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.This morning might have been our last snorkeling outing in the Seychelles. We were at Felicity Island today, our last full day on the Catamaran. From here we have three nights on Praslin, and then we fly out to Thailand. Marlie and I followed a sea turtle for a while on our way back to the boat. We’d been lounging in the shade of a leafy takamaka tree on the little beach we’d swam to when John called out that one of the island’s most famous inhabitants was among the coral just off the shore.
She is so in her element here: none of us loves the ocean like Marlie, whose dreams of marine biology have progressively grown over her lifetime. Diving down for a closer look at a fish or sponge or sea cucumber, or diving just to swim like a ray or a turtle. Just for the joy of it, then surfacing with a blast to clear her snorkel. She’s always first in the kayak, dragging the rest of us along. Telling us about the feeding habits of octopus and squid. Trying to tell us what each fish is while still underwater with the snorkel in her mouth, an unintelligible bubbling hum of enthusiasm in our ears.
It has been fun yachting. We are glad to be on a catamaran, rather than a mono-hull sailboat. As Jeffrey, our cook and a partner in the boat tells us, mono-hull boats are for sailors, catamarans are for cruising. There is so much more space outside, including the nets upfront where the breeze cools, even when the sun is out. We’ve recovered from our bouts of seasickness, although we are putting off our last dose of Melflium until tomorrow when we are off the boat.
We’ll follow up with photos later. The cell phone based internet here on the boat in the bay of an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is a bit slow for uploads.
