Day 102 - Roseau

We had heard much about The Gorge from students who went yesterday, so we set out to see it for ourselves.  Apparently, Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed here, though no one could remember which scene.  We parked and walked a short trail to a small pool that flowed out of our sigh between large rocks.  It was a little stream a couple meters wide secluded between two steep ledges.  On our way out, we were to wash under a warm water stream siphoned off from a nearby hot spring.  We entered the water – the very cold water!  We begged to go under the warm water, but the guides wouldn’t let us; they said if we did we would lose the courage to go forward.  So we forged ahead, swimming down the path between ledges until we came to a small waterfall at the end.  It was only about a meter high, but I didn’t plan to climb it until a guide came with another group and directed everyone up.  He got a foothold and helped everybody up into a small chamber with another, taller waterfall.  We got in line and switched out standing under the powerful surge water.  When we were all done, the guide helped throw us off the smaller waterfall back into the rivulet.  I am terribly accident-prone and definitely did not want to take part, but the guide never asked our opinions.  He threw me in along with everyone else, and I plunged into the crisp, cool water.  The pool was surprisingly deep, but not quite deep enough.  While kicking to come up, I hit my foot against a rock, scraping the skin clear off.

We swam out and finally deserved the privilege of standing under the warm water stream.  What a delight!  It was slippery to stand upon the rocks, but we helped each other up and refused to get down.  By the time we did climb down, we had forgotten how cold the water was to begin with and shuddered the whole way out.  When I got out, my foot injury that I had nearly forgotten about in the cold, freshwater pool started bleeding out.  If anyone asked about it, I could tell them I got it jumping off a waterfall in Dominica.  I hope it scars.

We moved on to a different form of paradise at the Champagne Reef, so named for the bubbles that come up at the many springs under the sea floor.  We got a bunch of clunky snorkeling gear and clumsily walked the boardwalk to the beach.  Getting into the water was actually somewhat difficult because the tide was much stronger than it seemed, constantly pulling us back and forth against the rocks below.  But we did make it into the water, put on our goggles, and plunged into a whole new world below us.  There were endless corals and schools of fish so close I could reach out and touch them, if only they didn’t swim away.    There were some horror stories from the day before, like getting stung by squid poison and stepping on a sea urchin (it was amazing to see the needles still stuck in the girl’s heel), but we had only the best of experiences.  At one point I caught sight of a bubbling spring and kept a close watch on it with Abby’s underwater camera, only to be tickled on my stomach by another spring right below me.

We stayed in the water until all of our extremities were pruny, at which point we returned to our patient driver and let him take us back to the tenseness of the ship, on which we again did not know what to say or what to do.  A memorial service took place for Casey shortly after we left port, and her closest friends shared stories of their time with her.