Seychelles 2010

 

Our long distance trip in 2010 took us to the Seychelles...

It was a marvelous trip.

Beginning of May we flew via Paris to Mahe, main island of the Seychelles.

Where we took the inter state ferry speedboat to reach our final destination Praslin, the second biggest island of the Seychelles. 

 

Berjaya Praslin Beach Hotel:

We stayed at a nice three star hotel directly at the beach “Berjaya Praslin Beach Hotel”. The hotel is nice, rooms (especially the superior rooms with ocean view) are newly renovated and the staff down there is friendly and courteous. Food is reasonable, a good tip for all people going down there is to take bed and breakfast only and use the chance to go to nice local restaurants that are in walking distance from the hotel. Do not miss to visit the Italian Gelateria, but if you try the ice cream only you certainly miss something, the good local food that they offer there. And try out “Tante Mimis Restaurant” at the casino of Praslin, the ambience and the food over there is excellent (and worth the price)!!!

 

We recommend island trips on Praslin (by rental car) to see all the nice beaches down there as well as the “Vallee de Mai” national park. To see the surrounding islands you should organize the trips with the local guys hanging around at the beach, once bargained the prices they are more reasonable than those from the travel agencies, the trips offered (e.g. to Coco Island, Felicity or Cousin, Curieuse) are very nice. Do not miss out to make a one day trip to La Digue (with ferry) and rent a bicycle to exploit the islands hidden beaches as well. As said already do not miss out the small restaurants and bars on the island.  

Of course Seychelles is the place to be for water sports, especially snorkeling and diving is a must when flying down there. While good snorkeling spots are rare due to sand beaches at the inner islands (good locations can mainly be found at the smaller islands “Coco Island” and “Felicite” as well as “St Pierre”) good off shore diving spots can be found at many places (only reachable by boat).

 

Diving:

What you can expect to see ranges from Whale Sharks and Mantas (we have been there during the wrong time, looks like October and November are better months to see those two) to sharks (grey riff sharks, blacktip and whitetip) and rays (eagle rays, stingrays, guitar rays) or barracudas’ and napoleons or parrot fishes and lots of turtles… Do not expect too much of corals, especially soft corals, Seychelles are places for big fish, not that much for corals (even though at places like “coral garden” of “Ave Maria” and “channel rock” nice hard coral formations can be found).
We have chosen Octopus Divers (Padi 5 Star resort and voted as one to the top 100 dive centers worldwide by “Unterwasser”) which is located at Anse Volbert directly in front of the Berjaya Praslin Beach Hotel.
The dive center offers excellent diving, prices are reasonable for the high quality diving that is offered there. Dive guides are excellent and take very much care about the diving experience of their guest.
Due to the two speed boats that are available directly at the beach the trips to the diving spots are short (10 minutes to 60 minutes) and comfortable to reach (even though the water can sometimes be a bid rough in the channel).
In general diving with Octopus is very “individual”, no mass diving!!! They ensure that at the dive spots you will not meet other dive groups. The dive center tries to ensure that you do not see a dive spot twice (unless wished by yourself). Hence I did 16 dives it was not that easy for them to manage this but they tried (and in case I had to go to places twice they always asked upfront if this it ok or even asked which dive site to choose)... 
Do not miss the dive spots “Booby”, “Sister Bank” and of course “South Marianne”, however best dive spot is “No 23” (which is a newly discovered spot and has not been named yet, I call it “Aquarium”). Those once I did more often hence they are first of too big to be explored during one dive only and secondly so beautiful places that I voluntarily went there more often...
A special thanks to the guys (and of course ladies as well) down there for their excellent service and the nice diving trips that we did, hope to see you again sometimes in the future (and then we will try to see you in October or November for other big fish that are around by then). 

 

Below you can find some pictures of the hotel, the islands and of course diving pictures. 

Have fun looking at the pictures and share with us our nice memories.