Praslin and La Digue, Seychelles - December 8-9
Praslin, Seychelles – December 8, 2014
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| Coco Island |
Early on the morning of December 8th
(Chris’s birthday – as a present, I allowed him to be “correct” all day long!) the
ship moved to a new location and anchored off Praslin, Seychelles. After tendering into the dock, our tour for
the day took us via a catamaran to Coco Island for snorkeling (so we really
didn’t spend anytime on Praslin except for a short walk after the tour).  |
| Pipe Fish |
The boat ride over and back to Coco Island was
relaxing and gorgeous, and the snorkeling great fun. As I am not a very experienced snorkeler I
saw some fish I had never seen before.
Chris indicated that while it was the best he had seen so far, he didn’t
see anything really new. I had fun swimming
around following the pipe fish and many other brightly colored species. On the
catamaran trip back we enjoyed seeing pods of Indian Ocean bottlenose
porpoises.
La Digue, Seychelles – December 9, 2014
The ship left Praslin early in the morning,
traveled a very short distance (less than an hour) and then anchored off La
Digue. This was an add-on port to
replace Kenya…
La Digue is the third largest inhabited island
in the Seychelles and has a population of about 2,000 people. However, we really didn’t see much of this
island except from a boat because as soon as the tender dropped us off on the
dock, we boarded a catamaran for an hour’s ride to Aride Island.
Aride Island is a nature reserve and has one of
the most important seabird populations in the Indian Ocean and is the
northernmost island of the granitic Seychelles.
Eighteen species of native birds (including five only found in
Seychelles) breed on Aride. The island
is managed by the Island Conservation Society of the Seychelles but is owned by
a UK charity. The only human inhabitants
are the reserve’s staff.
In the past, the island was a coconut
plantation owned by a French family and a lot of the native vegetation had been
removed to make way for coconut palms. A
member of the Cadbury chocolate family eventually purchased the island and
restoration of the natural habitat was begun.
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| Lizard on my shoe |
After riding zodiacs into shore for a wet
landing, we had a choice of activities including either a short or long hike to
view the nesting birds and other wildlife.
Chris chose the shorter walk because he also wanted to swim and
snorkel. I chose the longer walk, which
included climbing about 900 feet up to the top of the island. In retrospect, Chris clearly made the better
choice as we both saw all of the same wildlife but I had a grueling climb up a
steep trail strewn with boulders and tree roots. This along with the 80% humidity and 90
degree temperatures made for an exhausting experience. Many of the people on the hike were older
than I am and I thought I was in reasonable shape…but yikes! I did manage to trip on the way up and
sprained my wrist and returned dripping wet and exhausted.
But it was not all bad!!! I saw some great birds and haven’t been as
close to nesting birds since the Galapagos.
Among other creatures, and notably lacking in indigenous mammals, Aride
has the largest density of lizards in the Seychelles….Noah…you would love this
island. One of the lizards sat on my
foot when I was resting at the top.
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| Seychelles Magpie-Robin |
The incredible bird population here on Aride,
and unlike other Seychelle islands, is in large part due to the total absence
of rats (in fact, to prevent the possible import of rats, the island
conservationists came and got us in their own zodiacs and wouldn’t allow our
catamaran’s zodiac to land).
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| Fairy Tern sitting on egg |
The Seychelles magpie-robin, which was on the
brink of extinction and down to just 16 individuals, due to careful
conservation and care has been brought back from this near extinction, are now
living on 5 of the islands, and have a total population of around 240. Our
guide whistled for and was able to call the magpie-robin to land (and inspect)
our walking group. If you approach one of their nests, both male and females
will “escort you” away.
We saw Fairy terns, which mate for life and the
male and female share parenting responsibilities. They don’t build their own nests and
frequently lay their eggs directly on a tree branch. Another bigger and
beautifully white, long-tailed bird very abundant there is the white-tailed tropicbird.
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| Frigate bird |
There were hundreds of frigate birds soaring
over the island and I had a good view of them from the top of the island, where
they were soaring and fishing the ocean on the other side of island from the
island’s only beach where we made our wet landing.
After returning to that beach, we enjoyed a
great barbecue lunch. Chris tried snorkeling but entering the water from the
sandy beach was tricky as it required negotiating shallow coral beds with lots
of small waves and undertows. He saw a few interesting fish but didn’t have
enough time to thoroughly explore the reefs. Other snorkelers – and one or two
other hikers -- returned from Aride to our ship anchored off La Digue bearing
lots of scrapes and bruises. I carried my own sore and bruised right wrist,
worrying that it might be broken (Chris said, “no way”).
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