Mon, May 1: Curieuse Island and La Digue Island, Seychelles

Today Tara picked up some additional clients and eleven of us boarded a boat for a trip out to Curieuse Island to visit the Seychelles Giant Tortoises.  The trip gave us great views of Praslin Island and some very minor island/islets/rocks in the area.

Th tortoise beach was as lovely as much of the island we had just sailed past.

The tortoises wandering the grounds are actually considered wild as they are allowed to freely roam the island.  However, several were very friendly and seemed to enjoy being petted by Melissa.  

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Watch a video of the tortoises 
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There was also an enclosure containing a number of small tortoises, under the age of five.  They are protected until they have a good chance of surviving in the wild.

The group then headed out on a walk to a beach elsewhere on the island.  

We saw some very interesting (and large) crabs hiding away in the sand.

There were great views of the ocean and other islands.

The walk went through mangrove forests and we saw hundreds (or maybe thousands) of whelk shells.  

The group split up and the first group found the beach just fine.  

However, seven of us managed to miss a path arrow and ended up rather lost.  After several phone calls to the boat driver we finally found our way to the Anse Lazio beach.

It was a great beach for bathing although this is seaweed season so there was a lot of seaweed in the water…sort of put a damper on the swimming.  Somehow we managed to get no pictures of the beach.

After a snack and a swim we re-boarded the boat and headed off to La Digue Island.  The cruise ship was repositioning there this afternoon but we saved a lot of time dealing by by-passing the ship and going directly to the island.  Once there the six who had joined us for Curieuse Island left to return to the ship while some of us had a snack at a local Creole restaurant. 

Then we headed out to see Grand Anse

and Petite Anse Beach.

Both beautiful beaches but with pretty rough surf this time of year.

Then we went to L’Union Estate park where we ignored the vanilla plantation, coconut husking demo and tortoise enclosure and headed straight to the beach. 

Along the way we saw a Paradise Flycatcher, symbol of La Digue...

and another really large snail.

Our beach destination was Anse Source d’Argent…one of the most photographed beaches in the world.  

It was very lovely and Paul, Mary and Tara did some snorkeling while Scott and Melissa enjoyed the beach.

Tara and Scott tried feeding some of the fish with great success.  However, she was quickly joined by four dogs swimming towards her.  

She was warned not to feed the fish as the dogs had learned that the fish respond to the feedings and the dogs use it as an opportunity to actually catch the fish to eat them.