October 5, 2022 La Digue to Felicite to La Digue

We had a good night except that it started pouring at about 2am so we had to get up and close the hatches. 

Our plan for the day was to go to Felicite Island which is has a private 5/6 star resort (I looked it up and bungalows start at about $3,500/night and go up to $15,000/night), snorkel, and return to La Digue.  It was a leisurely morning and we left for Felicite around 11.  It’s only about 3 miles so it didn’t take long.  For the short journeys it doesn’t make sense to put the sails up so we motored the whole way. 

We anchored close to the shore and the reef.  There were about 5 catamarans and several smaller boats already there.  Felicite is beautiful just like all the other islands. While we were there a helicopter came twice to drop off or pick people up from the resort.  Here are some pictures.    

We had some lunch and relaxed a little more.  We joked that our mothers would not approve if we went swimming right after eating lunch.  Eventually we donned our snorkel gear.  I left the boat first and swam to the reef.  At the reef, I found Rick but he seemed to have his own agenda so I swam off.  I saw lots of fish but I don’t know most of their names.  The sergeant majors were hanging around me, hoping for food.  I also saw a barracuda and a school of yellow and white striped fish.  The school probably contained 1,000 fish and then they were eating off the coral they looked a huge flock of butterflies.  I wished I had the GoPro with me.  I have a new snorkel/mask combo unit because my old snorkel leaked and I was having to stopped every couple of breaths to empty it.  This need one works so much better and it’s the first time I have really enjoyed snorkeling in a long time. I returned to the boat after snorkeling for about an hour.  Rick wasn’t on the boat and I couldn’t see him in the water but I wasn’t concerned because I thought he was just behind a boat.

While I was snorkeling I would popped my head up to look for Rick.  I saw him walking along the beach and I figured he was asking if we could have dinner there.  Shortly after I arrived at the boat I heard Rick’s voice on deck.  Apparently he got water in his snorkel, couldn’t clear it, was really afraid he might drown, so he headed to shore for help.  He didn’t think he could make it back to the boat so they brought him back in dinghy. Yikes!  He was happy to be back on the boat and says he’ll test out the equipment before snorkeling again.

We showered and relaxed before leaving Felicite and returning to La Digue.  As we were leaving, I was lifting the anchor and it was clearly stuck on a rock or a piece of coral.  I tried several times and was I was panicking that we were stuck, the boat drifted forward which must have dislodged the anchor.  Phew!

The trip back was quick and uneventful.  However we had more anchor problems when trying to anchor at La Digue.  The anchor was upside down in the anchor channel, which has happened before and was never a problem, but this time the anchor swivel was wedged into the anchor channel and it wouldn’t drop. I tried the boat hook and couldn’t unwedge it.  Rick came up and shook the chain and prodded it with the boat hook and it came lose.  Then we anchored easily. The anchorage is quite crowded tonight. There are probably 18 boats here.

It’s been a long day.  We are ready for a quiet uneventful evening.  We had a beautiful sunset and dinner on the boat.