We landed in Seychelles just before 7AM.  Walking down the manual staircase out of the plane and looking out over the mountain and water, the sense of the tropics engulfed us.  Much like the first time James landed in Kona on the Big Island, the view of the environment gives one the feeling that you are in a place where life beats to a different drum.

After clearing immigration and picking up our luggage, we were met by people from Masons’ Travel, the local travel agency that helped with our booking arrangement on the island.   Before heading out to our hotel, they went over our itinerary and what we need to use for our scheduled guided tours and transports, as well as guide us to where to exchange for some local currency.  The Euros is used fairly widely on the island, but it is still good to get some local currency.

Seychelles, a group of islands located 4 degree south of the Equator and about 1,000 miles east of the Africa continent from the Kenyan Coast, was a way station island in the Indian Ocean until French took control of it during the 1750s and named it after Jean Moreau de Sechelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance.   British fought and took control over it in early 1800s.  Seychelles became a crown colony in early 1900s and upon its independence in 1974; it became a republic in the Commonwealth.  Thus, it is natural that cars use the right hand drive in Seychelles, British style.  As our van drove through Victoria, the capital of Seychelles on the island of Mahe, toward our hotel on the north coast of the island, we saw a number of British enterprises, such as Barclays Banks and Cable and Wireless, operating there.

 

We arrived at our hotel, Le Meridian Fisherman’s Cove, around 9AM.  The hotel is built into its surrounding landscape.  When we got off the van, we step right into an open lobby, where straight ahead was a front and center ocean view off the north coast of island, a picture frame that draws you right into the landscape.   Since we arrived early, we stayed in the lobby to wait for our room to be ready, giving us a chance to soak in the view.  The lobby has a couple of lounge chair that face the water front and center, which became our favorite spot throughout our stay at the hotel.

Our room was spacious.  The bathroom is almost as big as some of the rooms we had stayed, with a long tub in the center, a rainwater shower on one side and a double sink on the other side.  The living room area has a full size sofa and two working desks and a large flat screen TV, along with a sound system for your music.  There is also a patio area with a full size day bed facing the ocean.  This is the kind of room where it wouldn’t be all that bad if you stay mostly within its walls during one’s entire vacation.

 

After putting our things away, we had a light breakfast before heading out to the hotel beach and cove area.  The tide was not as low as it was earlier in the day, but it was still low enough such that we could walk about quite a large area in the cove.  Jessica was busy digging under the water for shells and little sea creatures to play.  We spend about an hour playing in the water.

 

We went back to our rooms to clean up and took a shower before deciding to heading out to the surrounding area.  The one disadvantage that we discovered on the island is that it is not easy to get around to other places.  The roads are narrow with no consistent sidewalks.  (There is also very little street light at night.)   We decided to walk along the beach.   Just past our resort there is an estuary that probably gets flooded during high tide.  But at that hour, it was quiet and we could see many fish in the water.  There were light crowd along that stretch of the beach, with a small group having a picnic lunch.

About half a kilometer out from the hotel, we arrived at the back gates of the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort.  We decided to stop and see if we can get a bite there.  There are several restaurants, including a Chinese restaurant.  We decided on the casual Pizzeria diner.  James ordered the Fish and Chips while Jessica had the Creole Chicken, along with an order of salad that we both shared.  We both also had fresh squeezed lime juice.  The lime juice turned out to be the best one we had all week there.  The Creole chicken was pretty good, but not to Jessica’s taste.  She did like my huge plate of Fish and Chips.  The fish was lightly battered that is both tender and firm, and the fries were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

It was about 3PM when we were done consuming our feast, and we decided to go back to our room to take a nap for some sleep recovery.  Amid the view of the beach from our window, and a movie playing on the background, we dozed off quickly on the sofa.   When we woke up around 6PM or so, we decided to head out to the lobby to get some fresh air and also to get the free Wi-Fi available there before dinner.

Around 7PM, we start thinking of where to go for dinner.  The restaurant choice at the hotel was either the buffet or the formal restaurant.  We were still somewhat full from our lunch so passed on the buffet option, and the formal restaurant was all booked for the night.  (We booked a reservation for the following night.)  We didn’t want to venture out either.  Thus, we decided to just get something simple items from room service.  We order Spaghetti with Pesto, Penne with Bolognese, Chicken nuggets and a bowl of mushroom soup.  As for room service meal goes, it wasn’t too bad. And we were able to eat it sitting on the sofa while watching a movie– just like home!

The next day, we had an 8AM scheduled pick up for our all day cruise excursion of the Ste Anne Marine National Park.  Our ride didn’t show up until past 8:30AM, which had worried us for a while.  But it also enlightened us that Island timing shouldn’t be taken too strict.   We arrived at the pier where a catamaran sat waiting to take a group of eager tourists.  The group turned out to be quite diverse, comprised of people from across the globe.

The catamaran has a big cabin with a bar/serving area at the back.  At the front of the boat is a large net connecting the two hulls that also served as a nice sun bathing area. As we left the pier, we first circled a couple of the nearby small islands with nature reserve with lots of birds. Then we headed over to the middle of the harbor where the first activity was to go the semi-submersible: a glass bottom boat where we could see the coral under the water in the Marine Park.   Given the size of the contingent on the tour, we split into two groups for the submersible.  We decided to go with the second group.  While the first group was in the submersible, the catamaran circled around a bit, giving us a chance to take some pictures of the nearby islands and just soaked in the sun on the deck.

Once we were in the submersible, we can see how shallow the Marine Park was.  The top of the windows at the bottom of the boat are just below the waterline, but it seems that the bottom of the boat is almost touching the bottom of the sea.  As we circled around the area, it almost feels impossible that we were able to maneuver around the corals without touching them.  With the crystal clear water, we could see surprisingly well of everything in the water.  The guide pointed out the different variety of the fish that we were seeing as they passed by the window.  Most were small tropical fish.  Some seems to be swimming right along the windows of the boat.

We circled the Marine Park for about 20 minutes or so before returning back to the Catamaran.   Once we were back, the crew began getting ready to take the group for some swimming and snorkeling.  The crew provided everyone with a life jacket, mask, fins and snorkel equipment.  Most of people did go into the water.  Some didn’t venture very far, including James who couldn’t really let go of the ladder from the boat, but did puddle around a bit and got his head under the water.  Jessica enjoyed her swim.

After everyone got back to the boat, the crew put out the lunch spread for the group, which contain many of the local favors, like Creole chicken and fish, along with standard complements like potato salads, rice, bread, etc.  Most of the base dishes were made to be mild; they put the ‘sauce’ on the side for those who want to spice up their dish.   The crew also served up a bit of local punch, made with mix of local juice and liquor.  James and Jessica didn’t try to overindulge on the food to prevent untimely accidents on the boat.   After lunch, some of us went to the side of the boat to feed the fishes.  Jessica particularly liked this activity; she even went down to the water to feed and play with them.

Our major excursion in the afternoon was going over to the Moyenne Island, one of the smaller islands in the harbor. This island is owned by British expat Brendon Grimshaw since the 1960s.  It is operated as a National Park, with the expat the sole residence on the island.  He has tried to keep the island as a nature preserve by planting trees, building nature paths, maintain the variety of plants, as well as bringing and breeding giant land tortoises.  There are over one hundred of them in the island.  This is one of the main attractions of the visit to the island.  Along with a bunch of others in the group, we feed the tortoise leafs they seemed to really enjoy.  One of person in our group is a marine biologist and was especially interested in looking at the tortoises and gave us some interesting general background.  We also were able to chat with the proprietor of the island, who also provided us with interesting tidbits on the tortoises and other things on the island.  Another thing that piqued our interest was the owl he had rescued that sits near by the restaurant on the island.  He cautioned us against touching the bird as Owls doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, as well as talking about its long wingspan and also how its wing was damaged when it was found.

We walked about half way around the island and then headed down to the beach.  Some of the people in our group was now playing in the water or resting on the beach.  Jessica went around searching for sea shells and rocks and also played with the small white translucent sand crabs, trying to grab them before they dive into holes in the sand.  We stayed on the island for about a couple of hours before returning to the boat.  Before heading back to the harbor, the captain took the boat for one more tour around the entire St. Anne Marine Park area.

By the time we returned to the hotel it was past 5PM.  We decided to wash up and rest a bit before our dinner at the La Bourgeois restaurant at 7:30PM.  We decided to dress up a bit – not too much, but at least a nice shirt and slacks for James.  The restaurant offers a simple menu, a few appetizers, salads, soups, pasta and main dishes.  We both ordered the seafood bisque; Jessica ordered a foie gras with her grill sea bass, while James ordered a small mushroom risotto with a steam local fish.  All the dishes turned out nicely done.   We both thought the mushroom risotto was especially well done.

The following day was a free day for us.  We had planned to walk to a beach located about 4KM away that seemed not to be a stretched goal.  It was supposed to be a reasonable mild hike around the coast.  We had a late breakfast and started trekking down the road soon afterwards.  The first part of the road we were on has a nice and serene sense that you get in a tropical island.  There were all kinds of flowers and plants along the road and with a beautiful mountain backdrop.  There weren’t too many others on the road nor were there many cars.  An eclectic mix of building and houses also line the streets; there were convenience stores, shops, business offices, and homes.  As we came up near the end of the public road, there was a small harbor with a few small boats. There was also a restaurant right at the end of the road, which I had thought of maybe having a late lunch on our way back in the afternoon, but saw a sign that it only opened for dinner.

Beyond the ‘main road’ was a small lane that went uphill.  After a few hundred yards, there was a sign pointing the way to the beach.  We had hoped that the walk would be a nice quiet, picturesque trek.  But as we started to walk around, we found the roads didn’t exactly hug the coast; instead, it mostly went through housing area – and many construction jobs were in the works.  After walking another half kilometer and upon another hill, we decided to turn back. We did felt a bit unfulfilled, but it turned out not to be a bad decision as soon after we got back to the hotel, it started to rain fairly hard and through the rest of the afternoon.  If we had gone to the beach, we probably would have been soaked pretty good.

We end up staying in the hotel lobby the rest of the afternoon, just reading and taking naps while looking out the picturesque sea view.   In some ways, this is the kind of laid-back, idyllic island lifestyle that one expects to have on a tropical paradise.  Just relax and enjoy the serene the surrounding as time passes by.

 

 

By dusk, we decided to head over to Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort for dinner.  We walked over by the beach.  The tide was rising, leaving a narrow stretch of beach we can walk on; we figured that likely we would not be able to return this way after dinner.  When we reached the resort, we discovered that most of the power was out, and the restaurant we want to eat could not cook anything.  Disappointed, we headed back to our hotel; still able to use the beach route.  Not enthused with the day’s buffet menu, we decided to order some room service again while watch some movies on TV, while packing our stuff to get ready for our next day’s departure for La Digue Island.