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Published: April 2nd 2011
Saturday April2nd, 2011
Indian Ocean- North of Madagascar
Latitude 8 degrees 55 minutes’ south- Longitude 51 degrees 4 minutes’ east
Yesterday at 7am we were the first ones off the ship in Victoria the capital of the Seychelles Islands. It is advertised as the smallest capital city in the world. With only 22 thousand inhabitants it was not overly crowded, but I think everyone with a car was in town. We walked into downtown and found the Tourist Information Office. We told the nice girl working there that we wanted to rent a car. She called someone and he said he had one car left. We agreed to a price of 54 Euros for the day and he brought the car to us. The car looked great and we were soon on our way. Once out of the downtown there was practically no traffic. There are 115 islands in this country and the main one where we were is called Mahe’. I was surprised by how mountainous the island is and everything was completely covered by lush vegetation. In my mind I had expected the Seychelles to be more like the Bahamas, flatter and much drier. In reality
the main “inner” islands are made of granite and are geologically the oldest islands in the world. They are surrounded by the “outer” islands and these are the low, flat coralline islands that I had expected. As we drove up and over the central ridgeline we were greeted by gorgeous views and beautiful white sand beaches on the western side. In the next six hours we crisscrossed the island several times. We saw North Point and everything down to Pointe du Sud (South Point). The people were friendly and seemed to speak good English. They learn three languages in school- Creole, English and French. Both the English and the French have maintained control over the islands through the years, but they have been independent since the 70’s. We did see some soldiers doing maneuvers in a couple of places and there were several Navy ships in the main harbor. There was talk of political unrest among some of the passengers, but the people we talked to seemed to think that everything was fine. We did hear that tourism has been off because of the pirate activity in the region. There are lots of hotels and condo developments on the island
and for the most part they all seemed to be doing okay. We loved the lack of crowds and how clean everything was. The beaches were pristine and there we no abandoned cars or trash along the roads. It is too bad it is so far away from the US. The main tourist groups were all from Europe and a couple of the Sheiks form the United Arab Emirates have big mansions there. The cruising looked great with calm seas, a good breeze and great anchorages. Charter Company “The Moorings” has a base there and we saw one of their Catamarans sailing offshore. Late in the afternoon we did have a sort of harrowing experience when we were driving down a dead end road going toward Cap Matoopa. The road kept getting narrower and there was no good place to turn around. Of course, someone came from the opposite direction and we just sat there looking at each other. I backed up some and did manage to get over far enough that they squeezed past. We continued on and finally found a place to turn around. On the way back we saw no one and found a great little private
beach where a freshwater stream was flowing out into the ocean. I don’t think many tourists venture into that part of the island. We had made an appointment to return the car in an area that was close to where the ship was docked. We made it back with a little time to spare. Unfortunately, Nigel the rental company owner was late and by the time we got to back to the ship they were pulling up the ramp. We really maximized our time ashore in the Seychelles, first one off- last one back onboard!
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greg
non-member comment
Losing weight?
How is the weight loss going??? I think this would be impossible. We went on a 5-day Disney cruise last week. I was walking constantly and climbing stairs continuously... and I still gained a couple of pounds.