Theory of the Wind Rocker: La Ventana - Day 8 - Monday night

All week long at Casa Verde the words "hot springs" get tossed around quite a bit. Not only because the hot springs, just north of La Ventana, is the starting point location for doing a downwinder (read previous blog) but also because......well, who doesn't love sitting in some hot springs and relaxing? Everyone loves hot springs, especially so after a hard day of riding.

That being said, Monday night after dinner, feeling good and tired from the downwinder, seven of us decide to head to the hot springs to "dig" ourselves a natural Jacuzzi to soak in together. Kynan and I hop into the back of a pickup for the roughly 8 mile trip.

I say the word "dig" because the key to the hot springs is that you have to find them first, (most often by walking the shoreline and then digging your feet in by moving them back and forth until they start to sink, similar to what we have all done as children when at the beach. You have to do this until you find a "hot spot" that hopefully indicates a hot spring below) then after finding a hot spot, the hard part begins...you then have to dig down below the water table and create a pool that the hot water flows up into. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, on a low tide it may be, but we get there during a high tide.

Kynan, who always seems to be the optimist, encourages us to start digging as it "will not really be all that hard" he says "to dig down through 4ft of sand to the water table", and then even deeper to create a pool to sit in and "relax".

Well, we dig about 4ft down and finally hit water. I wish I could tell you that the water was hot and then we all laid down and relaxed into the evening in the giant hole we dug...but it wasn't. The water was cold. We had misjudged the place to dig. FAIL!

This is me sitting is a 4ft hole with a cold water spring :)

So, Kynan starts walking up and down the beach looking for a hot spot positively determined that we sit in some hot springs before the night is up. Jeff and I join him in the search, and about 100 feet from out first hole, we find what appears to be warm water in the surf close to shore.

Kynan, being the optomist he is, starts digging down right away. Jeff soon joins him, while the rest of us stand around watching, still somewhat tired from the first go at digging ourselves a hot spring.

I eventually break down and start helping out by digging in short little "man I am out of shape" spurts. Mike, Jodi, and Lauren also all jump in and help from time to time. In not too long we hit the water table...and it is hot! Real hot!

We crack a few beers to celebrate using the bootle opener sewn into Jeff's board shorts. Yes, I am jealous and want a pair.

With not too much work (and by "not too much work" I mean less than 1/2 hour more digging time) we finally have a pool that reaches above shoulders...when laying down that is...otherwise it is no deeper than our ankles.

Kynan points out the "hot as shit" portion of our pool

Aww.... does it get any better than this?

As shallow as it is, it is extremely hot. It is almost unbearably hot, easily hot enough to hard boil an egg, so Kynan starts to create a canal that will allow the ocean waves to ocassionaly crash into the pool cooling it.

Kynan builds a canal

With the added cool water making the springs a bit more enjoyable I decide to do a bit more digging to make the pool deeper.

me digging the pool deeper

So, in shin deep warm water we hang for a while longer with our new found friends all the while enjoying the fruit of our spoils. Here is a final picture of our "hot springs" adventure and our new friends.