Chateau de Feuilles Praslin Island

... bikes (with granny baskets) lined up next to one another. I knew what I was about to see, and still, there was nothing that could have prepared me for such amazement. There are no words available to describe giant granite boulders scattered wildly, resting in the white sands, surrounded by an oriental carpet of impossibly-varied green and blue tones - there just isn't. I spent the next several hours swimming and ...

... Arms in downtown Victoria, a long stop at the Botanical Gardens being amazed by the size and aggressiveness of the fruit bats and beauty of the tropical flowers, a long drive to Intendance Beach home to the exclusive Banyan Tree Resort, and a final meal at Vye Marmit’ in the Val des Prés craft ...

... the reef, we abandoned our attempt figuring we had our sea legs about us and could deal with one more night of roll, after all, we’ll be spending the next year on terra firma.

With sundowner in hand, we bid adieu to our final sunset on Monkey Puzzle.

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... a small bonito caught again by Lisa. As we round the northern point of Mahe’, the wind begins to build to 30k (katabolic effect off the high mounts) coming almost due south right on our nose. We roll-up the job and reef the main as we motor sail directly into the wind to anchor in the designated area off Beau Vallon Beach.

It’ ...

... we start to feel bugs landing, first one or two, then 10s, and eventually, 1000s. The air is so still we are being invaded by black flies as the sunsets. Guess we’re going to be deprived of our final Lazio sunset after all as we quickly go below and close the boat down to avoid an infestation below deck. It’s stifling below, but, we have no choice but ...

... high cliffs about 100m to our south.

The high winds never materialized, nor the rain, but, the sea was sending 1-2m waves into our beam from around the northern point of the bay. Thinking they would eventually subside and expecting a severe hit of wind, we stayed. In hindsight, it probably would have been wiser to go anchor further into the bay, clear of the ...

... taking a mooring ball, Lisa and Marcello headed to the south side of the bay to snorkel the cliffs and encountered a moray eel and turtle, plus some great rock formation. Once back, it started to drizzle, so we had dinner inside the boat for the first time.

Menu
Dinner: grilled shoemaker fish, Greek salad

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Fabulous day! The Saychelles are islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They've become very "in" with the in-crowd because they're incredibly beautiful, originally called the Garden of Eden. Our excursion was to another World Heritage site, the 2nd largest island in the Saychelles, Praslin (pronounced the French way, Pra-le.) We rode on the prow (I guess it's called the prow, it was the front tip, exposed to the ...

... the land of suga' ... de people pretty pretty pretty. West Indian/GT peeps, think of every red-skin person you know w/ light coloured eyes and multiply by 100. Then we add all of that up to get close to the amount here. To add to my weakness, there are more men around here named Andre than anywhere that I've been so far. This is not just the dangling of 1 carrot, ah have to contend with a whole field!!! Fellas, don't feel left out ... women here are equally stunning ... is ...

... market. In that sun, the fish goes off quickly, so to cover it, she made it spicy. Sometimes, it was VERY spicy! There was a strip of grass between the house and the beach and we had to sprint over it, or our legs would get bitten by the myriad sandflies that inhabited it. Couldn't swim after 5pm, as that was when the sharks came in close to feed.