Kerala might be God’s own country, but He lives in Seychelles: Day 7: Glass boat trip to Sainte Anne National Marine Park

It is the last day of the year 2011, and I woke up early and excited about going on a glass boat trip to the National Marine Park near Sainte Anne and Long Island.
As I did yesterday, stepped out of the room, got myself a cuppa, took my laptop and went to the beach to write about my trip. Sitting on the beach with the cool breeze blowing, put all my thoughts in the freezer, I just sat and stared at the mesmerising ocean for about an hour without writing and enjoying the experience. It felt like a guilty pleasure.
We were to leave at 12:45 when Mr. Sonny asked us to meet him at the beach. Mr. Sonny took us to the pier and we started our ride in the small glass bottomed boat.
It was a sunny and a humid day and the ride, once our skipper opened up the throttle, was extremely pleasant. We introduced ourselves to the rest of the passengers: A beautiful young Italian couple, a Mauritanian couple and their teenaged daughter who were living in Kenya and the two of us. The teenager looked bored and embarrassed to be seen with her parents. I guess it is the same everywhere: Teenagers hate to be seen with their parents, no matter where they are on the planet. After a 20 minute ride, the skipper stopped the boat suddenly and poured (some petrol, I suspect) on the glass inside so we could see below and suddenly, the world underneath the boat opened up. Sea Urchins, Zebra fish, Parrot Fish and multitude of other fish. The skipper brought some bread along and all of us fed bread to the fish. It was a wonderful new world for me. I had never seen so many fish in the middle of the ocean and it was a wonderful sight. There was also a lot of coral that we could see clearly through the boat.
We then moved ahead close to the Sainte Anne (St. Anne) island where the snorkeling is supposed to be really good. The waters were calm and the skipper anchored the boat. Anyone who wanted to snorkel, could. The young Italian couple and the Mauritanian man decided to get in. The young Italian girl changed into her bikini and the talk veered around top how cold the water could be. She took her dive and uttered just one word: Bellissima! It means beautiful, wonderful to the un-initiated! (Not that I knew Italian, it was just one of the few words I did know!). The other two followed in the water while the rest of us sat in the boat taking in the stunning views that Sainte Anne offered us. It had a small hill and a 5 star resort and is surrounded by lush greenery! One would be disconnected from the rest of the world, if they would stay there. 
After about 20 minutes, we left the gorgeous sight and moved on to a private island called Moyenne island. This was purchased by an Englishman for a paltry sum of 10000 GBP in the 1960s. The skipper anchored there and here I was, on one of the most stunning beaches in the world. The sand soft beneath my feet, cool breeze ruffling my hair, bright and sunny, and crystal clear aquamarine waters. If the water wasn’t salty, I wasn’t averse to bottling it and drinking it. The waters are so clear that I could see my feet even after wading in about 4 feet. The waters were so calm that it felt as if I could walk through the waters to Mahe. We spent some of the most glorious time of of our lives. We waded into the waters and walked hand in hand to the National Park (the smallest in the world). There also was a restaurant Jolly Roger, which was unfortunately shut. We left with a heavy heart from Moyenne island with a heavy heart. We passed by Long island which was used a jail a la Alcatraz, which is now shut.
The skipper took us back through another route to Mahe and there is an island, aptly named, Eden island with some magnificent villas which provides private moorings for personal yachts. How the rich enjoy life! I was insanely jealous of the Englishman who owned Moyenne island and owners of the yachts moored at Eden island!
We were back at Berjaya Beau Vallon Hotel & Casino and hit the pool until the prayers start again(refer my earlier blog )!  We went for a quick shower and came back down for the last dinner of the year. It was a long dinner where M and I sat talking sweet-nothings. At 10:30 PM, we decided to call it a night – the first time I did not usher in the New Year since 1984! It was a glorious holiday and we had just one more day in the wonderful country of Seychelles. We planned to take the road trip of Mahe the next day and our flight was late in the night back home.

Kerala might be God's own country, but He lives in Seychelles: Day 6: Car search, Berjaya Beau Vallon Hotel & Casino, Swimming pool and beach

Woke up early to pen some thoughts on Seychelles. Came down to the restaurant, picked up a cuppa and went to sit on the desolate dawn beach with only the soothing sound of the waves to help me with the thinking and writing. The air is very fresh and a bit salty, a gentle but cold breeze blowing. Dawn was just breaking, I decided to, at least, get my feet wet. The water is cooooold. Sent a chill down my spine. Beauty never affected me as much as it had done on this particular trip. I don’t know if it is the effect of Seychelles or of the Neuro Lingustic Programming (NLP) course I had just attended with Sue Knight where I was told to open up my senses. Probably was both. I could hear the birds chirping, the wind blowing softly as it seemed to have caressed my very soul! I spent close to half an hour just staring at the hypnotic and mesmerising ocean in the serenity that surrounded me while the leaves of the trees, under which I was sitting, were being gently ruffled by the wind.

Anyway, as it was the end of year and the tourism traffic, I guess, peaked and so we did not get a car to hire here at Mahe. M was disappointed and I wasn’t! We decided that we will spend time on the beach right outside and chill in the pool and see where tomorrow takes us. We took some towels, went to the beach and there were these 2 touts that we struck a deal with. One of them was to take us on a glass bottomed boat and the other for a tour on the 31^st December of the Mahe island on the 1^st January 2012. Since we had decided, we thought we would as well enjoy the rest of the day.

We had bought a CD from Sue Knight called :The Discover your Excellence Coach” and Meera asked me to listen to it. We spent the next couple of hours talking about the excellence that we see in all the people that are closest to us. I had said things that I had never even thought of before and it amazed me. M did the same too and, I think, it got us closer. We got to hear each other’s perspectives and made me realize that there are so many things that I don’t know about M and it was a great learning experience.

Had lunch at Le Canton, the Chinese joint at Berjaya Beau Vallon and had fried rice. They gave us a green chilli chutney (maybe a sauce), that M and me ate with gusto as the two of us really wanted to eat something spicy and both of us overate. It was really funny to see M pack food! How the two of us were laughing, we asked for the green chilly thingy at least 4 times and by the the 5^th time, the waitress just got the bowl of the substance, that they seemed to have prepared for the whole day, and dump it on the table. We were just laughing at ourselves. It was quite silly.

After the copious amount of food we ate, the only thing that we could do was to get a siesta. We went up to sleep and fell asleep watching the TV (thankfully had more channels on than the one at Praslin: that had 1 channel, for God’s sake!), when I was just about to fall asleep and then someone knocked on the door like the goddamn heaven was falling on us. It was the housekeeping for changing something and that killed my sleep.

Aida, the talkative mermaid, from Northern England,
living in Abu Dabhi

We decided to have coffee and went to the glorious pool. I never knew that a pool could make me feel the way I did. Made me feel liberated, free. M tried to teach me swimming and she got me to hold my breath underwater and to float with my stomach in the water, without holding anything. That felt like being weightless. I was floating! Can you believe that? I mean, with my weight? It felt so good, so relaxing, so powerful, like I could do anything! I am so scared of water, and I don’t know why. I mean, I tried to learn swimming when I was like 10 or so but never did and somehow ended up having a mortal fear of water. So to be able to float in the water was priceless! Thank you M for teaching me to do that.

Aida, remember her, she came over again and made me feel miserable. She is all of 6 years old and can swim like a mermaid in the water. She is the one of the most adorable kids I have ever met, but she made me feel really inadequate. So I made a promise to myself: learn swimming in 2012. I hope that I live up to that promise!

Phew! What a day!!!

Kerala might be God's own country, but He lives in Seychelles: Day 1

ON Christmas afternoon M and I landed in the Seychelles International Airport situated on Mahé island, on the Emirates flight from Dubai. The flight was as uneventful as possible except for the ocean that was right beside the runway which made for one of the most wondrous landing that M & I ever experienced.

We finished the immigration formalities and came out of the airport. The feast for the eyes that awaited us was simply breathtaking - A green carpeted hill with the top covered by clouds. Smell of the warm sea wafted across the airport with the warm breeze swaying the leaves of the trees surrounding the airport. I could almost taste the salt in the air.

5 minutes later, the heavens opened up for a quick shower. We waited, impatiently, for the shuttle to arrive to take us to the pier where we were to take a fast catamaran ferry (Cat Cocos: www.catcocos.com) to the Praslin island (pronounced as Pra-lin island).

A new awareness and a deep respect for sailors emerged in my mind.

The catamaran ride from Mahé island to Praslin is a 45 minute ride. The day was windy and therefore the waters choppy. It was like a combination of being on a roller-coaster and the desert safari that we had done a year back in Dubai. The first fifteen minutes were spent in pure exuberance and thrill of being on a fast catamaran for the first time coupled with the fact that we were in deep sea waters. It was after the fifteen minutes that the mind opened up to new possibilities. The waters were very choppy, and the catamaran moving up and down on the waves, coupled with the fact that there were a lot of people throwing up due to motion/sea sickness, the mind started to wander. Being on a shore and watching the waves and the sea until the horizon, just does not cut it. In the middle of the ocean surrounded by the immense volume of water from all sides, until the eyes can see – a full panoramic 360 degree view, where the waves, are really large, is a completely humbling experience, therefore the new respect for sailors. The waves, when I sit on a shore, given that my feet are planted firmly on terra firma, are not relatively scary. Sitting on a boat, over which I have no control, the sheer size of the ocean and its waves which are so large coupled with it's movement akin to a terrifying monster's body undulating slowly as it breathes in and out, wave after wave, scared the living daylights out of me. The sound of the water splashing as the catamaran scythed through the sea was terrifying. The catamaran that we were sitting on was a big boat and it was being tossed about like it was made of paper, spraying cold water on us sitting on the upper deck, with an impunity that is chilling. Winds blowing hard, waves getting bigger and more powerful didn’t help my rather disturbing thoughts. The remainder of the 30 minutes was spent in silence. I could hear my heart pound in my chest and adrenalin pumping very hard. It was a wonder that neither M nor I threw up. I could feel the rumbling and the churn in my stomach and was beginning to regret eating the French Fries just prior to the ride!

This is an experience neither of us will ever forget and it is a check on one of the few things I had wanted to do in my life – Catamaran ride in deep sea waters.