Coming into the port this morning the fog was hanging along the coast making for some pretty pictures.
We left at 8:30 and boarded a small bus that took us through the crowded city, pothole filled streets into the more crowded Stone City area with its narrow streets. Today our excursion was to Prison Island and our water transport was a traditional dhow. We did go under motorized power and didn’t use the sail, but there were plenty of dhows in the water with their sails up so I got some great pictures.
Prison Island was once used as a transit base by Arab slave traders. A jail was built on the island in 1893 for the purpose of detaining criminals but ended up as a quarantine center for the people of Zanzibar, Kenya and Uganda who were suffering from the Yellow Fever epidemic as well as people who had Leprosy.
We had a wet landing on the beach and than walked across the white sand beach and up the stairs toward the prison. There were peacocks and peahens roaming around freely as well as a small antelope called a dik dik. In the 19th century, the Seychelles gifted 4 giant tortoises in an effort to preserve the species. The population is enclosed in a large area on the island and included a small caged areas where the youngsters were segregated from the adult population. Not much remained of the prison itself and it had been turned into more of a restaurant than an historical destination.
Following our short tour of the prison and the tortoise enclosure and getting soaked by a short lived passing shower, we headed back to the dhow and motored to one side of the island where we were allowed to snorkel for 30 minutes. I didn’t bring my underwater phone case so of course, this was the most impressive underwater coral garden I’ve EVER seen. There weren’t very many fish but the coral definitely made up for it. Only 3 of us actually snorkeled out of the group although I noticed a couple others were swimming close to the dhow.
Note: Jeff did get some underwater pics but with the sketchy internet, the underwater pics are not uploading or it is taking an extraordinary long time … so, I’ll work on these pics when we get home.
