The Seychelles

The Seychelles! Finally, we are here. My whole life I have dreamed about these islands and now, here we are. Sometimes things are better in your dreams!! Not that these islands are not beautiful, but you will see how it all went as you read along. There are many interesting facts you should know about these islands. Most islands you know of are made from volcanic rock. These islands are granite. They are situated of the eastern coast of Africa, over 115 islands. They are notorious for being pirate hideouts and they remain now as nature intended. The Seychelles have some of the world's best-reserved natural habitats. They are known as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean. They have important populations of rare plants, birds and animals, including the giant tortoise and the coco de mer, once thought to be the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Mahe' is the largest island. The capital is Victoria. This is where we ported. The second largest island is Praslin. It is 25 miles off the coast of Mahe'. In Praslin ,you can find the beautiful beaches that are always in the top ten beaches of the world and the sites for the Sports Illustrated magazine swimsuit edition many years in the past. It is where you find the coco de mer, the world's heaviest nut that grows in the wild. This island is considered by many that have studied it, The Garden of Eden! Walking around there, I never saw an apple tree, so I don't know. It did however have all that a travel brochure would boast, swaying palms, crystal clear ocean water, warm water, very salty water, so salty that it made you more boyant and floating was very easy, sugar white beaches like we are used to in the Florida panhandle, blue skies, privacy, stretches of long beaches, tropical birds and their sounds...it has all that! Now for our first hand experience. The first photo is of Kathleen and Charles with a friend named Joanie. Joanie, at one point asked me on a scale of one to ten where did I rate the trip. I'll tell you at the end. This is on our boat on our way from Male, the main island to Praslin, 25 miles off shore. The boat could hold about 60 people. We had about 30 on our trip. The boat had 3 crew members and two engines. Only one crew member worked and only one engine worked. It was suppoed to be a one hour "ferry" ride over to Praslin. It took 2 and a half hours!! YIKES!! We went straight for a while and then sideways for a while because we could not generate enough speed to stay straight. The sea was rough, maybe worse than rough. Doing the math, our average speed was 10 miles an hour. Can you imagine how many waves we rolled over?? It was not good. Thank goodness the kids and I both fell asleep on the way there so it wasn't horrible.Hello Praslin! What a beautiful sight after such a long journey!

We got off the boat and got on a bus. The bus took us with a guide to the tropical rain forest. Now this was worth seeing. We were up close the coco de mer. We all got to touch it and feel the weight. Very heavy. The guide in the photo is explaining the pollination of the trees. Only the female trees produce the nuts.

Kathleen looks a little surprised at the size of that double coconut!!


For all the "birders" out there, this one's for you!! The very rare Black Parrot. We got to hear him and see him. He stayed there long enough for us to take pictures, amazing. Even the guides said it is rare to actually see one.

Here is the Coco de Mer growing in the wild. The palms on these trees were the biggest I have ever seen. It really looked like a paradise.

SPIDERS!!!! The guide told us that the spiders on their island are "friendly". She grabbed this huge spider right out of her web and let it crawl all over her arm. Being from the land of Black Widows and Brown Recluse, guess who volunteered from our group to let that beautiful spider crawl on them??? NOBODY!! It was beautiful and creepy all at the same time.

The Giant toroise! There were many of them at the beach where we stopped for lunch. Slow moving giants. Very strong.

Kathleen found one she liked and wanted to have her picture made with him/her, could not tell.

Now this is why people travel across the world. To see this. These beaches were absolutely beautiful. The only problem was, it took us so long to get to the island by our one engine boat, that our beach time was cut! We could have stayed there it was so pretty.

The water was as clear as glass.

This is a picture of Don, a man from upstate New York, that has been a lot of fun to have with us on the ship. Since our beach time was cut short he and Kathleen opted to go looking for shells. Thank goodness they found some as those shells and these pictures are our only souveniers of the Seychells. What a shame.



Kathleen took my camera and took most of these pictures. The next one is probably my favorite. Don't be surprised if this one isn't blown up postersize on the wall at Lake Martin! However, she did take the first picture on this blog of this same beach, both are wonderful, I could not decide which one to use, so I put them both on here. You decide. Better yet, make a trip here and experience it, but make sure your boat works properly!

The water stays so clear, so far out, you could see a shark coming for 100 yeards before he actually ate you!

Good-bye, Praslin! We have to go and the thought of getting back on a boat like the one we took over there was sickening. I thought for sure they would send a different boat or fix the engine, neither happened. In the next photo you can see what the trip back to the main island was like!

Here I am with Nicholas. Neither of us feeling very well, we tried to comfort each other over the 2 and a half hour ride. Kathleen was already laying on an opposite bench feeling very sick. Holding on was important because we were rocking all over the Indian Ocean. I looked out with no land in sight and wondered how many of those different variety of sharks were swimming under our small SLOW vessel. Should have never seen JAWS!! To put it into perspective for you, we were going so slow that one of the crew members was FISHING off the back of the boat! Our ship was supposed to set sail for the Maldives at 5:00p.m. They could not leave because we were not back yet! When we did, many of the ship's passengers were on the top deck looking at us like, "where in the world have ya'll been"?? Kathleen and I raced to the shower, both put on our comfy white robes and tried to pretend it was a good day. Charles was smart, he took Dramamine before we left. The kids and I have not been sick one minute on this whole trip, never say never. I am swearing off "ferry rides" and will ask more questions about the equipment of any boat I ever get on again.



When we were pulling out of the dock on the ship I told Charles we would have to come back again someday, can you guess what he said??

Okay, going back to Joanie's question: What was the tour rating from one to ten?? She gave it a one and a half! She said it got up to a three at one point but dropped back to a one and a half when she saw that same boat at the pier. I'd like to try it again sometime. Next time, I'll fly to Praslin!!!! Unfortunately, that was not an option on this trip!!

A day at sea and then the Maldives. The spot where many a movie star has vacationed. Most recently, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. We'll see what the attraction there is for you.