Mahe, the largest island of the over 110 islands of the Seychelles, was named for Mahé de Labourdonnais, a governor of Mauritius. It is the location of Victoria, the capital city. One of the smallest capital cities in the world. Seychelles was colonized frist by the French in the 1750's and ceded to the British in 1814. It achieved independence in 1976 and became a Republic within the Commonwealth.
Ringed by steep and magnificent mountains, few capitals can claim a more beautiful backdrop. The nearby reefs and pristine marine national parks are a snorkeler’s paradise. We spent several days on this beautiful island in 2015 with a private car and driver touring the entire island. It is a beautiful, rather untouristy place with lots of lovely secluded coves with white sand and clear blue water. We are delighted to be back for two days and are doing one of the ship’s free snorkeling tours.
We have a regular sea day schedule until our 2PM arrival in Port Victoria. It is Palm Sunday, Compass Rose has its usual caviar treat and then there is a Sunday church service lead by Jamie. He does a nice job. Dick goes to Terry’s lecture, “The Indian Trilogy Part III - The British Raj to Independence,” and Don Walsh’s Lecture, “Tsunami - The Great Killer Wave.” Carolyn goes to Quilling with Sarah and makes another really cute Easter card. She stops by the Coffee Connection and picks up a snack for lunch while we get ready for our tour.
The Navigator arrives dock side at 2PM and by 2:30PM we are boarding a large catamaran for our 3 ½ hour coral cruise to Moyenne Island, one of a group of small islands just off the coast of Mahe. It is part of a marine national park area. The plan is to explore this fascinating underwater world through several activities. We can spend some time in a semi-submarine viewer with a large viewing window. It looks rather iffy in that it has a red plastic gas can sitting on the open deck with a plastic tube feeding the engine below. We opt to be part of the second group since the guide is packing as many as he can into the first trip. The first group was not impressed as the water was murky and they couldn’t see much, plus they were viewing in fairly deep water not the shallow waters like in the South Pacific. Since we used to dive, this type of activity does not appeal to Dick at all so we give it a pass and spend both time slots feeding the fish which is a lot more productive. We are in an area that must be a nursery as there are thousands of little fish. After this activity we cruise on to Moyenne Island where the catamaran drops anchor. We have the choice of swimming and snorkeling off the boat or taking a zodiac over to the beach. The plan is for an hour and the beach doesn’t have any loungers or shade so we opt to stay on the boat. Dick goes swimming, but the guide does not lower the front ladder that goes down into the water for easy access and the narrow little ladder off the back is too steep and narrow for Carolyn to climb out of the water so she stays on the boat. This was rather irritating since the second catamaran, with the rest of the ships group and exactly like ours, did let the front ladder down. It was anchored next to us. A number of people did stay on board and there was a nice breeze with the beautiful scenery so it wasn’t bad.
This has been a repeating problem with the shore excursions on this cruise, especially water related ones. If there are two groups, they pack the first group to the max and then the second group has much more space. There is also the issue of the condition of the boats and what is available on each. If we had known the first boat wouldn’t use their front ladder, we would have asked to go on the second boat that did. We were planning to do this trip on both days, but after the ladder issue and no guarantee that we would have the better boat we canceled the second day.
Tonight is the big deck Bar-B-Que at 7PM. We walk up about 6:45PM for pictures and a drink. The deck is all dressed up with flags, dressed tables and two buffet lines loaded with roast beast, iced shrimp and crab legs plus every other food item one could want. The crew has really worked hard setting up for this evening.
BUT...there is not a breath of air moving and it is nearly 90 degrees! The ice melts in our drinks before we can even drink much of them. We can’t imagine eating in this heat but many people have already staked out their tables. We go down to the Compass Rose and have a nice dinner in cool comfort along with maybe 20 other couples. There is a movie tonight in the theater, but we head back to the room to watch the movie...much more comfortable. Of course one of us is asleep long before the other one has even picked a movie!
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