Christmas in the Seychelles

After all the wonderful looking forward, anticipating Christmas with the family in the Seychelles, we now look back.… on the most amazing, marvelous time of celebration and fun with our family. While the boys thought they had landed in their own “Boys Own Annual” the girls had as much fun from watching their antics as participating in their own.

So, a day in the life of a boy on the water: wake early, pull up anchor, get fishing rods prepared in their stands, munch on a healthy breakfast quickly because you are about to start pulling them in! Gut and fillet the fish (someone else is controlling the boat meanwhile….. normally a girl….!) then sit back and open your first beer: although it is only 9:30am you have done a good days work already! After a bit of sailing, anchor off a pretty beach, swim and eat your fish for lunch, done on the braai (this IS a South African boat!).

Not long thereafter, sail to your final destination, hop in the water and snorkel before sundowners on the foredeck… generally blessed with the most spectacular sunsets. Days may be varied by throwing in a beach walk, paddling the inflatable Croc around the shallows, adding in a scuba dive off a spectacular island, eating your tuna as a steak or fillet or lasagne or fish cakes instead of kebab, for example! Days always ended with boys washing dishes.... their contribution to the galley (as well as providing the protein!)

Meanwhile, how do the girls pass these hours on the boat? Resting and reading in between passing across the necessary fishing support instruments, enjoying the sailing and the odd dolphin, snorkelling, beach-walking, sundowners and passing some incredibly creative hours in the galley (more of that later). All enjoyed the freedom offered by the dinghy and the croc and the fact that you never had to swim far from Ketoro to snorkel in a spectacular marine environment where we saw rays, turtles, giant bull-nose parrot-fish, eels and occasional sharks on top of a plethora of the usual beautiful reef fish. The photos give an idea of the fun we all had.

Soon after the kids all arrived we set about decorating the Christmas tree (a family tradition). Necessity stimulated creative thinking in this regard: Rolf dutifully provided two cardboard bases from beer-cases from which a tree was fashioned, standing in beach sand from our first over-night stop, covered in silver paper and plenty of pretty shells collected in Madagascar and the Seychelles. Christmas lunch was spent at a lovely restaurant overlooking the main beach, Anse Volbert, on Praslin Island and the days thereafter were passed anchored off Praslin, Curieuse and La Digue Islands. The latter provided opportunity to hire bicycles and cycle round the island, a wonderful experience particularly when coming upon a giant tortoise strolling (as tortoises do) towards you on the road! Barry kept his foot away from the tortoise's beak.... but then relented and gave it a stroke. Seychelles has thousands of the these huge, wonderful creatures, who love to have their shells scratched and necks rubbed (Irene being happy to oblige, but standing far from them, with recent wounds inflicted by a Madagascan tortoise fresh in her mind!)

New Year’s Eve was passed in the National Marine Park off Curieuse Island. After a quick beach sundowner among the spectacular granite rocks on the beach, we ate great paella on the boat, bathed by a full moon, supported by much wine, champagne and other liquid refreshment. We (and the yachts around us) had unusual company in the form of two boats: a charter schooner that looked just like Johnny Depp’s pirate boat… and a Seychelles Coast Guard boat. So the start of 2010 was heralded by brilliant red flares (illegal but beautiful!) and of course a midnight swim in the black water. I am still unsure of the reason for the boys’ not requiring costumes for their swim, and even more unsure of their reasons for wanting to shoot the pirate boat (or alternatively the Coast Guard boat) with the paint-ball gun. Fortunately some measure of sanity prevailed and they simply went across to visit the “pirate boat” with a bottle of Vodka and the story that they had wanted to shoot them (or share a drink). The German charter party thought them most amusing, schlurring away on the dinghy but declined to invite them on board! Thank heavens they did not try the Coast Guard boat….

(Note the moon behind us....)

Having the four “children” on board with us for two weeks was an absolute treat. They put up (uncomplainingly) with cramped, wet conditions, heat and humidity, little own space, little own time, sometimes sea sickness, sometimes rolly anchorages, sometimes tense anchoring or berthing procedures; they absolutely embraced the cruising way of life and added a new dimension and perspective to our enjoyment of it all. They helped us wherever they could and the girls particularly were marvelous in the galley, bringing forth culinary masterpieces when all they had to work with was left-overs and some scrawny veg! They need to collaborate on a Cook-Book for yachties!

Good-byes are always terrible and for a couple of days we were left at a loss; for so many months we had looked forward to this experience and it proved to be everything we dreamed of. Now we have exceptional memories and promises of other journeys together.

Before then, we will investigate other islands and try to make the Seychelles our own…. We are finding that as we talk to more people and learn how a place works – where to get stuff, how to deal with local practices and peculiarities, what to take seriously and what to ignore, when and where the good things happen, etc. a feeling of ‘belonging’ quickly develops. After a break of almost 40 years, we have re-discovered the art of hitch-hiking – buses take too long and taxis are too expensive and not nearly as interesting; chance encounters with a broad cross-section of locals, re-living memories of carefree travelling on the back of a truck with sun in your face and wind in your hair and dirt on your clothes! What the Seychellois must think of these two ageing delinquents walking the main roads – with dark tans and Rolf’s scruffy clothes (at least he had a recent haircut at Salon Ketoro), we surely look like a pair of hobos.

Almost all encounters with people in the Seychelles have left us with a feeling of wellbeing and I think this must reflect the general state and mood of this society. (This does not apply to waiters – who without exception are bad at their jobs or grumpy, or both.) We had often heard of people staying many months in the Seychelles and being very sad when finally having to leave; and had wondered at this because surely the finite number of islands and island activities must pale after a while. Perhaps it is the people and the mood of the islands that gets to you.

The reported very high crime (claimed by other yachties) – particularly theft from boats - has not been experienced by us, nor have we heard of incidents while we have been here and this perhaps encourages the feeling of goodwill we currently enjoy.

We had also heard reports of very high prices and this is certainly true, particularly in the tourist restaurants and hotels. Surprisingly, shopping is somewhat ‘third world’ with small shops, each stocking an eclectic mix of goods, scattered throughout town. Provisioning, as in Madagascar, becomes a tiring exercise… getting to town (foot), carrying parcels from shop to shop and returning burdened. Then there is the issue of obtaining certain goods and the quality thereof. A case in point: nowhere can you buy brown or whole-wheat flour for bread, so when I spotted multi-grain bread in a shop I asked to buy some flour from them. When I declined to buy a 25kg bag (all imported from Dubai) they kindly obliged and gave me two 2kg bags. For which I paid 400 rupees (about SA R270). On opening the packets to decant into smaller ones and vacuum-bag, I found they were crawling with weevils. We are about to set off to town AGAIN to return it; hope they are as obliging, but if not, I will have to ask Livi and Kay for their other book, “Ways with Weevils … Protein in a Packet”. The kids all became very aware of the problems of long-term storage when they were here….

The tourist areas themselves are very rustic and under-developed. Rolf had expected at least the main beach on Praslin (the tourist hot spot) to have a Camps Bay or Clifton feel – in fact there is nothing even remotely like this level of development. There is almost no signage visible through the thick foliage to identify the few restaurants and hotels that do exist and pub crawling along this 2km long stretch of beach would lead to certain death by dehydration! However notwithstanding this hazard, the absence of obvious mass tourism has its advantages as property developers and entertainment houses rarely manage to exercise taste or restraint when fleecing the hordes; and the genuine island style that prevails comes as a pleasant surprise.