Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine June 2015
Welcome to Caribbean Compass, the most widely-read boating publication in the Caribbean! THE MOST NEWS YOU CAN USE - feature articles on cruising destinations, regattas, environment, events...
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ALL ASHORE…<br />
JUNE <strong>2015</strong> CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 22<br />
VAUGHAN-RICHARDS<br />
After a recent hike in Dominica’s Syndicate Forest,<br />
my companions and I stopped at the IGA supermarket<br />
near the Ross Medical School. I spied bars of chocolate<br />
wrapped in plastic with a decorative label: “Pointe<br />
Baptiste Estate, Dark Chocolate 80%”. In small print<br />
at the bottom it said “Producer: Alan Napier, Calibishie.”<br />
I bought two and, being hungry after hours of hiking,<br />
opened one and offered it around. It was wonderful.<br />
If you stand on the eastern part of red rocks at<br />
Pointe Baptiste, Calibishie, on the north coast of the<br />
island, and look back toward the land, you will see a<br />
small darkish beach, a steep hill, and a house just<br />
peeking over the top of the vegetation. This house,<br />
built by Elma and Lennox Napier in 1934, is part of<br />
the 25-acre Pointe Baptiste Estate.<br />
Elma is an iconic figure in Dominica, featured on a<br />
postage stamp for being the first woman ever elected<br />
to a legislative council in the entire British West<br />
Indies. In those days a road of sorts ran from<br />
Portsmouth through Calibishie to Marigot, and a road<br />
network surrounded Roseau and the south, but nothing<br />
linked the two. To travel from one to the other the<br />
best option was the government launch. One of Elma’s<br />
political achievements was the building of a road linking<br />
the two halves of the island. Today you can drive<br />
from Portsmouth to Calibishie in about 20 minutes. In<br />
1932 it was an hour-and-a-half ride on a rickety bus.<br />
Elma was born in Scotland in 1892 into a family<br />
both aristocratic and rich. The eldest child of Sir<br />
William Cumming, she was born a rebel, did not like<br />
that women were treated as less important than men.<br />
She fell in love with a married man, breaking many<br />
taboos, before settling down with respectable international<br />
businessman, Maurice Gibbs. With him, she<br />
In Dominica,<br />
a Chocolate Tour<br />
With History<br />
by Chris Doyle<br />
CHRIS DOYLE (2)<br />
had two children, Daphne and Ronald. Her life was<br />
turned around when she met Lennox Napier, a businessman<br />
but also a bohemian with somewhat radical<br />
politics, interested in art and literature, a man who<br />
had travelled and fallen in love with Tahiti and its<br />
simple lifestyle. In a major and, in that era (1924),<br />
scandalous, step Elma divorced Maurice and married<br />
Lennox. With Lennox, Elma did not have to adapt: she<br />
could be herself. They fell in love with Dominica during<br />
a <strong>Caribbean</strong> sojourn for Lennox’s health.<br />
They bought land and started a new life here with<br />
their children, Patricia and Michael, and Elma’s<br />
daughter by her earlier marriage, Daphne. (Ronald<br />
stayed in England, became a pilot and was killed in<br />
action in the Second World War). This story is beautifully<br />
told in her book Black and White Sands, available<br />
on Amazon. It includes details of the building of the<br />
house. To oversee the work they started by camping in<br />
a round thatched shelter, while they built a small cottage<br />
where they could live while the house was being<br />
built. The wooden frame and tongue-and-groove wood<br />
for the main house was prefabricated in Roseau and<br />
sailed to Point Baptiste on a local sloop, which<br />
anchored offshore. The first parts were rafted ashore<br />
by local boats, but after a pay dispute, the rest was<br />
dumped in the sea and allowed to drift ashore.<br />
Everything was carried up the hill by hand.<br />
—Continued on next page<br />
Clockwise from below:<br />
A view of the historic seaside estate<br />
Alan Napier, at center, explains his cacao-bean drying<br />
process to visitors<br />
The finished product: chocolate bars infused with<br />
island flavors<br />
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