A Tale of Two Chemists: More of Mike’s Hikes

More of Mike’s Hikes

Friday 3^rd and Saturday 4^th May 2024

By Friday morning, we were feeling considerably better. We decided to go for a walk after breakfast. Because of the sequence of little rain showers, we didn’t get an early start. Mike showed me a map of the walk—a sort of loop going over to a bay on the south side of the island and back by different route—5.5 miles. Not so bad I thought...

It wasn’t until we had reached the town (Friendship) on the southern bay (already sweating profusely) that he showed me the elevation of the route. The fairly steep hill we had already crossed showed up as a tiny lump. The route back was traversing a peak at about 800 ft. Anytime those contour lines are very close together, suffering will ensue! Just before we turned off onto the path up Peggy’s Rock, a kindly policeman stopped us asking what our plan was. He asked us if we had water (yes) and said something like: “It’s a good idea to do that walk in the early morning when it’s cooler. “ Maybe it was the power of suggestion, I started to feel truly terrible. There was almost no shade on the route and the humidity was super high. Eventually, I had to sit down for a while and drink lots of water and eat a few pieces of fruit. When we got to the junction with the descent path, Mike scurried up to the summit while I sat in a patch of almost shade.

If anything the route down was even more treacherous. Most of the descent “path” seemed more like an eroded stream bed. A liberal splattering of dried leaves and loose gravel made the footing very tenuous. We were almost overjoyed when we emerged onto the road, until we took in how steep it was. What a hike! Once back to sea level we stopped at a cafe for cold drinks. Then we just had a trudge back to the dinghy dock in town by way of the ice cream shop! The swim/shower combination was required to make us feel more human. In fairness, it was a beautiful hike!

Today, Saturday, we went to town for provisions. We found a pretty exceptional market with all kinds of unusual items. However, the prices were sky high and we decided to check out some other options for most of the items on our list. After lunch Mike went back to town to look around and take photos. I’ve been doing some cleaning, reading and napping! In the evening our friends Susan and Nigel (from sv Taiko) came over for dinner. We ate shrimp and grits followed by sautéed pineapple … all delicious!

Gloria