Happy Birthday Stepanie!!!
Today was a better day than yesterday. No crisises.
We were up early, talking about the rest of our trip. We feel like we have seen pretty much everything on Praslin and La Digue that we want to see. We are somewhat disappointed because the anchorage in La Digue was terrible. Praslin doesn’t have many good anchorages and the island isn’t as accessible to things like restaurants and provisions by boat as some of the other places we have sailed. Many places we have sailed have dinghy docks so we can easily get on the island and get to some conveniences. We considered sailing to Mahe, but it would be a rough 6 hour sail each way. After much discussion and research we decided we will turn the boat in a couple of days early and get an apartment. We booked an apartment in Seychelles capital Victoria starting October 19, so we will have three full days on Mahe before we leave a week from this coming Sunday for Madagascar.
Also while planning and researching we decided we wanted to go to Vallee de Mai today and have a private tour. I found a tour guide who was available for an afternoon tour. We decided to go ashore to organize a taxi to take us to Vallee de Mai. We found a taxi driver in the parking lot of the little guest house close to the beach we’re moored off and arranged for him to come back in the afternoon to pick us up. While we were ashore we stopped for a fruit juice and a diet coke at the little restaurant. We returned to the boat, relaxed, had lunch and watched someone climbtake a boson’s chair ride to the top of the mast to string a new topping lift on a neighboring catamaran. Then we dinghied back to the beach to meet our taxi driver. (Please, someone, tell me how to make a graceful landing on a beach in a rising tide!)
On our way to the Vallee de Mai our taxi driver was telling us about his experience during the 2004 tsunami. He said that all the water between Praslin and La Digue was sucked into the wave. He said you could walk from Praslin to Curieuse. He also told us that the tortoises somehow knew to go to higher ground.
We arrived at Vallee de Mai and met our guide, Medina, and her 9 year old daughter, Ciara.
Vallee de Mai is a well preserved palm forest and one of two UNESCO sites in the Seychelles. It is home to the Coco de Mer which is endemic to Praslin and produces the largest seed and fruit in the plant kingdom. The trees are either male or female and geikos or wind transfer the pollen from the male plants catkin, which produces pollen for 10 years, to the female plant’s flowers which only bloom for 36 hours. The fruit takes 6-7 years to mature and weighs 30-60 pounds. It has quite a yonic shape. The seed can take up to 2 years to germinate and the tree typically matures in 20 to 30 years.
The tree generally grows from 75 to 140 ft and lives for up to 250 years. You can calculate the age by the rings from leaves on the outside of the trunk.
The leaves are fan-shaped and channel water to the base of the tree.
The tree also has a unique root system that makes it much more wind resistant than other palms.
It is called Coco de Mer because early explorers saw the nuts in the water and thought they originated in the water. Only later when they came ashore did they find the true source of said nuts.
In addition to telling us about the other flora and fauna in the reserve we asked Medina about the Praslin situation in general. She said that, not surprisingly, the pandemic had been very hard on the Seychellois economy and now the government was trying to diversify. She also said the Covid vaccine was readily available and that the government paid for the shots.
Medina was a wonderful guide and her daughter was delightful. We really enjoyed ourselves with them.
Our taxi driver was waiting for us when we exited the park. We stopped at the bank for cash on the way back to the boat. Because there is no dinghy dock we have to beach the dinghy. Coming into the beach isn’t too bad, but getting the dinghy back in the water and starting the engine while the waves are coming in is difficult. Unfortunately in the process of trying to hold the boat while Rick started the engine my camera got wet. As of right now it’s sitting in a bag of rice and I’m hoping that it will dry out and return to life, but I’m not overly optimistic. It may mean I’m using my phone for pictures for the rest of the trip which isn’t great because it doesn’t have much of a zoom. Oh well. (Please tell me how to gracefully launch a dinghy in a falling tide!!!)
We had a chicken dinner on the boat and a quiet evening.
