Monday, June 17, 2013

Repelling, Waterfalls, and Rastas - Dominica Island Tour with SeaCat

Sunday, May 26

We hired SeaCat again for the day to take us to a few sites around the island.  Gene and I had done this same tour with SeaCat the last time we were in Dominica, but all three of us happened to be sick at the time, so we were happy to do it again, in better health and with the company of our friends.

Emerald Pool

First stop was to Emerald Pool & Waterfall, a UNESCO site.









Here we are in the pool of Emerald Falls, so cold!


Repelling down a cliff to Abba Wotten in Riviere Cyrique

Next stop was to a beach in the town of Riviere Cyrquie, and probably our most challenging excursion yet.  In order to get to this beautiful beach, you must repell down the side of a cliff using roots and some loosely tied ropes.  And it just happened to be a very rainy day, so all of the ropes, roots, branches, and bushes were slippery and muddy.  This was really an incredible accomplishment for all of us, as we all made it down to the beach and back up to the van without injuries!

After the terrifying repel down the cliff, here's our reward - a breath-takingly beautiful black sand beach and natural fresh waterfall into the ocean.

Here's Rosalyn swimming in the ocean.  The waterfall is to the left in the picture.

Great shot of the falls coming off the cliff

View down the beach, looking south towards the cliff we just repelled down.  
There's me on the left heading into the ocean.

Last view of Abba Wotten Beach before climbing back up the cliff

Ted and Megan - happy to be back at SeaCat's van, safe and sound

The Rasta-Rant (Moses' Home)

Our next stop was to the Rast-a-rant which is the trailhead to Victoria Falls.  Since we had so much rain, the river was surging higher than usual, so we were unable to hike to Victoria Falls.  But we did enjoy hanging out at Moses' Rastarant, having some of his vegetable stew prepared from the crops of his farm.

Rosalyn, Megan, Ted, & Gene having stew at the Rastarant

For the remainder of our island tour, SeaCat drove us around to a few of his favorite towns where we got to try some local moonshine, drink some beers and watch cricket with the locals as they explained the rules of the game.

We stopped at these beautiful villas overlooking Grand Bay on the southeastern coast. 


We went home with bags full of fruit and spices - mangos (the Julie Mangos are the best!), cherries, passion fruit, pineapple, papaya, apples, cashews, nutmeg, lemon grass, cinnamon, bay leaves.

Here's SeaCat and Gene picking up cashews from the cashew tree 












No comments:

Post a Comment