more of a muck dive but with interetsing creatures. We never did it though.
We stayed at the Evergreen but ate one night at Castle Comfort and had a few drinks at their bar. Their bar is much more fun than the Evergreen, more of the typical tiki hut beach bar. The food at Castle Comfort was good, but thought dinner at Evergreen to be better. Food at Ft. Young was good, both in their restaurant (a little pricey) and in their bar (very reasonable).
One issue with the three hotels in a row (Evergreen, Castle Comfort and Anchorage) is that the Crazy Coconuts bar a block away plays music with bass thumping on Friday and Saturday - on Friday till 3:30 AM and Saturday untl 5:30 AM. Bring earplugs and be ready for it. It's probably worse for the Evergreen since it's the closest but have heard that guests at the other two hotels can also hear it.
Do go onto the rainforest some, it's spectacular. Trafalgar falls is very doable after diving, even Middleham Falls or Emerald Pool could be done. We did the Boiling Lake hike, took 6 hours roundtrip but it was worth it - it really boils and the hike along the way was interesting, if not slightly challenging (12 miles roundtrip with 1500 ft elevation gain).
That's a start on my recent info, ask any other questions and I'll try to answer as I'm sure a few other Dominica (dom in EEK a) fans will also join in.
And drink some Kubulis while there!