Friday, December 9, 2022
We think we discovered paradise, again…!
We write to you from a small seaside bar adorned with shells, coral, and driftwood. Nick is the guy behind the bar and whips up the best tiki bar drinks we’ve ever had. The waves are hitting the shore in the background in a rhythm that lulls you into relaxation. A woman appears from the palm trees behind us carrying freshly caught tuna. Upon our request, the kitchen slices it into sashimi and serves it to our table as fresh as it comes. We’re in no rush to leave this afternoon.
We’ve been in Dominica a week now and are in love with this rugged island. We went on an epic all-day hike yesterday with Keith’s brother, Jake, and his friend, Chad, over a mountain into a valley of geothermal activity spewing hot sulphuric water from cracks in the ground. A bit further in the trek we came to a volcanic boiling lake. The postcard is us in a naturally made hot spring pool we found along the way, where the water had cooled just enough to be the perfect hot tub temperature!
The hike was quite intense and a little more than I think we all anticipated. It was 6.6 miles out-and-back, but with 2,375 feet of elevation gain taking us a full 7 hours to complete. We started by summiting a smaller mountain and passed through a fresh water river on the other side before having to summit Mount Nicholls, which gave us picturesque views of the many surrounding mountains before we made our way into the Valley of Desolation. At times the trail was quite steep as we scrambled through a ravine on the mountain side in and out of the valley. Bosun came along and probably handled it better than all of us despite having to jump and scale boulders. The valley felt like another world with boiling water seeping out of the ground, so hot it was steaming as it reached the air. The whole valley smelled of sulphur. We made our way a bit further to the destination of the hike, the Boiling Lake, a fumarole or opening in the earth's crust where volcanic gases are emitted. And then, we turned around and did it all in reverse!
While we don’t have a video ready to send to you all, we do want to share something else we’ve been working on. Recently, we’ve received interest in our story of sailing with an electric motor, so we have written articles for a sailing magazine, Caribbean Compass. Our first article was recently published and you can check it out here starting on page 18.
We hope you all are having an amazing holiday season with your family and friends.
Much love,
Keith & Becca
Comments