DESTINATIONS — CRUISE
TRIED & TESTED: Island-hopping in the Seychelles
Jane Archer island-hops around the Seychelles with Variety Cruises, sold through Saga Holidays
There are three things to remember when going ashore on Cousin Island. Wear a hat, take plenty of tissues and avoid looking up.
The island, one of nine I visited during a one-week cruise around the Seychelles sold by Saga Holidays, is teeming with exotic birds that are not too fussy where they leave their calling cards. If you escape without one – and no, I didn’t – you are very lucky. I call the trip a ‘cruise’ because it does bear all the hallmarks of a holiday at sea – a week on a ship being looked after by a friendly crew – but it is actually something of an overstatement. On the first day, we cruised
from Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles, to St Anne Island – a journey that took about 20 minutes. The next morning, there was a three-hour cruise from St Anne to Curieuse. After that, there was the occasional
hour of sailing between the other islands, before a final three-hour cruise back to Victoria. If you added the nautical miles together, you would maybe get from
Southampton to Guernsey. It makes for
a wonderfully relaxed holiday, with gentle trips ashore and plenty of time for swimming, snorkelling and snoozing. When they had time off from looking after the passengers, the crew also stripped off and jumped in the water. Even the captain joined us for a swim one day.
As embarkation doesn’t start until 2pm, you can
fly overnight from the UK to Mahé (the best flights are via Dubai or Abu Dhabi and most arrive early morning). But I travelled the Saga way, flying out early and spending a night at the Crown Beach
Hotel, a lovely boutique property the company is
packaging with the cruise, so I could recover from the jet lag and see Victoria before joining the cruise.
Although the trip is sold in the UK by Saga, the cruise is operated by
Variety Cruises,
a Greek company that specialises in small ships. The
44-passenger Pegasus, built in
1992, is the old lady of its fleet, and was showing her age, but what she lacked in style was more than made up for by the whole holiday experience. On Curieuse, we went ashore at Baie Laraie to see the island’s giant tortoises, then walked through the mangroves to Anse St José for a swim and barbecue lunch. On Cousin, I went on a
birdwatching walk with one of the park rangers, while on Aride I hiked to a lookout point and, on the way back to the beach, came across a turtle burying her eggs in the sand. These tours were included, but
excursions to Vallée de Mai in search of the Seychelles’ elusive black parrot on Praslin and a trip to L’Union Estate on La Digue cost an extra €75 and €70 respectively. Book it: Prices start at £2,999 for a nine-night holiday with Saga Holidays, departing March 25. The price includes flights, transfers, two nights at the Crown Beach Hotel and seven-night cruise. TW
74 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 15 January 2015
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