A Day Out with SeaCat.

Or 'Three Hikes in One Day!'

We have hiked with the Dominican Guide Sea Cat several times and each one has been an experience, a challenge and a huge pleasure. His knowledge, enthusiasm, energy and humour make a day out full of memories to treasure. We arranged to meet up with friends, who had shared our Sea Cat jaunts last year and all four of us were up for a challenge, so we left the itiniery with Sea Cat. With the caveat that we wanted to do something special and different, as we had already done several of the top Dominica hikes listed on the Dominica hiking website.
We were all ready, waiting on the jetty at the arranged time and still no clear idea of what we were going to do. But Sea Cat assured us that we were going to go to one of his favourite places, but were we up for some rappelling? Darrell agreed, Sarah was a little reticent, but the other two had no clue what it meant, so agreed eagerly. We were meant to start with an easy hike to a newly opened waterfall on private land, but it was closed as the cruise ships hadn't docked yet. So we drove off to the Atlantic side of the island with Sea Cat entertaining us with some of his tales of getting lost when trying to find new routes to waterfalls.
To view the photo story of our day click/paste the following link:

https://plus.google.com/115186525797147432996/stories/06eaa3d9-7cc5-34dd-98af-2503caa937ca14be235083c?authkey=CPPu3bOX1oSKuQE

Five and a dog set of on an adventure.

Challenge 1: Arba Wavicy. We started the hike up in farming land near the Rosalie headland and wandered for ten minutes along a trail before we came to a sheer drop. This is where the rappelling came in as we had to go down the cliff face. There were a couple of ropes tied to trees, lots of very strong tree roots and a section of rope ladder. Luckily, you couldn't see down to the bottom, so,it was a case of doing a section at a time and waiting for the others. Sarah first, Darrell bringing up the rear, while Sea Cat kept repeating "Keep your weight low and keep hold, of roots or ropes." But it was the only way to get down to the beach. So no choice but to go on down holding on very tightly!

Sarah is first to go over the cliff.

Challenge 2: The Atlantic Ocean and a rock under a waterfall. The swell and waves as the ocean crashed onto the beach were an awesome sight. But a swim was required, including Darrell body surfing and narrowly avoiding rocks. Then the boys all went out to a rock under a waterfall by the cliffs and stood on the rock while the waves tried to dislodge them.
Then it was the climb back up the cliff to the dog that was waiting patiently. Back at the trail head we had fresh coconuts courtesy of the land owner.  A great start to the day.

Hike 2: The Glasse Trail
An old trail that leads down to a Glassie Point a headland on the Atlantic Coast, which was used to bring up cargo that was landed there when this side of the island was not accessible by land. It is a narrow steep trail that goes along a ridge and through forest down to the headland which is a spur of from a volcano. The trail has spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean and leaves you wondering how they ever landed any cargo safely, let alone carry it back up the trail.

Hike 3: Sari-Sari Falls
Another one of Dominica's spectacular waterfalls deep in the rainforest. It involved a hike down along a narrow path and a scramble over rocks up the river to the waterfall, where we could swim in the pool. Ideal after three adventurous hikes.
SeaCat had definitely given us a very special and wonderful day. Any one of the three hikes would have been superb, but all three together was sheer heaven for us.