Victoria, Seychelles – March 28

Victoria, Seychelles – March 28

When we woke up this morning we could see some islands from our balcony and we were moving along very slowly so we assumed that we were almost to the port in Victoria, but we continued to putt along for quite a while. Finally the Captain made the announcement that a NATO warship was still at our dock but would be leaving soon and that we should only arrive a little over an hour late. Since we didn't have anything booked here it didn't make any difference to us – but it really screws up the shore excursion people. Pretty soon we saw the military ship go by us and we docked.

The islands are gorgeous, tall green mountains with white sandy beaches – no wonder it is such a favorite vacation spot. The main language here is French/Creole... somehow that surprised me as I thought that was pretty much just in the Caribbean....

We left the ship shortly after it was cleared and took the shuttle into the city center – it's probably only a couple miles but the traffic was bumper to bumper so it actually took about 15 minutes. We headed off to the central market just because I love them. This was probably the most colorful one I've ever been to. It didn't have a lot of variety; mostly vegetables, fruits and some fish stalls but it was good for pics. Then we headed across a street to a Hindu Temple! It was small, but another opportunity for some great pics and it was interesting to see how the statues changed from those in or nearer India; there were many here that reflected the black island population.

By now it's been a couple hours and it's about a million degrees and at least that much humidity so we just wandered around through the town and took the long way back to the shuttle and back to the ship. The town itself isn't too noteworthy; it's the resorts along the beaches that are the tourist draw but we had a good day anyway. I had hoped to also go to the botanic gardens, but I'm such a weenie, I said it was way to hot for me to walk through them today.

I mentioned the razor wire that is below the promenade deck in the earlier post about the actions that were taken as we are in the somewhat dangerous waters where the pirates are.  Here's a pic – You have to look closely to see the wire, but it's there.  I love the Welcome Home banner, it's up at every port.