Our first stop after leaving Africa was the island of Mahe, one of the Seychelles. What a beautiful place! It is different from many tropical islands in that it is not a volcanic remnant, nor is it an atoll. In their long dance across the eons the continents once met here, and when they wandered off again there remained a chunk of granite that has eroded away over the millennia to be the chain of islands that is the Seychelles. There is not the red soil of a volcanic island, nor the flatness of an atoll. Rather the land rises up into huge granitic outcrops, which are draped in lush jungle vegetation. On Mahe there has been a lot of land reclamation to make flat areas – otherwise there is a lot of going either up or down.
Beautiful coral sand beaches, but with granite!
Our first stop was at a spice farm. Where we saw a tree that produced these flowers.
They don’t even look real!
There were some resident tortoises for us to observe, including this somewhat confused guy.
The lady tortoise was in the pond and this guy was climbing aboard anything that had a shell. Guy on the bottom didn’t seem too impressed.
This trip also included a bit of snorkeling – which meant walking into the Indian Ocean to board a zodiac.
Once on the catamaran I deployed the mask and fins.
A few years back a spell of warm weather raised the water temperature and killed off a lot of the coral. The big resorts and deeper areas weren’t as affected. In this little bay apparently the damage was extensive, but there are signs of regrowth. Where we swam the coral was dead but it was covered in a thick layer of sea grasses and there were fish everywhere. So – not a pristine coral experience but fun snorkeling.
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