Hello, Praslin. And where have you been all my life? Praslin is emeralds and shiny blue beads from that old board game Bazaar and white diamond sand; it is lush and lazy and low-key refined at the same time. It’s basically SUR if SUR were an island. Lisa Vanderpump and her crew should do some filming out here and then when Stassi gets in a fight with someone she can threaten to murder them by shivving them with sea urchins and broken stabby coconuts. The granite rock structures on the beaches which you find throughout the Seychelles seem even more dramatic in Praslin; the beach settings seem to be the main stage attraction in a masterpiece of intelligent design for magic island storytelling.
The intermittent storm days we had in Mahe (including a complete downpour on the ferry ride over earlier and I have no idea how not one person let alone every person didn’t lose their lunch on that ride) have dissipated into vapor and we are squarely into island-paradise-that-you-see-on-the-cover-of-Lonely-Planet-books territory. Anse Volbert/Cote d’Ore is our back yard for this leg, and it’s exactly what I’ve been dying for – virtual miles of uncrowded white sand and blue waves and palm trees.
The landing here hasn’t been without a few compulsory travel bumps – see above regarding typhoon that hit our ferry ride (and they say there are no typhoons in the seychelles…), we missed our 10:00 ferry because we thought it was at 10:30 and we probably would have missed that one too and then had to wait six and a half hours to the next lift, we checked in at our schmoozy hipster hotel (there ARE hipster hotels halfway across the world FYI) and they hit us with some surprise fees because they didn’t know there would be 2 people on our honeymoon suite and had us booked for 1 (WTF on minimum of 3 levels) and then they brought us into the wrong room where some poor couple was already staying on THEIR overpriced honeymoon deal and then they told me I owed $800 for the hotel I booked with miles so my head damn near fell off. But such is travel (I didn’t pay the $800 so we can all sleep tonight it’s cool). We have a bed and a roof and a 2 a.m. club nearby where we can listen to a 90s remix-only rotation of killer dance beats.
Kevin’s sinuses have been angry since our first day of diving in Mahe, but he was brave and laid back as always and joined me in a double-dive day which did not disappoint. We went with Whitetip Divers, and I cannot recommend them enough as they were SO EFFING PATIENT with our new-diver asses and treated us to the most amazing experience ever despite the fact that we both consume our oxygen tanks at twice the rate of normal divers – Kevin, we think, simply because he has “big mountain man” lungs and me undisputedly because I’m still a nervous freak and despite my bravado and arrogance in our diving classes, I’m afraid all my air will turn off and my hose will fly out of my mouth and disintegrate and an underwater boulder will fall and trap all 4 of my limbs and then a shark will eat me and those little shrimp that eat skin will deal with the rest of me leftover and I’ll die. That said, we successfully completed both dives, I had 2.5x as much air as Kevin when we had to surface for the 2nd dive (suckaaa, I rule!), and we saw 3 turtles, a stingray, an eagle ray, a relaxed puffer fish, a white tip shark 10 feet away that did not eat us, and I am pretty sure in the distance a gigantic bull shark but I am not to believed.
It must be said briefly that the water here is insane. As noted in paragraph one, it is jewel-colored and stupendously clear and quite warm and also prone to strong currents that will sweep you for a long while. As I get used to diving, I’ll say that the best part of it is how insanely relaxing it is to float your merry way through a current that sweeps you exactly where to go while you barely kick your fins and drift past masses of Lisa Frank-colored fishies and coral. Just don’t try to manage the currents without a guide because I’m pretty sure you’ll get swept out to a sea and all the things I mentioned being afraid of will actually happen to you and it’ll be sad for everyone.
Other than diving and beach combing, we’ve entertained ourselves on this magnificent island quite easily. Everything but diving and not doing tourist things is bone-shatteringly expensive so we’ve gotten good at buying single-use beers out of the grocery store cooler for 1/4 of what they cost at what we’ve learned are only swanky hotel bars that know exactly what the’y got swimming up in their nets, eating overly expensive but more bomb-ass creole dinners at said restaurants whose nets we’re willingly entangling ourselves in, and, if you’re me, getting cheeky and indulging the jolly Rastafarian crew who is trying to sell you a 500 Euro puppy (that you kind of really want) in taking a big pull from his fresh-opened plastic flask of Johnny Walker Red that he offers you. Disclaimers: I watched him pull the seal off the bottle, it was 12PM, i was with a chaperone named Kevin, I succumb very easily to peer pressure and dares, and it seemed like perfect weather to take a shot of lung-burning hard alcohol with strangers who were obviously raising a very healthy and well-loved dog-mom and her puppies. I’m not sorry and I won’t listen to lectures on how accepting questionable drinks from strangers who are trying to sell you a dog in a foreign country is “dangerous.” Here is me feeling great after drinking some whiskey and petting a puppy.
We also are really enjoying the privacy of our room and the opportunity to drink multiple bottles of good cheap South African wine and see how far my balance and flexibility will take me into the wee hours via yoga post challenges; I am especially proud of this one which I held for 15 seconds at midnight after many free spirited libations which are required when on one’s honeymoon.
This post is out of order but it’s what’s written; next up a rewind to Mahe and then the trip home.