After our second test we had to wait another 30 hrs for our results then we were free to move to the clear anchorage and roam the island.

Florian and Vicky from Ibex were already there and made us very welcome.

Dominica has very few beaches  and they are very narrow and mainly dark or black sand. Most visitors to the island will go for the natural beauty of the hinterland which is predominantly rain forest which has three distinct layers depending on the altitude.

With Vicky and Florian we hired a car for eight days and visited most of the well known sites .

Two of the most memorable places were  Titou Gorge and the hike to Boiling lake.

At the bottom of a large waterfall the river runs through a narrow but very deep gorge and then empties into a large sump from where water is distributed to the island . By swimming from the sump there is an amazing experience swimming against the current  to the waterfall ,looking upwards through the gorge to the sky above.

The hike to Boiling Lake starts at the base of Titou Gorge and winds upwards through the rainforest about 9Km horizontally 800m vertically. The trail is dense rain forest with three rivers to cross , some of the route is loose stone as in a river bed , some of the steeper up and down parts have regularly spaced hardwood logs let into the ground which were actually more of a hindrance than a help as they were so slippery. Guide books all insisted that you must go with a local guide but we had Florian who is a trained Austrian mountain guide and a member of his local mountain rescue team so we were in good hands .

On the way up