I want to share with you a natural phenomenon called a “blow hole,” which you can find along the rocky coast of many islands. It’s a cave that faces incoming ocean swells. At a certain level of the tide, the swells rush into the cave, trap and then compress the air, and get blown out of a hole in top of the cave.

The fun part for adults is simply watching nature’s display of power and beauty. For kids and the young at heart, it’s even more fun to edge close and get drenched in the shivering-cold spume that falls all over you.

There is a famous blow hole on the Punta Banda Peninsula of Baja California, Mexico, and another in the Southern Provence of Sri Lanka. As readers of my Island Series romantic suspense novels already know, there is a blow hole on the south shore of St. Mark. That blow hole is modeled after one that my brother and I discovered on the south shore of St. Thomas, a stone’s throw east of Frenchman’s Bay. 

Like the fictional Jenny and her young buddies, my brother and I dared to get close to the hole, waited tensely for a big roller to enter the mouth of the cave, listened to the rumble of the water captured under us, marveled at the stream of compressed air and foamy water, and laughed when it all crashed down about our shoulders. 

I hope you have the joy of one day seeing a blow hole, and (only if it’s safe!) you can creep close and enjoy the thrill of experiencing the ocean at its most fun.