PAYS boat guides | The Voyage of Ryana

For Kacie’s last day we let her decide what she wanted to do. Kacie wanted to hike! So we asked our PAYS guide Titus what would be a good hike. He recommended that we see “the jewel of Dominica” and do the boiling lake hike. He told us it would take about 6 hours round trip. We said cool sounds good. And scoffed at the idea of 6 hours, thinking that must be the estimate for the average cruise ship passenger, not us young, fit-ish boat folk! Well, it did take 6 hours and we were all in bed by 8pm that night exhausted! LOL…guess they showed us!

So…the hike… First thing we have to wake up at 6am because it’s an hour and a half drive to the trail head. So we drag ourselves up and get going. When we get ashore we meet our guide Francis. Francis is wearing nice jeans, dark black shoes, an Ohio state jacket, a fedora and just finishing a joint. Yup.

Once we reached the trail head it was easy going to start. Then came the steps and the mud!

After the first 2 mountains we reached the valley of desolation. There is active volcanic activity here. Also, Francis painted us up like warriors!

Finally we have reached the boiling lake. Our spirits lagged a bit when we realize we have to go back the way we came! LOL!

A nice stop on the way back was a dip in a hot spring. Ryan and Francis climbed up the waterfall to a second pool!

On our way back. Still smiling! 🙂

And a bonus picture of our guide Francis frolicking among the flowers….

Since we’ve been in the Caribbean we had set our sites on Dominica as the furthest south we would go. We had heard wonderful things about the island: its beauty, how unspoiled it was, the great boat guides system called PAYS. All true!! We were met a mile out by Titus from Eddison’s Guide Service who was very friendly and helpful. We still had our friend Kacie with us so we wanted to make the most of our time in Dominica so we had Titus set us several tours for us. Just as a side note, if you ever want to seem like a stud then sail into Dominica with two ladies on your boat! Ryan got all kinds of comments on how lucky he was and occasionally on how miserable he must be!!

Views of Portsmouth Dominica:

Kacie and Ryan lounging.

The furthest south Ryana will see…

Blue Bay…great place for dinner!

Another awesome sunset…

The first tour we did was to take a ride up the Indian River which is just there in Portsmouth. We were told that some of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean (2 or 3?) was filmed there and that Titus had met Johnny Depp. It’s a peaceful ride as engines are prohibited and Titus rowed us all the way in. At the end is a bush bar where you can grab a cold one before you head back out the river. They also made us these cute birds out of a leaf to take home as a souvenir too! Very nice ride up the river and a nice introduction to Dominica.