I See Sea Shells on the Sea Shore.

A few things I have learned over the past few weeks:

1.     A minimum of factor 30 is required, even on cloudy days in Seychelles. That is unless you want to save money on a Halloween mask. Evidence of this is when my neighbour answered her door with a yelp, followed by ‘What the hell has happened to your face?’ and the usual ‘Sorry, I thought you were a traffic light’ kind of jokes.

2.    Always close your mouth when riding a scooter. Breathe through your nose at all times. That is unless you like to eat flying tropical creatures and when you see the size of the flying cockroaches here, you will understand my fear.

3.    Never believe that a ‘compliment’ from a child is what you want to hear:

‘Miss Nash, I love your hair...’

‘Why thank you...’ *ruffle of his hair and pat on the head (you are my new favourite etc etc).*

‘Yes......I love how it is black on top and gold at the bottom!’

‘WHAT?! DETENTION!!’

4.    Don’t take a sip of your drink mid-sneeze. It’s messy and unattractive.

5.    Passion fruits are a drug. I am addicted to the sweet, crunchy deliciousness. Particularly when they are in a Raffles Passion Mojito.

6.    Scooting in tropical rain requires more protection than just a Primark ‘Mac in a Sac’ jacket. Including a full change of underwear.

7.    I get seasick.

8.    Never park a scooter in the dark corner. It gets knocked over. Poor Rosie.

It’s been a while since I updated my blog, and I’m finding it difficult to know where to start. I’ve done lots of nice things and seen lots of lovely places. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent 3 days and 1 night on boats. Posh ones too! Since boasting that I never get sea-sick, my body hates me and, to avoid ‘feeding the fish’, I take pills. 

A couple of weeks ago I was invited on a fishing trip and leaving at 5am was well worth it to see the sun rise over Praslin (my island). 

We sailed until we couldn’t see land anymore (don’t worry, Mum, I didn’t get stolen by pirates!) and we caught some pretty awesome fish. When I say ‘we’, I mean mostly other people. When I did catch something, I wound in the reel on the ‘easy gear’, let someone else unhook and kill the fish, and then posed for a photo, claiming all the glory. 

We caught a big King Fish (not far off the same height as me), a Tuna (still have some steaks in my freezer), a Job fish and some other rainbow-coloured ones. Once we got back to shore at 11am, I felt pretty queezy but quickly got ready to hop on a catamaran for the afternoon/evening. 

My friend’s boyfriend manages a yacht company, so he took us to a place called Coco island, a small island where they shot an advert (some beer but can’t remember which one).

                                    Coco Island

 We had lunch on-board, jumped off the boat using a Tarzan-esque type rope, then I snorkelled to the beach, whilst the others got the speed boat. For about 5 minutes, I was the only person on my own desert island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That’s a pretty tough one for me to beat!

                                View of our catamaran from Coco Island

                                                                On  Coco Island

We saw lots of pretty fish, shells, Hermit Crabs, giant bats and birds. 

We sailed back to Praslin at sunset and had champagne. Good day at sea.

This week has been half term and I’ve not spent much time at home:

I spent Saturday chilling at my local 5 star with a friend, drinking cocktails (yes, darling). We then flew over to the main island (Mahe) for a couple of days and hired a car. I got to go shopping for the first time since arriving in Seychelles, as there isn’t much to buy on Praslin. I bought make up and perfume and suddenly felt human again! Although the capital city, Victoria (one of the smallest in the world) is about the same size as my hometown, Lichfield, it felt like we’d stepped into London. I realised that, in the ten weeks I have been here, I have become very used to living on a small island and it felt very hot and busy in Victoria. Shopping exhausted me to the point of collapse so we went to the beach for a few hours. Three of us slept on a 24-man catamaran that night. Although this boat was huge, my claustrophobia forced me to sleep on the deck. I spent most of the night watching stars and spying on others in their yachts. Whilst we stayed on Eden Island, I went to the spa to have my hair done. I had my hair washed in a sink (as in a tap in the bathroom) and was told that I ‘have many hairs’. Now, I am going to give my French hairdresser the benefit-of-the-doubt here, and assume she was referring to the hairs on my head and not my top lip (joke for James Riley).

I spent Wednesday at my local 5 star again. This time I was on my own and fell asleep on my poolside king-sized bed (who wouldn’t?!). 

This is the day that I discovered my skin requires more than factor 30 in Seychelles sun. I scooted home feeling a bit tingly, only to get home, have a shower, look in the mirror and realise that I was, in fact, on fire! This was unfortunate, as it happened to be Halloween (Happy Birthday, Dad) and I needed to go at nightfall to buy some refreshments. Glowing and radiant, I went to see a neighbour, who thought for a couple of seconds that I was a trick-or-treater wearing a hideous mask. It was just my red face, with a severe case of ‘panda eyes’ (at least I know my sunglasses work)! 


 
All this was a shame as the following day was the day we had all been looking forward to: Island yacht party on the Catalina boat. I spent the day in my rash vest, covered in sun block and eating chocolate muffins. I tried very hard to stay out of photos as some people seemed to think my face was some kind of attraction! 

I didn’t let this stop me jumping into the sea and swimming to the island beaches. We went to Coco, Felicite, Grande Soeur (my personal favourite) and ended at Anse Lazio on Praslin, a beach about a 15 minute scoot from my house and voted one of the top ten beaches in the world. You may know it for the shark attacks last year, but I was brave and swam off the boat there anyway. I survived, despite someone thinking it was funny to play the old ‘swim under Nash and yank on her leg to drag her underwater and make her think she’s being mauled by a shark’ joke! 

                                                 We swam to Grand Soeur Beach 
 

I have spoken to Mama and Papa for the first time on the phone this week and a couple of close friends. It’s always so nice to hear a familiar voice, and although I wouldn’t want to leave Seychelles even if you paid me a lot of money, I still miss people. Five weeks until Grandma Liz comes to stay!

Pinch Me.

So, I have always felt pretty lucky. I have an amazing family, I couldn’t ask for better friends, a job that I adore and generally a damn good life. However, those who know me well understand that things haven’t always been perfect and I’ve had to take the rough with the smooth, like most people on this planet. Now, I am not religious at all but this week I have come to the conclusion that there is definitely someone watching over me. I have had a few ‘pinch me’ moments and, although I could give a list of things that aren’t perfect here, I still feel like I am dreaming. Driving to school, passing emerald green water every day hasn’t yet become ‘normal’ and I am pretty sure that, if I ever accidentally drive off the edge of a cliff (this is very possible in Seychelles! Pretend you didn’t see this, Mum!), it will be because I am still mesmerized by how beautiful this place is... or that I am being chased by all the dogs that think it’s funny to attack me on my scoot!

At the beginning of the week my immune system was attacked by germs. I felt pretty rough so I ate two grapefruits, two passion fruits and a star fruit  (thanks to my Seychelles Brother. You know who you are.) and drank two cartons of orange juice, all in one day. The intention was to overdose on vitamin C and it worked a treat. It would be fair to say that the massage I had the next day helped a bit too. 60 minutes in an open air room on the sea front being pampered was pretty incredible... until what felt like a monster-sized bug landed on my face and ate me alive! Being sprayed in the face with what I think was lavender water was a bit of a shock too, but I can’t have it all I suppose. My sunset scoot back from my massage was cute too and I stopped to take a few photos and talk to the local fishermen.

I have spent this weekend either in the water or eating. On Saturday, after my morning dive, we went up to Raffles hotel (ooh la la!) and had some lunch. The burgers were beastly! We were offered a complimentary cocktail and a bed by the pool. Now when I say ‘bed’, I mean an actual king-sized bed. We were given two towels each (yes, two) and brought complimentary drinks served in a champagne bucket. I am pretty sure that, if I wasn’t living here, I wouldn’t know this kind of place existed and even if I did, I would have never been able to afford to go there. Luckily, we know some incredibly generous people who are always bending over backwards to spoil us. We swam about for a bit, muttering a lot of ‘oh my god’ before walking about 3 meters to the beach to meet friends and Jet Ski and paddle board. I believe I am lucky to be alive after being thrown around on a Jet Ski at 90kmph. It’s a good job I had someone to hold onto as my legs and buttocks spent the majority of the time in the air, above my head. Still, it was fun. We then drove to the other side of the island to watch the sunset on the beach.

Today I tried to fly my power kite. It was unsuccessful. It took me an hour to set it up as it was so tangled, by which time the wind was nonexistent. Locals were having a BBQ and blasting out their usual Creole tunes. Some friends came down later to meet me and my sun-fried backside. Once I managed to get my scooter out from being trapped in the sand, we headed up to our local pool where we had yet more food, chatting and lazing about for a few hours. I ran over a giant crab on the way home and felt very guilty. Sorry crabby!

It’s 7 weeks today until my little Grandma friend, Liz arrives. This excites me! I am looking forward to seeing a familiar face. The internet is still very temperamental here due to someone dropping an anchor on the underwater fibre optic cable which runs from Africa. Rumour is that it’s going to take at least a few weeks to fix, so contact with home is limited.

This week I am cooking for 10 people. Please god, don’t let me poison them!

A bientot.