Bense River and Chauiere Pool

On Wednesday, the spouse's group took a trip to the Bense River. It is located on the Atlantic side of the island and is only a 30 minute drive from campus. The hike was really mild even though we had been warned of a super steep staircase and fording a deep river to get to our destination. There were some steps, and river crossings, but it was totally manageable. Hiking up the river to get to Chauiere Pool.
Chauiere Pool is part of the Bense river and surrounded by large rocks. The water is very deep, our guide said he had never touched the bottom before.

Part of the charm of this relaxing river adventure was the promise of 1. jumping off the rocks into the water and 2. sliding down the waterfall

Now before you get all anxious about the danger of jumping off rocks in the middle of nowhere when you don't have insurance, remember, I wouldn't be writing to tell you about it if something had happened!

So, take a deep breath and relax. I know what I'm doing!

Besides, how could you not take advantage of the opportunity to get some great photos to send home to the family? I have expectations to live up to you know!

So, on the right side of the pool there is a bolder about 15 feet high that we climbed up (not like rock climbing, but more like bear crawling) up the edge from the bank of the river.

Here is Christina jumping...

Here I am jumping! Sorry to disappoint you, but there was no way I was going to try a toe touch like Christina.

See? We were fine!

Now what was the other thing? Oh yeah, sliding down the waterfall! Again we bear crawled up and around past the cliff and got in right at the top.

Here I am sliding down! The man on the right is Theo, our driver and guide. You can blame him for putting these dangerously exciting ideas into our heads of jumping off cliffs and sliding down waterfalls.


The waterfall's "chute" was really smooth. So we decided to do it again....
...together....


The expression on my face was the sudden realization that I was going to crush Christina and Tiffany on my way down. I didn't.

Everyone relaxed around the water for a while and then we headed back to campus. Christina and I even worked the afternoon shift at the bookstore together and told everyone about how fun our trip was.

And thanks to Christina and Ericca for taking pictures! The story wouldn't be the same without them!