This February I was lucky enough to be part of the first Naleia trip in the southern hemisphere! And what a trip it was! Here are my top 10 experiences from the garden of eden, if I wrote everything you would be reading for days.
You may think this may be a funny one to start with but…
10. The Glorious Rain Forest Rain
You have never seen such a wet group of people after 1 hour hiking in the jungle! When it rained it poured!
09. The Dingy
The rain can get you really wet, but if you want to get soaked in 0.1 seconds then let Robin drive the dingy. A few of the group had an immediate soaking after a sweet 180 flip!
The dingy is great with a motor but when you lose the safety chord with 10 takeaway pizzas on board then the delivery time gets somewhat extended. Luckily rowing club moved into action and saved the day without getting the pizzas too cold or too wet. This was one of my personal favorites, we definitely deserved takeaway after paddling the dingy what seemed like miles to the boat.
08. The Food
Don’t worry we only ate take away pizzas once…
We spent our first night together eating creole street food on the beach, after getting a free lift there in a local pick up truck. That is a valentines day I will never forget!
My favourite meals on board were definitely the fresh fish on the BBQ…BBQ on a boat in the middle of the ocean!!! Doesn’t sound like the safest of ideas, I know. But it definitely is the tastiest.
07. The Nuts!
Oh the nuts! The Seychelles is the only place in the world you can find the massive Coco de Mer, 40kg of sexy coconut. The trip to Fond Ferdinand Reserve was definitely not to be missed.
As for the normal coconuts, the best way to eat them is if you’ve managed to open it yourself. As we were minus machetes there was 2 favored options amongst the crew.
You can try it like Nico: with any tools you can find! A screwdriver a knife and some sort of hammering instrument or you can do it the superwoman way like Linda and smash it on the rocks!
And I must not forget our pal Jerry, the box fruit, who travelled with us for over a week. (??????)
06. The Most Beautiful Beaches In The World
The pictures speak for themselves.
05. The Wildlife
The Seychelles has the most amazing wildlife. The snorkeling and the diving was incredible. We swam with all sorts of beautiful coral fish, barracuda, sharks and some lucky people even managed to swim with some friendly turtles! From the boat we saw dolphins and sting rays and massive fruit bats in the sky above. The local delicacy is bat curry but none of us were brave enough to try it. We even had a very special day with the giant tortoises on Curieuse Island. The gentle giants weighed up to 300Kg and ate right out of our hands.
04. The Party On A Private Island
No photos for this one, not much information I can actually give you as we were under strict instructions. No cameras, no phones and no mentioning the island or the man who invited us would get into trouble. Who was lovely by the way!
What I can tell you is it was a fantastic night, we partied with 69% rum and a boat of Italians. We sang songs late into the night and left on the dingy with no torches on so no one from any other islands could see us! Felt like 007 ;D
03. The Night Sky
Being in the middle of the Indian ocean with no light pollution makes for a very special night sky. A rare and beautiful thing. Imagine the clearest most amazing night sky you have ever seen and multiply it by 100.
Sleeping on deck with the stars all the way to the horizon and the milky way above was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.
(Photo Billion photos)
02. Swimming with the bioluminescent plankton
One night after a lovely dinner on board someone spotted the plankton around the boat. It was time for some night time snorkeling! The bravest of the group jumped in first. A few of us took a little bit more encouragement! Once we were in it was magical, with every movement your arms and legs were illuminated against the black of the ocean water. The only other light coming from distant lightning flashes across the ocean.
The only way I can describe it is that it was like floating through the cosmos.
(Photo WatcherFF)
01. Spending 10 amazing days with these guys!
Oh and I nearly forgot – we sailed a bit too!
Thanks for an amazing 10 days
Saran
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