Before this cruise when thinking about the Seychelles, I thought beautiful tropical island, playground of the rich and famous, and clear turquoise water for viewing sea animals.

With two ports in the Seychelles, I picked a snorkeling excursion for our first stop.  (This is the only time Nanine and I picked different shore excursions.)

For this port, we had to tender.  This meant our crew lowered several lifeboats, each seating 81 passengers, and shuttled us from the ship to the pier – and back again when we were ready to return “home.”  The winds had picked up a bit and the water was moving rapidly, so our ship had to reposition before the tender boats could do their job.  Finally, my excursion started.  We moved from the tender boat onto a large catamaran and headed out to Coco Island, one of the 115 islands in this archipelago.  The water was so rough, we moved to a sister island for snorkeling.

After being outfitted with snorkels, masks, fins, and, for those of us wanting them, life jackets, we scooted down the ladder into the temperate water.  I saw so many fish!  Black and white striped, yellow and black striped, little blue, rainbow, big blue, … lots and lots of fish.  (I so respect people who know the names of various fish – and birds, and plants, and flowers.  I’m not one of those!).  Plus, two manta rays! 

Sadly, I also saw dead coral.  Bleached white.  Looked like little twigs just lying on the ocean floor.  Global warming.

Boating around the island looking for a good place to snorkel

My camera and my phone are not water-proof, so I had someone take a photo of me once I was out of the water

After snorkeling, we went around Coco Island and its sister island on the way back to La Digue

Beautiful white sandy beach as seen from the catamaran

Little island in the big Indian Ocean

Our crew sang and danced for us as we motored back to shore

Where to next?  Before tendering back to the Norwegian Dawn, I took a bit of a walk on the island.  Hot and humid though it was!

Seychelles hosts a unique tortoise found only on these islands

A couple of beach views taken during my stroll