Around Seychelles

View of our anchorage at Praslin Island

This is a bit of a catch-up post, since it's been awhile (I was in the States for about a month visiting family).

 We made it to Praslin, which is one of the other "main" islands that we are allowed to go to in the Seychelles (there's a quirky mix of private/public/ and marine national park islands here, so you need to to do your research or else you can get turned away or hit with a pretty hefty visitor fee). It's nice to have clearer water after the Eden Island anchorage, which has very 'nutrient rich' (aka 'poopy') waters.

Little Big Ben is the best-known landmark in Victoria, the Capitol

 

And we escaped the long-stay inducing, flat water of Eden just in time, too. Perry's bottom needs a good scrubbing and it was time to make water again.

Jen on Longreach made these festive cupcakes. And she's an Aussie!

 

We had a July 4 celebration hosted on Perry with several other boats in the anchorage: Americans, Brits ('oppressors'), and Australians ('fellow oppressed'). Andrew on Sonrisa organized everything and everyone contributed. We had all the fixings: burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, corn on the cob, watermelon, and salads and desserts. It was a fun time with friends and, as with all the best celebrations, everyone ate and drank too much.

Sauzier Waterfall

Before I left, we took a drive around Mahé (the main island) where we have spent most of our time in the Seychelles. Sauzier waterfall in Port Glaud is one of the sights that you need a car to reach.

While I was away, Matt did fun things like remove the generator injectors to have them serviced. Of course, things like that never go very smoothly and it took a couple days of effort to extract one stubborn injector. In the end, Matt prevailed and we now have a much cleaner-running generator. There was also a fuel selector valve that allowed air in the line and caused the port engine to die when Matt and the kids took Perry out to make water.  Oh, and the kitchen faucet that sprung a leak and was letting out our precious fresh water. The fun never stops around here.

There are more rainbows here than anywhere we've been. Which is just another way of saying that constant sprinkles (no, not the good cupcake kind) are a way of life here.

 

We visited SMAC Adventures for a really fun zip-lining outing. Rather than just one or two lines, you follow a progression of eight (I think?--I lost count!) lines down the hill. 'Coming in hot' might be one of their taglines and it was a little disconcerting at first because it wasn't clear what was going to stop you at the end of the line. Fortunately, they were well-designed to slow you down at the right time (helped at times by the crew creating friction by vigorously pulling the line up and down--I hope your arm isn't getting tired, dude).

Conrad of the jungle.

Does this harness make my butt look big?

Fun with used rubber gloves. He could not fit it over his head.

After Praslin, we will head over to La Digue. There are almost no cars on the island and everyone rides bikes everywhere. Everyone keeps telling us that we will love it, which is making me a little afraid that it won't live up to our expectations. There are benefits and drawbacks to visiting places where so many of your friends and other cruisers have already been.

In the meantime, we are cleaning the science-project of a boat bottom. It's been over 3 months since it was last done properly. The growth comes off relatively easily but was definitely slowing us down (our trip to Praslin averaged only 3 knots with the spinnaker, mostly because of the lack of wind, but our dirty bottom certainly didn't help). Our days right now are all cold water (80 degrees is cold for us), bitey shrimp, and complaining. But there's a nice beach and clean water at the other end of the rainbow (which means it's raining again... gotta run and close the hatches).