Seychelles

One of the first things that you notice in the Seychelles is that everyone seems to walk slowly.

It only takes three days for you to realise why!

Firstly, nothing is very far from anything else, so speed is not necessary, but also walking any faster than a stroll works up a sweat in this humid atmosphere. The main island Mahé is thirty kilometres from nose to tail, and only six kilometres wide.

There are exceptions to this speed rule: I saw one female jogger who seemed to be a Laura Croft look-alike complete with pony-tail, armband heart monitor, dumbbells in hands and thighs that could crack a coconut. But people like this are rare.

The islanders are a cosmopolitan collection of people who seem to live with great tolerance of each other. They smile easily, don’t raise their voices and we have yet to hear an adult ticking off a child, or even to hear a child cry: sounds that are all too common in European countries. Even the very few dogs we saw wander the streets wagging their tails.

 

seychelles contingent at the carnival

 

carnival, south african team

 

 

It is thirty five years since I was last in the Seychelles and during that time many things have changed, and some things thankfully have remained the same. There has been a communist government followed by a government that has tried to realise the potential of these islands with foreign investment.

As a result there are some hideous new buildings; islands created out of what were once shallow coral fringed bays, hotels like the Savoy and Hilton which are not known for their sympathetic attitude to indigenous needs and worst of all, eight large windmills designed to capture energy from the wind.  This area is an equatorial climate zone which is known as the doldrums, which has light balmy winds and the odd squall from a passing thunderstorm.

Windmills such as these have been an eyesore around the world, and on average produce less than 25% of the energy that the manufacturers claim of these ugly machines, in windy areas.

Here they are an example of politicians bowing to the Global Warming debate without any knowledge of the false claims made by the “bandwagon riders’ who perpetuate the myth.

 

Wind Generator doing nothing

 

I digress again, however it is interesting that these large International Hotels seem to have no guests at all, whereas the small locally run establishments appear to be well supported.  There is even an abandoned hotel on the western coast which is completely deserted and now looks like a beached Cruise Liner waiting for Nature to reclaim it back, by covering it with vegetation.

I was mentally congratulating the Seychelles Government for banning Cruise Ships when one appeared.

I was disappointed.

These grotesque looking vessels slip into harbours all round the world, disgorge their passengers who wander the streets of the host island donating nothing and buying little. They leave port within 24 hours, thereby avoiding port fees.

You have heard the Internet joke about it being better to retire to a Cruise Ship rather than a retirement home, because the service is better, the rooms are cleaner and when you die they just slip you overboard at sea? Well judging from the walking dead that came off this ship in Victoria Harbour, I would imagine that the Captain knows the burial service off by heart. It was like looking at the scene from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, with the ghouls shuffling through town.

I imagine that these ships are safe from pirates in these waters, because who would pay to have any of these hostage passengers back?

 

Mahe, Port Victoria

 

On the plus side, buildings that despoil the beauty of the mountains have been kept to a minimum, so that many of the famous vistas of the Seychelles remain unspoiled. On some islands there are no buildings at all, and only bicycles are available as transport.

The bays that have made Seychelles famous as nearly deserted beaches fringed with shady trees remain as they always were, and for that I salute the powers that be, because once lost, these icons will never again be recaptured.

 

Tropical forest down to sea level

 

We have been able to drift past the headlands while the island passes by like an enormous painting of tropical forest punctuated by inlets and bays of unbelievable beauty. In many places the interference from man is zero so that the rocks and palm trees must be as they were hundreds of years ago.

We have anchored in bays in which we have been alone and it is easy to imagine that we are anywhere in the world where forest meets beach meets surf meets sea.

 

 

And to plunge overboard is to be transported into a world of colour beyond imagination. Clouds of tropical fish allow us into their world and after a cursory check, leave us to enjoy their antics as they guard their nests, pursue their rivals and engage in displays that involve colour changes and posturing. We have seen turtles being cleaned by wrasse, we have watched rays swim in close formation and we have watched angelfish chase larger fish in a most unangelic fashion.

Each time we swim among these fish in their coral gardens we find a new one that we haven’t seen before and which isn’t in the “book” so we have the momentary thought that maybe we have discovered a new species. But how to remember the colours when you surface? They are too fantastical to explain or document in normal earthly terms. And so the new discovery remains for someone else to document and record.

 

another sunrise

 

As we sip a sundowner on deck the sea around us erupts in activity as a school of baby tuna rip the surface with their thousands of bodies evading a predator.  A barracuda leaps through the air like a javelin back into the sea in pursuit of supper, a ray slaps the surface with his body and a turtle snorts air, gives us a scaly glance and then slips back into the depths.

 

another sunset

 

In the morning the sun refracts the colours of schools of fish into impossible emerald green, which reminds me of the colour sometimes used by French car manufacturers to detract from the shape of their vehicles. As the sun rises the colour of the fish changes to cobalt blue.

The glorious shades of the sunsets are captured by the rain showers which drizzle the pinks and gold in rain into the variegated tropical greens of the trees and the sea.

Every day the spectacle is different and it is easy to become addicted to the exhibition as it is to the sundower.

 

Aptly named Silhouette Island

 

Hard Sailing Condidtions

 

Marlene feeding fish