The Seychelles consist of 115 islands and are quite remote, being 990 miles off the coast of Africa, in the Indian Ocean. Known primarily for its warm clear waters, mountainous terrain and beautiful beaches the people are a mix of former African Slaves and French. They speak English and Creole from their days as a French nation. Later the British ruled them for 200 year before gaining Independence in 1963. Today, tourism is key with most of the visitors coming from Europe and Africa. We had hoped for good weather because we planned to spend all of our time on the beaches or snorkeling, skipping the ship’s tours. We got lucky with two beautiful days of Sun.
On Saturday we visited the morning market in Victoria, the small capitol city. Victoria is on the island of Mahe, which is the largest of the 3 major islands. From there we took a bus (white knuckle) over the mountain to Beau Vallon Beach on the other side of the island. The bus ride was driven by a crazy man around the hair pin turns over the mountain, jamming on his brakes every time someone wanted to get off. After 20 minutes we reached the beach and swore never to get on one of those buses again. We walked to several beach resorts and made ourselves at home. They did not seem to mind that we used their lounges and pool as long as we had lunch and bought a few Beers. The water was 88 degrees and the beaches white sand. It had been such a nice day that we decided to brave the bus again back to Victoria as the sun set. We went straight to a bar upon arrival.
On Sunday we decided that a day of Snorkeling at the underwater marine park was in order. We hooked up with another couple from the ship and hired a small glass bottom boat along with the skipper and his young wife who was our guide. It was a beautiful sunny morning and we immediately began seeing tropical fish as we cleared the harbor on our way to Cerf Island. The island is part of St Anne’s marine park and is one of many that ring the harbor. The fish were in a frenzy as we fed them with bread rolls before proceeding to the island for snorkeling. Now we were in for a pleasant surprise. We landed at a private beach and were asked to bring our gear up to the house just a short path from the beach. This was a beautiful setting with lounge chairs, umbrellas and picnic tables and we were introduced to our guide’s Sister who was cooking our lunch. We were told that we would be called for lunch and to enjoy the day. Now it was time for snorkeling in this clear water. Lunch was served by the 3 hosts and included 12 different items. Apparently, this is true Creole cooking. We had barbecued jack fish (not jack crevalle), red Snapper, fish soup, curry, several salads, pumpkin mash, potato salad, rice and other things we had never eaten before. The 4 of us agreed that it was the best meal we had eaten on our trip (including the ship food). After lunch we did a bit more snorkeling before our guide took us to the pier with a pot of awful looking stuff which she poured into the water. Almost immediately the fish appeared including the Moray eels from under the rocks, Barracuda, some Reef Sharks and hundreds of other smaller fish. Next it was climb the hill to visit the Giant Tortoises for feeding and finally back to the boat for our ride back to the ship. This was one of those days that will long be remembered and hard to duplicate.
Our next port of call is Mombasa, Kenya. We’re very excited by this port of call since we’ve signed up for a two day overnight Safari in Tsavo Game Park. We’re told that we’ll see lots of the big game and if we’re lucky we’ll have plenty of photo’s and video for our next posting. We’ll be in Africa for the next 2 weeks and have several other game drive opportunities along the route. This should be the most exciting part of our trip.
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