Portsmouth

Portsmouth is Dominica's second town and its quietest doorway: a curve of houses on Prince Rupert Bay in the north-west, where the Indian River slides out of the forest under a roof of mangroves and bloodwood roots, and where the twin hills of the Cabrits peninsula hold Fort Shirley, the British garrison of the 1770s that a Dominican historian and a generation of volunteers dug back out of the jungle. The island calls itself the Nature Island and means it — this is where the Waitukubuli National Trail, the Caribbean's longest, comes down to the sea, and where sperm whales live year-round a few kilometres offshore.

The traveller is rowed up the Indian River — engines are banned — by a guide who names every heron and points out the shack built for a witch of the sea in a pirate film; climbs the Cabrits to the fort's restored barracks and batteries and the view over the bay; snorkels the calm coves of Toucari and swims at Batibou's wild beach; walks a segment of the national trail into the forest; and, on a boat out of the bay, waits with the hydrophone for the click of the cachalots that make Dominica the surest place on Earth to meet them.

The Guide's honesty: Dominica is not a beach island and does not pretend to be — its treasures are green, wet and uphill, and shoes that grip matter more than sandals —; the country rebuilt with grit after Hurricane Maria in 2017, and the welcome is proportionate; the road from Roseau is slow and lovely; the river boatmen are licensed and their prices are set, so choose by rapport, not by haggling; and whale trips depend on the sea's mood — go with the day free and the expectations honest.