Rear-Ended in Dominica!

We were on our way to shop for groceries this morning and heard a screeching from behind and then a "thump" - I was hit from behind by a minivan! The damage to my rental car was minimal but the minivan suffered a cracked headlight assembly and bent metal around the lens. The owner of the condo where we were renting came out and he was instrumental in communications with the driver of the minivan in getting all the pertinent information. I took photos of the damage including the skid marks of the minivan before he rear-ended us. It was very evident that the minivan was going too fast.

Once that excitement was out of the way, we trekked into town for groceries and found it was the last day of the month when everybody got paid - the stores were packed! A 5 minute checkout turned into an hour. Oh well, we finally got through the line and back home.

After lunch we chose to snorkel Champagne Reef.  It's a unique area that sports underwater vents with escaping gas that looks like champagne bubbles rising through the water. It's all very pretty (see photo). We too our usual photos of interesting fish and enjoyed ourselves for two hours.

At TiTiwi Inn we have excellent WiFi access to the internet and so I checked up on the status of the Dutchess County storm. I e-mailed one of our neighbors and found that the area was out of power for 32 hours! We feel pretty helpless down here in Dominica, even telephone service is hard to get - but thank goodness for the internet and the netbook I took along with me. Just to provide further unsettlement, the couple that's with us used to live in the Hudson Valley and were away for two weeks on a vacation in the wintertime and came home to a flooded home after losing power which allowed the hot water baseboard heating pipes to freeze - which thawed after power returned, bursting the pipes and water poured out. They said the damage totaled $32,000 back when things didn't cost so much. Hopefully, it wasn't so cold and we're okay but it's a great concern as you might imagine. With all that, it's time for bed and a new adventure tomorrow.