Last night we had horrendous weather. The wind was so strong; I woke to dry ground so I guess it was the wind that was making all that noise and there was no rain.
It looked nice enough to go snorkelling so after breakfast I went down to the only shop that was open for business yesterday afternoon. The gentleman was there again and he sorted it out for me; it would be a 0930 departure (so there was about 20 minutes wait). He took off and let his workers take care of me.
I waited till 0930 but no one came to collect me; I gave it an extra 10 minutes and asked one of the boys. The rang the boss to no avail and tried calling someone else. I gave up by 1000 and went off. At least I tried to go on the supposedly best snorkel trip (Coco Island) around here. Sometimes it is for the best that it doesn’t happen; maybe the weather and sea conditions weren’t that great anyway.
I hopped on my rented bicycle shortly after; it had been organised through the guesthouse. Rule Number 1: Always check the height of the bike; it was a bit high for me even though (unlike many others) it wasn’t labelled with the word “Giant”.
Starting on the west side where I was, I cycled north. The sea was calm but as I got on the east side, it was very rough. The best snorkelling spot on La Digue itself (excluding the offshore islands) is at Anse Patates which was too rough. I settled for Anse Severe which was calm and supposedly quite good too. The water here turned out be shallow, rocky and full of broken coral. I spoke to some people and they had to go quite a distance before they could see any fish; they said it wasn’t worth the effort.
So I swam and played in the water briefly before heading back for a chilled afternoon. It may have been a blessing in disguise to have been forgotten on the snorkel trip. It may not have been the best day for it and it wouldn’t have been money well spent.
There were a couple of local beach parties going on. Being Sunday, it seems to be the thing to do after (or instead of) church. The drinking started quite early at mid-morning. I don’t make judgements about when people start drinking; the important thing is when they stop drinking. Fast forwarding to the end of the day, there was no unruly behaviour around town at all; yep, they pass my test!
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- Traditional transport at La Digue.
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- Bicycle delivery service is commonly seen in the early morning; this man is on a bike delivering two bikes.
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- Beach on La Digue; this one is a bit too choppy today.
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- Another beach on La Digue.
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- Anse Severe where I spent some time after being forgotten for my snorkelling trip.
