The PAYS Yachting Festival fulfills its mission to sailors while celebrating the Nature Isle
Story and photos by Elaine Lembo
A Tuesday morning in late March 2025 was Race to Mero day on the volcanic leeward island of Dominica. Minutes remained before Lung Wai, our Beneteau 46, was to head to the starting line off Prince Rupert Bay, and we were sweating through our competitive cruising woes.
So far, we’d certainly had a blast at festivities and tours of this stunning country during the third annual PAYS Yachting Festival. Today, on the upside, our slapdash crew was running on a liquid diet of rum punch and beer because the only breakfast place at the PAYS pavilion at Turtle Beach in the waterfront town of Portsmouth is closed Tuesdays (festivals be damned). On the downside, we couldn’t get the hydraulic swim platform of the former Sunsail charter boat to swivel up into the closed position.
“We’ll have to forget the race,” fretted Michael Hauhuth, our skipper and Lung Wai’s owner. The collective silent reply: No way! We hustled. Crew mate Nico Baumann started to pull rods apart and inspected the electrical panel belowdecks for a blown fuse; retired offshore skipper and racer Dale Cheek hopped to, leading lines at the ready off the port and starboard stern quarters. I laid flat on my belly and made myself useful in the way that only former deck swabs know how to do by using elbow grease to hold the platform up while the other two tied it off on either end to keep it in the raised position.
Michael was sailing solo while he waited for his wife to fly in from Europe and join him on their bluewater travels. Had we not met only minutes before, he would have been up a creek without a paddle. As it was, not only did our crew of friendly strangers MacGyver a problem, we continued to relish our bouncy and serendipitous sail south in brisk 25-knot tradewinds. We got to know each other a bit more, and we carried out a fun mission together.
It was an early and robust start to a day that ran bright, hot and long. It wouldn’t end before it blossomed into an even longer night amplified by rain showers, a PAYS awards ceremony complete with remarks from organizers and tourism bigwigs, a barbecue, musical entertainment from a deejay, and throngs of cruisers and locals partying at a street fair to the beat of the St. Joseph Mahaut Bouyon Lapeau Kabuwit drummers and garishly costumed Sensay dancers.
Casual, rich bonding moments such as these, thanks to PAYS and its activities, helped us fulfill the core mission of all sailors roaming the Caribbean: a search for adventures as soft as the beach in the anchorage where we make landfall, a way to get an inexpensive bite to eat and a cold beer, and an easy venue to meet new friends.
PAYS: Good Works Beget Good Works
Along with that high-season mission, sailors want and need stuff: a dock to tie off the dinghy, showers and heads, a market, a bank, a hardware store and pharmacy, a place to responsibly toss trash, and a sense of security.
More than anything else, sailors want to feel that the place they’ve discovered is undiscovered, the quintessential Caribbean island of the imagination, where life is simple and natural, the pace slow, the demands few, the schedules nonexistent, the crowds scant, the locals friendly and welcoming, the scenery enticing and wonderful.
Increasingly over the years, lush Dominica has answered this call. This hasn’t come about without a lot of work. In some ways, it still has miles to go, despite strides in ecotourism accommodations and excavation projects to make way for a new marina and a massive international airport. When it comes to marine services, Dominica is no St. Thomas or Tortola, no St. Martin or Antigua — or St. Lucia, Grenada and Trinidad — and it doesn’t want to be. It also probably can’t be, and that’s just as well, according to island locals, business owners, and authorities. “We are very small but very rich,” says tour operator and musician Kenneth Gussie. “Not in diamonds and pearls, but in nature.”
Amid this stunning backdrop of endless rainforest delights (heliconia sprout like wildflowers along the roadways), and islanders who adore their homeland, are the diligent, relentless, and occasionally ad hoc efforts of PAYS. The acronym stands for the Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security, a bevy of water and land taxi tour operators who rate the members of the sailing crew networking service Offshore Passage Opportunities among their top supporters — one could even call them the top supporter.
For more than a decade, the folks of OPO, led by its cheerleading, fearless and partially-retired founder, bluewater voyager Hank Schmitt, have raised tens of thousands of dollars to support installation of moorings, the seaside PAYS pavilion, showers and heads, and a dinghy dock in Portsmouth. During post-hurricane recovery in 2017 and throughout the covid pandemic, OPO members spurred on by Schmitt stepped up in a humanitarian way, helping PAYS families and taxi operators regain their footing with financial aid and transporting recovery supplies.
As they court the hearts and souls of sailors, OPO and PAYS also generate a funky, enthusiastic buzz to raise awareness of these ongoing nautical infrastructure-building duties. Their top marketing tool was first known as Yachtie Appreciation Week, which morphed a few years ago into today’s PAYS Dominica Yachting Festival. Once national and local government and tourism officials realized a good thing had been going on without them, they too decided to climb aboard, lending the event its current name.
It was these officials, along with PAYS leaders, who turned out to fete Schmitt and kick off the third annual festival on the evening of March 22, 2025. At the event’s welcome reception, party and buffet at the Cabrits cruise ship dock facilities near Fort Shirley, they repeatedly sang the praises of PAYS, Schmitt and OPO, and finally, “yachters and yachties” for their presence and contribution to the country’s tourism efforts.
“Hank has been carrying the heavy chains of PAYS, he has recruited the cruisers of OPO, and they have not given up on us,” said Andrew “Cobra” O’Brien, PAYS president. “Welcome here tonight!”
Indeed there was much to celebrate: the planned expansion of PAYS moorings in the towns of Mero and Newtown farther south along the coast, a collaboration with Budget Marine in Guadeloupe to provide tackle, making it a truly Caribbean undertaking, and the unwavering interest of sailors and their ever-widening circle. The evening saw participation from sailors “between boats” who flew in for the festival from as near as the United States to as far as Southeast Asia.
“What’s going on?” Schmitt asked the crowd. “The best week of your life!”
We believed him, and we’d barely embarked on any adventures beyond meeting each other, much less crewing with each other in a regatta.
Mission Accomplished
Along with good chow, cold beer, and a range of outdoor activities, the Race to Mero (and the festival overall) gave sailors what they love most: accomplishing their mission. OPO plays a role there, too, because a crew matched for offshore sailing deliveries often become friends, stay in touch, and reunite as much as they can, whether on land or at sea. This is music in the ears of PAYS, Dominica tourism officials, and business owners eager to promote their home as a great and economically worthy place to spend money.
When I signed on for the festival, the hard work of finding like-minded friends had already been done for me. Flying on the same nonstop flight to Dominica from Newark, New Jersey, were Pepper and Chris Blankenship, who joked that they now sail aboard the SV Nothing while they shop for the next ride. Chris had previously done bluewater deliveries with my Lung Wai sailing mate Cheek for OPO, and they had stayed in touch. And the Blankenships had previously cruised the Bahamas aboard Endless Reach, a Gemini catamaran. Rounding out our flight group were OPO passagemaker Steve Scalia and his wife, Betsy, from upstate New York, who sail the 36-foot Bel Vento, a 2002 Hallberg Rassy MKII on Lake Champlain.
And that wasn’t all. As we toured historic Fort Shirley under the guidance of Dominican-born historian Dr. Lennox Honychurch, we were joined by more cruising sailors drawn to the festival.
Novelist and inventor Paul Weston and wife Sally had been en route to Grenada to put their Outborn 42 cruising sailboat Kadash up for the summer, when they decided on a return detour to Dominica. Weston, whose work, Gulf of Lyons, was announced in the April 2025 issue of Caribbean Compass, told me they’d already made landfall in Dominica in January, and appreciated the mooring and dinghy docking services of PAYS in Portsmouth.
“We’ll return next year,” Weston said as we toured the fort. “The main attraction for us is the unspoiled natural environment. Cruising sailors should know that Dominica is one of the gems of the Caribbean and they should not hesitate to visit. The people in general are very friendly. The PAYS organization is a very good thing, and is of great assistance to the cruiser.”
News of the festival was a happy coincidence for boatbuilders Loz and Mark Cann, owners of the beautiful gaff-rigged Arro, a 37-foot steel-hulled Falmouth oyster dredger. After their landfall in the Nature Isle the couple was headed back to Antigua, where they’d do work at the Slipway and race in the annual Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta.
Mary Bowker, of Remedy, a 1983 Wauquiez Hood 38, was focused on a reunion with Dominica, thanks to the festival. Bowker, who’d worked and lived on Dominica with a teen adventure program in 2006/7, said “I fell in love with the people and the place and wanted to visit again. I have seen the effort PAYS has made to make Dominica a safe and enjoyable stop for cruisers and I always want to support the efforts however I can. I have a great time at the festival — I enjoyed the community of sailors and Dominicans. I especially enjoy the day of service.”
In this pattern our adventures rolled on. During our visit to the Kalinago territory, home to the indigenous people of the island, I urged a father who’d cruised in with his sons to join us in Portsmouth for one of the weekly PAYS barbecues. Aboard a small skiff snaking our way through the Indian River, liveaboard cruiser Julie Folgate and I joked about our consignment shop wardrobes. Julie also took time to recount the travels she and husband Chris have had over the years of sailing Marly, a 38-foot Caliber, with their two children. The couple sailed into Dominica eager to catch up with their Bahamas cruising buddies, the Blankenships. More would join us still at Mero on race day. The fun just never stopped.
Through all the tours — one day to walk the Red Rocks on the northern end, another to swim the freshwater Emerald Pool, then drive through the Roseau Valley; snorkeling among the bubbles at Champagne Reef; and last but not least, a stop and walk along the boulders of the massive Trafalgar Falls — we encountered sailors. Our merry band at each turn stood a chance of expanding.
By the time we’d finished the race to Mero and were hanging out, even more appeared — friends of the Folgates and Blankenships. Beverages flowed, time vanished.
From the beach, as the sun set, I could see a dozen boats anchored out. I thought about the words of Smith Prince, vice president of MAYS, the Mero arm of PAYS, who told me that the goals there are similar to those in Portsmouth. “What we hope to have here is an extension of PAYS,” he said. “Water, immigration, laundry, dinghy dock, showers. Our shallow anchorage is an advantage. We’ll collaborate with PAYS so we’re not at split purposes,” he added. “Portsmouth has been doing it for 20 years, and we just started.”
I mulled it over, asking myself, will sailors make landfall in Mero? An earlier chat with Bowker had already answered the question. “It would be great if Mero had a dock,” she said. “Cruisers should know that the people of Dominica are generous, caring, and lighthearted. PAYS is there to help, not pester. Smile and talk with them. Support them.”
The 2026 PAYS Dominica Yachting Festival runs from March 21-27, 2026 (paysdominica.com).
