04/07/2011, Dominica Roussau
Today we left at 7Am for our hike to the famous boiling lake ....
We were accompanied by our guide (Sea Cat) and his dog & another sailing couple from Canada.
We started walking around 8Am and returned short after 2PM ... The guide estimated the distance 7mile each way .. but that's not the fun part about this particular hike.... You go Up and Down- Up Up Up and then Down Down Down and you get to do this pretty much all day long :-)
They put wooden steps in all the way along the 7 mile hike otherwise it would be nearly impossible to do as it is super steep and can be super muddy at times..(it reminded me of ski conditioning at times)
Jill and myself where walking in our standard Caribbean hiking outfit- no rain gear - Flip flops for Jill and Teva's for Georg
It ended up being so muddy, that Jill walked probably half the trail barefoot ...
Bottom line is: We had a great time and really enjoyed the trip.
The picture shows Jill and our guide at the boiling lakes - please notice the free facial we all got as we passed some bubbling mud baths on the way in.
(the guide actually boiled us some eggs for a late breakfast in one of the steaming volcanic outlets)
For those of you who have been at Yellowstone - this is how it's like -just without the fences and the warning signs not to walk across the area... at times, you really wonder if the ground is actually going to hold as it feels a bit soft around certain steaming outlets
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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Comments [5]
I wanna go to this awesome place with YOU!
04/05/2011, Dominica
Kalin and Jesse left today - they will spend the last night at a hotel close to the airport - ready to fly out Wednesday morning..
We on the other hand have now "only" 3 weeks left to make it "back" to Trinidad..
I won't go into any details but having Kalin and Jesse on board was not without
"issues" but in the end it was all good and we all had a good time.
On Sunday we did a long day tour to see a couple of waterfalls with swimming holes and hopefully parrots ... unfortunately the parrots where 'put away' because of the heavy rain and the taxi drive turned out to a bit long for all of us ..
The tour guide/ Taxi driver, brought along his wife /girlfriend ?? She just would not speak to us at all ?????
Still, Dominica is a wonderful island with astonishing tropical plants ..
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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04/01/2011, 15 51.98'N:061 35.23'W
As usual we don't seem to find time for the blog when we have friends on board.. so here is a short recap of the last few days
We did give the boat a good cleaning in Martinique before we went to the airport on march 26th ?? -we actually managed to be on time on the correct day and not late ... they just were about to leave the airport building when we arrived by taxi - PERFECT TIMING !!!!!
The next day we sailed up to Pigeon island where we spent a full day snorkeling (well the only person snorkeling all day was Jill)
Smart ass Georg tried a new approach when jumping in the water from the boat = lets first throw in the mask then jump after it catching it floating on the surface .. great idea - just the mask didn't float and ended up in 12m(40ft.)! of water - it took us some time to locate the mask in the mist of all that coral - Kalin finally was able to reach it with the help of our mooring pole..
Then we moved further up north to Deshais where we visited the botanical gardens (see picture)
We did spend two days in The Saints -did our mandatory walk up to the fortress before we sailed the 20nm to Dominica on Saturday.
The crossing had the winds on our nose at 20-25knts - we actually managed to put the rails into the water at the end will both main and head sail reefed :-)
Now we don't have to fake French anymore :) but there are no more baguettes and croissants :(
Lots of bio-luminescent, hiking to be done, and springs to see! Dominica has 9 active volcanoes!
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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03/21/2011, Deshaies , Guadeloupe
Today we had a beautiful 74nm day sail from Nevis to Guadeloupe. We arrived in Deshaies at the north west end of Guadeloupe just short before 4 PM (we did have to get up at 4Am)
During the sail we passed Montserrat - (see picture) on the north end (to be sure we didn't get any of the ash on our boat ..)
The biggest task this week, is how to clean the boat .....The "only" accessible marina is in the capital and that is a buggy place .... we'll figure it out ..
Next stop on the List is one of Jill's favorites - Pigeon Island = great snorkeling
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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03/20/2011, Charlstown Nevis
We checked out early in the morning in town (very easy procedures)
The "town" seemed empty as everybody was in church - but customs was indeed open.
10:30 Am - now what ???
Lets see if we can find some monkeys Jill said... (breakfast would be nice too Georg said)
We asked a Taxi driver at the ferry dock and he mentioned an old sugar mill for breakfast. Scam artist we first thought as he tried to sell it way to hard ...- but we did it anyway ... while looking for an ATM Jill checked with some locals to see if we could meet up with a guide to do some hiking - and it worked - he promised to be at the ex sugar mill by 11:30 Am..
The Restaurant (ex sugar Mill) turned out to be a wonderful place with astonishing gardens (breakfast was great also -Eggs Benedict ..yummy)
Promptly at 11:30 the guide showed up and we started walking up the hill ( as it turns out you really would not need a guide - but he was fun and easy going-& well worth the money)
After about an hour he had to turn back as he had another commitment ( they kind of squeezed us into their schedule) but we kept going up to a look out
- everything was great - but NO monkeys
On the way down we saw a few monkeys in the trees but way to far away to take good shots ..
So we went back to the restaurant (me for a beer - Jill for checking out the gardens) -
Guess what - as soon as Jill disappeared I saw a monkey not 20 feet away..
I could not get a good shot of it so I had another beer ( maybe that's what draws them out ???.. long shot but nothing to loose :-))
As it turns out there were lots of monkeys within the restaurant property and Jill did get the chance to take some decent shots of them...
To make a long story short - it was a great day !!!!
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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03/19/2011, Charlstown Nevis
We have arrived in Nevis ( It's only a 10Nm run from St Kitt's)
We will need to check out tomorrow morning for our Monday 4am departure to Guadeloupe
Weather forecast looks great with winds way to the north at +-15knt just the way we like them when heading east ....
| Jan 25th - May2nd 2011 |
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