Having spent our time rolling in Portsmouth, we moved south by about 20 Nm to Roseau, the capital of Dominica, last Friday. We tied up on a mooring buoy again as the beach shelved very sharply indeed and was unsuitable for safe anchoring. The Dominica Marine Centre provided the moorings and provided us with a good location to explore the town of Roseau and hike up into the neighbouring mountains from the nearby village of Laudat. It did not take long to realise that Dominica is a special place; unspoilt by tourism, incredibly friendly locals keen to tell you all about their home, and absolutely stunning hiking country only matched in my memory by hiking in Nepal many years ago. The town itself is warm and welcoming with different music playing around every corner, and the fruit and veg market was without doubt the best we have visited throughout the entire Caribbean. After a fair amount of investigation, we managed to find a landcape gardener and mountain guide called Peter who agreed to take us up to The Boiling Lake on Monday. What a walk! Best described as a gruelling hike with spectacular scenery, this is one not to be missed. Setting off from Laudat with Peter, we climbed steadily up through the rainforest, over several peaks, and past an emergency helicopter landing site, before our final ascent to the Boiling Lake, the largest volcanic lake of its type in the world. During the final 30 minutes of ascent, steam was pouring out of the ground from various vents and the water in the rivers and springs was boiling. Peter brought three fresh eggs with him, placed them in a cloth and immersed them in one of the rivers. More on this later. On looking over the crater rim, the view was amazing; an enormous lake several hundred feet below us boiling at 100 Deg C with steam everywhere. We had never seen anything like this before. An ideal lunch spot, we broke out the salted cod fish, local tomatoes and bread, and tucked into a great local lunch, before heading back down the rim (on the outside, I might add!) to the point on the stream where we left the eggs. Still there, and perfectly cooked into hard-boiled eggs, another snack was had and the rest of lunch finished. The eggs only really needed 5 minutes in the stream, so they were well done after the one and a half hours they had been in there! The trek back down was very tiring indeed, mainly because it involved going up and down over three mountain ridges again, and certainly exercised the calf muscles which are still aching three days later! The hike made a great last day in Dominica and, along with the friendship and kindness of all the people we met there, has made a lasting impression on us. We will return! If you like adventurous hiking, I would really recommend a holiday here; it's an amazing country.