Diane

We moved a short distance during the night to our next port- La Digue, Seychelles. My excursion today is a Vallée de Mai Nature Walk. Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage site that is a palm forest with 6 species of endemic palm trees.

We took a tender to the pier, then a 30-minute ferry ride to another island- Praslin, Seychelles- where we got on a bus for a 30 minute ride to the nature preserve. We stopped along the way to see a beautiful beach and made another stop to see a waterfall. We just stopped on the edge of the road, got off the bus and walked on the road to see the waterfall. The guide keep telling us to watch out for the other vehicles.

We took a very, very short out & back walk in the nature preserve- I’d guess less than 1/4 mile. I was so tired- it wasn’t super hot but the extremely slow pace and the amount of time spent standing around made me feel like I was going to faint. When we walked back to the entrance at a normal pace I was no longer tired and felt fine. I talked with other folks that did the same tour but with a different guide and they did a much longer loop trail.

The palm forest was amazing- imagine a whole forest where the “trees” are all different species of palm trees.

The flagship palm is the Coco de Mer palm. It has the world’s largest and heaviest seed/nut which can weigh up to 90 pounds. We all wondered but the guide said no one has been hit by a nut/seed dropping from a Coco de Mer palm. There is a female plant and a male plant.

When we returned to the bus we were offered water that came from Vallée de Mai.

After we got back to the pier, I walked around the town looking for souvenirs but found lunch instead. I ate fish & chips and drank local beer and local cider at the Fish Trap restaurant on the beach. It was delicious and peaceful.

I went snorkeling, visited a botanical garden and then went on a second excursion around town today.

For the first excursion, we walked off the ship onto the pier and then boarded a catamaran which took us to the snorkeling spot. They provided the gear and I spent a more than an hour snorkeling and looking at the fish, vegetation and coral underwater. When I looked up, I couldn’t see anyone else in the water- apparently everyone else was already back on the catamaran. I did enjoy every last minute of snorkeling I squeezed out of our time there.

The most amazing part of the snorkeling was when a large school of fish swam by. I’ve never seen such a big school of fish while snorkeling.

From the catamaran, we took a dinghy to the beach where we boarded a bus which took us to a Le Jardin Du Roi- a spice garden where we saw spice plants, endemic plants and Seychelles giant tortoises.

I got back from the snorkeling excursion, changed my clothes and had 5 minutes to grab a sandwich for lunch before heading out on my second excursion.

For the second excursion, we drove around the northern part of the island to see another garden with more Seychelles giant tortoises, some beautiful beach & scenic views and spent some time at a beach with amazing white, soft sand.

One very odd thing about this island is that is is made from granite rocks. The inner Seychelles islands are made from granite and the outer islands/atolls are made from coral.

Sea day today- flat calm seas- very strange. It was almost like a lake. The ocean is currently 17,000 feet deep and is 84 degrees. Still can’t believe the water is warmer than the air.

Today I went to a cooking demo. It was fun as the chef and general manager have a good rapport and joke around during the demo. Found out that all the stoves on board are induction stoves so there are no open flames- (except the ones that are used to create flambé). When folks ask about the ingredients the chef pretty much says use what you want as each dish can be individualized.

Another wonderful excursion today. We went to Amber Mountain National Park to look for more chameleons and lemurs. Our group didn’t see any lemurs but at least one of the other groups did.

There was a large group of people that went on this excursion. We were broken up into vehicles with 4 people in each vehicle. Then two vehicles would stick together in case one of them had any problems. There were three of us in our vehicle until a late comer joined us- it wouldn’t have been so bad but she complained pretty much the entire hour and a half drive to the park (and back!) and she took the window seat.

We saw the blue nose chameleon. It actually has a neon blue nose when it’s not disturbed. I didn’t get the best picture because someone from the other group walked off the trail and right in front of our group and took so much time taking his photos that not everyone was even able to take a single photo. sigh…

Even with the complaining, photo hogging and missing lemurs, it was an amazing hike. One of my top ones so far. The forest was so peaceful and full of birds and native plants it was nourishing to the soul. Our guide was very well read, informative and spoke very good English.

Today was the first time I’ve seen so many tuk-tuks on the roads. They were all over the place on our drive to & from Amber Mountain.

I have wanted to visit Madagascar for years and now that I’ve had a very short visit, I’m ready to go for a longer visit. When we arrived I smelled smoke from all the wood stoves the people use for cooking. I was surprised I could smell it while on-board the ship.

Jennifer and I took an excursion to Lokobe Natural Reserve where we hoped to see lemurs, which are only found in Madagascar, and chameleons in the wild. It was very fun but quite warm.

The cruise line rated it as a strenuous excursion with slippery & muddy trails requiring folks to be able to exit a small boat and walk thru water to get to land. I was completely flabbergast at the number of folks that had difficulty walking on the ship and flat land that came on this excursion. And amazed at the number that were surprised that they would need to walk thru water and might want to wear water shoes. This isn’t the only excursion where I couldn’t understand some of the folks who joined and wondered if they read the excursion description before signing up.

To get to the reserve, we boarded a boat directly from the ship; it was a 30 minute boat ride to the reserve where we had a wet landing where we stepped off the boat into the water and walked to shore. It was a short walk- maybe 10 feet- to shore and the deepest water went just past my knees. Once on shore we were split up into smaller groups to hike thru the forest to look for animals.

I was not prepared for the lemurs that were in the trees at the beach so I didn’t get my camera out in time to take pictures before we started our hike- no matter I saw another lemur (or two) on the hike. We also saw a beautiful green chameleon and the world’s smallest chameleon which is about the size of a thumbnail. It’s impressive that the guides can even find them.

After the hike we re-boarded the boat(another walk thru water) and rode about 10 minutes to another beach where the villagers gave us a soda/beer and some delicious food after we disembarked. They also danced for us and had items for sale.

After refreshments, we boarded the boat again(another walk thru water) and went back to the pier(30 minutes). At the pier Jennifer boarded a tender back to the ship and I walked around town for a bit. When I returned to the pier, I enjoyed the women dancing on the pier while waiting for my tender back to the ship.

Another day at sea…the water is about 9800 feet deep and we’re 60 nautical miles from Madagascar. The water temperature is 84 degrees and we have 8 foot swells. At 84 degrees the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature.

Between the swells and waves, I feel like I”m sleeping on a bowl of jello when I’m sleeping because the bed jiggles, jiggles, jiggles. Many folks are seasick and the crew has put out the ‘white paper bags’ for passengers to use if they need them.

It takes quite some time to have a meal. We have met a lovely group of women and we usually have dinner together at the buffet. Between waiting for everyone to arrive, getting our meals and talking dinner takes about an hour.

If we eat at one of the ‘specialty dining rooms’ it takes 2 or more hours. The ‘specialty dining rooms’ are like a restaurant and there are two on board- Polo Grill (think steak house) and Toscana(think Italian restaurant). Additionally we have the Grand Dining room that has a different menu every day. It takes 2 hours because we: are seated, wait for the waiter to get our beverage choice & deliver our water/wine/drinks, wait for the menu, decide what we want to eat, place our order, wait for the food to arrive, eat, wait for table to be cleared, get dessert menu, select dessert, wait for dessert to arrive, eat dessert and then we can leave. Of course we are talking and enjoying ourselves the entire time so the time goes by quickly.

The menus change daily so it can take some time to decide what we want to eat. One item the Grand Dining room offers at lunch is “Taste of the World”. It’s a sampler plate of food from that area. I’ve tried Scandinavian, English and Mexican so far as I just recently discovered this option. England was definitely NOT my favorite as I discovered that Yorkshire pudding is NOT a pudding/dessert! I had the Scandinavian twice- the first time was much, much better than the second time. Mexican was so-so. No matter- it allows me to try different flavors.

Today was another cloudy day but not as much rain as yesterday. The seas have been relatively calm.

Every night after dinner when we come back to our nice clean room, there is the 4 page publication on our bed- Oceania Currents. The Currents lists all the things that are happening on-board the ship the next day. This is what we use to determine what we’re doing and why we are generally very busy on the sea days.

Below is today’s currents. I only included the top part of page 1 and didn’t include the last page which has the times the dining rooms and services are open.

It was our first rainy day today. It rained off and on all day. We’ve had squalls before but not such a concentrated rain. We’re traveling thru a tropical depression- see photo below.

A note about excursions- the cruise line offers excursions at almost every port they stop. These excursions typically last between 2 and 8 hours and cover many of the tourist highlights of the port area. They can be bus tours, walking tours, snorkeling trips, museum visits, garden visits, boat trips, etc. There are multiple excursions offered at each port. Passengers can sign up for these ship excursions a year or more in advance or they can sign up to the day before. If you sign up the day before you are limited to the excursions that still have space available.

Or passengers can arrange independent tours outside of any the cruise line offers. Passengers can also get off the ship at the port and hire a taxi or Lyft/Uber or use other transportation to take them to the location of their choice.

If you don’t get back to the ship before it’s all-aboard time(typically 30-60 minutes before departure), the ship won’t wait for you. If you took a ship sponsored excursion they are responsible for getting you back to the ship.

Another time change day today. We’re getting further and further ahead of California time.

A new country- Mozambique- and no excursion today. Jennifer and I took the ship-provided shuttle bus to the local market and spent a nice morning there admiring the fabric and batik artwork.

Everyone wanted to sell us something but graciously took ‘no, thank you’ as a response. Well almost everyone, the self-named Mr. Discount was harder to get past.

I’m not such a good bargainer. Jennifer got the special ‘first customer’ price while I got the tourist price. Mainly because they could tell when I liked something because I’d say to Jennifer “This is perfect, I love it!”. And once I found a piece of fabric that I liked and wondered if they had a larger piece. Someone went all over the market looking for a larger piece so it was pretty hard to bargain when they found it and brought it to me.

After spending a few hours at the market we went home with our treasures and pampered ourselves with wine and a face mask.

Today I went on a game drive at Hluhluwe Game Reserve. The reserve was about an hour drive from the port. Once we arrived at the park we switched from buses to the safari vehicles to go on our three hour game drive.

There were 3 buses holding a total of 57 people which were split into 6 safari vehicles. I got to sit in the front seat of my vehicle. This meant I had some nice views but most of my photos are facing forward so less of the vehicle is in the photo. And it was difficult for me to see the animals on the driver’s side of the vehicle. All in all, because I like to take pictures, I prefer the less desirable (harder to get into and it has a rough and bumpy ride) back seat.

We had beautiful weather but I was still surprised at all the animals we saw, many of which were on the roads. We saw 4 of the big 5. The big 5 (African buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhinoceros) are so named because they are the most dangerous to hunt via foot.

To prevent poaching of the rhinoceros horn, the horns are cut off the animal. The horn grows back in 3-4 years and has to be removed again.