Day 93: Port Victoria, Seychelles

The Seychelles are a series of granite islands located in the West Indian Ocean south of the equator. They boast warm clear water, a tropical climate and are an independent nation, liberated from Britain in the late 70’s. Port Elizabeth is located on the most populous of the three inhabited islands. If I remember correctly, there are 125 total islands in the Seychelles. Victoria is the capital the Seychelles located on the island of Mahe.

We made plans to spend the day with our friend Liesl because it was her birthday. She managed to get the entire day off, and she wanted to go to a nice beach. We did a bit of research and found some of the top snorkeling beaches, and figured we would take a cab. We got off the ship and in the throng of taxi drivers and tour guides, we chose a guide, and asked him if he would drive us to where we wanted to go. He was game as long as we paid him his regular rate, which seemed a bit high but he ensured us that he was 40% lower than the corporate guides. Maybe, but you get what you pay for. It’s kind of a crap shoot hiring someone randomly, but on this day we got the short stick. I won’t belabor the the experience, but the guy has a lot of problems and just wanted to share all of them. Plus he was yelling at other drivers in creole, so I don’t know what he was saying, but it was pretty heated. To be fair, he did (mostly) take us to where we asked him, and got us back to the ship on time.

With birthday girl

Little shindig on the ship

All in all, this was a beautiful stop. I was a little disappointed in the snorkeling, but it was decent, just not to the level of the Maldives. But, to be fair we had some marginal snorkeling there too, and fantastic diving. I don’t know if we’ll ever be back here but it would be nice to have more time here.