I have an uncle from Pointe Michel who grew up rinsing salt from clothes and watching the Caribbean Sea decide people’s plans. When someone in our coastal communities says they are going backdoor, I know it means a small open boat sliding out from a fishing village, heading for Guadeloupe or Martinique without papers, hoping the night stays quiet. It sounds easy when friends trade voice notes, but it is never easy on the water. I have seen police bring a boat back into Scotts Head with faces I recognise, and I have stood next to families who waited through the dark because a crossing did not land. That is what we are talking about here, not adventure, not clever shortcuts, just real choices with real risk and lives that can vanish between shorelights.
The West & East Coast, the routes we pretend not to see
Stand on the Scotts Head Peninsula and you can feel how close another life seems. On a clear evening the lights toward Martinique are right there. Along the West Coast, the coves between Salisbury and Portsmouth are calm in the afternoon and dark by midnight; Toucari and Capuchin look north across a short sweep of water; Soufrière and Pointe Michel face the same sea but with different moods. On the East Coast, Marigot and Calibishie stare straight into the rougher Atlantic Ocean, yet people still try to move from those shores. Law enforcement has said it plainly in public briefings: arrests linked to the Marigot and Wesley area, and another interception at Toucari a few days later, while a separate case involved an interception off Scotts Head. This is not Beff people are pounding. It is a pattern that repeats in the same bays and beaches that raised us.
Young people tell me the pitch is always the same. Leave at odd hours, touch shore before breakfast, disappear into a French address book by noon. The Channel does not care about anyone’s plans. Small open boats with one engine, no lights, no radio, and no jackets turn a short hop into a search zone. In December 2020 a small boat heading for Martinique went down in the canal between our islands. Three people were rescued. Others were never found. That is how fast “backdoor” becomes a headline, then mourning followed by a vigil.
There is another danger that people conveniently brush aside. Sometimes an interception is not calm. In one case off the Wesley and Marigot coast, police reported an exchange of gunfire during an illegal-entry operation. When adults sell a ride as a harmless shortcut, they leave that part out.
The real cost, compared with the ferry
People always ask about price. There is no single price. Smugglers charge what your nerves will pay. Regional reporting shows that clandestine fares can start in the low hundreds of euros and climb far higher depending on the risk and who is organizing the trip. Set that beside the legal option many of us quietly use every year: the L’Express Des Îles ferry between Roseau and Pointe-à-Pitre or Fort-de-France. The operator itself advertises round trips from about 99 euros with a 25-kilogram bag included, while travel planners list typical one-way fares in the 57 to 92 US dollar range and a crossing time a little over two hours. One path takes your money and your chances. The other gives you a manifest, a seat, and a way home.
But “cost” is not only cash. If a deal goes bad at sea, there is no customer desk, only a captain and the currents. If you land in Guadeloupe and meet a patrol instead of a cousin, you are not a traveler, you are a case file. Guadeloupean authorities have dismantled clandestine networks that moved people via Marie-Galante, and courts there have sent offenders to prison for illegal entry and trafficking. This is how the French side reads the trade. They do not see romance in it. They see organized crime that uses small boats and our coastline.
Saying it plain to our youth
This is a personal plea to the youth who keep hearing that backdoor is a shortcut to a better life. I understand the hustle. Jobs are tight, bills do not wait, and the French islands feel like they are just across the street. I get it. I have watched the sea change personality in minutes and seen families pace a shoreline when a boat missed landfall. None of that is an adventure. It is roulette dressed up as an easy money vibe.
Law enforcement has not been whispering. The Commonwealth of Dominica Police Force has held briefings, named places and times, and warned that those who aid illegal entry and exit will face charges. They have intercepted small boats off Scotts Head and in the north of the island, and they have reported arrests tied to Marigot and Wesley. The message on this side is simple. The sea is watched and the risk is real.
The French side is not sleepy either. Maritime units out of Pointe-à-Pitre and Fort-de-France treat Dominica links as a live border issue. When boats capsize, their bulletins do not use pretty words. They list coordinates, missing persons, and the number of hours a helicopter has searched. That 2020 sinking between our islands is the kind of night they mean. We share a channel, and we share its tragedies.
If you are tempted, put the two pictures side by side. Picture yourself crouched in a small boat after midnight, salt in your eyes, hoping the weather holds and the engine behaves. Now picture yourself on a legal ferry, two hours on the Caribbean Sea, sunlight on your face, a stamped ticket in your pocket, stepping off where officers wave people through. One path keeps your mother sleeping at night. The other keeps her phone at full volume, waiting for a call from a number she does not recognize.
And to the adults who arrange these rides and recruit teenagers, be honest about what you are selling to our young people. You are not offering courage. You are renting out fear, hour by hour, for cash. Stop dressing that up.
Dominica’s west-coast villages and east-coast villages are full of people who want to live, work, and travel with dignity. Give them reasons to stay in daylight. Help them use the port. Share accurate ferry info. Keep telling the truth about what really happens out there when a small open boat leaves at midnight. We do not need another memorial. We need our people home, and alive.
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