Justin woke up just after 06:00 and Crystal around 07:00.  Justin was very surprised at the results of both the Suns and Bucks games - both finalists last year lost fairly handily in Game 7 of the second round.  We were going on an island-hopping excursion today, so we packed the blue backpack and orange waterproof bag.  We weren’t 100% positive about what we’d be doing, but from what we could remember, we’d need a variety of things on the excursion.  One thing we both knew we needed was sunblock, especially on our knees and the top of our feet.  We went to breakfast around 07:45.  We made sure to sit in the shade today.  For our tour, we didn’t know if we were meeting at the lobby or on the beach, and the front desk didn’t know how to help us without some sort of voucher, which of course we didn’t have.  In fact, all we had was an email from Julian, which was great for our purposes, but wasn’t going to help with anything local if we needed it.  We decided one of us would wait on the beach, the other up at reception.

A little before our excursion was set to depart, we saw people lining up at the beach, but we weren’t sure if we were supposed to be with them.  We walked down and they asked if we had a voucher (nope), which local travel agent would have booked the tour (“never heard of them”), and did you book through the front desk (nope).  Justin was furious, as the local travel agency had completely screwed up yet again.  Eventually Justin saw our boat, which had just been waiting there for some time.  The captain, Jacque, knew his guests were from 24, and that was our room, so that fortunately saved the day.

So Justin went to grab Crystal and then we hopped on the boat.  Once on the boat, everything was great.  He was surprised no one told us the name of his boat, Tranquility.  We were a little bit more than surprised.  The boat ride was very nice until we passed by the edge of the island, past Anse Lazio, at which point it became bumpy.  We got to Cousin Island a little before 10:00.  We stopped a little offshore, and had to wait for a pickup from the people working on the island.  Jacque noted that the boat pilots on Cousin often hit his boat, and so he isn’t a huge fan of coming there.  Sadly, they did again today, but thankfully the damage was exceedingly small.

Once on the island, we re-arranged the stuff in our bags to take out all our cameras and to put the waterproof bag in the backpack.  We also got the vast majority of sand off of our feet and put on our shoes to walk around the interior of the island.  Finally, we sprayed a liberal amount of mosquito repellent all over ourselves.  There were maybe 40-50 tourists total, coming from 6-8 boats, and the tourists were split into several groups, dividing between French and English.

In the English group, we had 3 Russians who were quite annoying in terms of talking when the guide was talking, then having the gall to ask what they missed.  They also kept just walking in front of everyone’s photos to take their own, as if the rest of us weren’t there.  We saw some of the Aldabra tortoises, which have healthy numbers on the Aldabra archipelago far from the Inner Islands (where Mahe, Praslin, and La Digue are), but they were largely if not entirely wiped out on the Inner Islands.  Cousin Island is one island where a special reserve has been created to help grow their numbers.  We also saw white-tailed tropic birds, which have nests on the ground, meaning that there can’t be any cats, rats, etc.  We also saw a magpie robin and a ton of fodys.  But more than anything we saw a ton of mosquitoes.  

The walk was nice enough, but the walk wasn’t much longer than the idle time waiting to start.  Then there was more idle time waiting to go back from the shore to our boat.  So we hung out on the beach right next to the transport boats and got on the first boat going back.  Once back with Jacque, we went over to Curiese Island for lunch.  When we got to the island - basically just across a channel from the Raffles - he said he needed 10 minutes to prep things.  So we hung out on the beach for a little bit, finishing a beer each.  

Curiese was everything Cousin was not - it was a well-oiled machine for getting people fed.  We had some sort of cole slaw thing, some sort of pancit type thing, and then some creole food with lentils, rice, curry sauce, chicken, and fish (for Crystal).  Crystal said it was the best meal she’d had in the Seychelles.  Over lunch we chatted a bit with Jacque.  He asked if we were German, and we said no, we’re American.  “Ah, that’s why you’re so cool.”  We don’t necessarily agree with the premise, but we appreciated the sentiment.

We asked about where people from the Seychelles travel to, and he said Dubai (he’d just returned from there 3 days ago, and he wasn’t a fan of the 02:00 flight either) and Mauritius.  Over lunch we finished a bottle of wine between us.  After lunch, we had a short (but flat) walk across the island, about a mile.  It was next to a lot of mangroves, and had plenty of boardwalks.  At the other end, a lot of the Aldabra tortoises were there, and there was also another lunch spot, set up almost exactly the same.  So some people start at one end and finish at the other, and vice versa.  During the walking time, the boat pilots clean up lunch and drive around to the opposite side of the island to collect their passengers.  It’s all very efficient.

Tourists were being idiotic around the Aldabra tortoises.  One guy got his finger half bitten off by one of the tortoises, and there was blood everywhere.  Then a little Russian girl was about to get her finger bitten before some of the locals asked if the parents spoke English, then told them to tell their kid to watch her fingers.  From Curiese we went across the channel to go snorkeling at La Reserve.  There wasn’t a ton of stuff, and it wasn’t particularly colorful, but we could just be spoiled by our snorkeling trip on Socotra that was fantastic.  Justin just missed a sea turtle - Crystal saw it from the boat shortly after she got back on.

At our last stop, St Pierre Island, snorkeling was interesting because we were in the waves going back and forth right next to a bunch of giant rocks.  We did see a sea turtle this time, and slightly more interesting fish than at La Reserve.  We got another beer for the short jaunt between St Pierre and our hotel (our room is between the two small boats, mostly hidden by palm trees, in this photo that we took on the ride).  We got back just before 16:30.  We got everything off the boat in a deliberate fashion, keeping everything dry.  We gave Jacque all of our remaining Seychelles bills - he was truly excellent as a boat captain today.

Inside the room, we cleaned up our gear, our swimwear, and then ourselves.  We relaxed for a little bit, then decided to get dinner tonight since we wouldn’t be able to get breakfast the next morning.  We had a ton of water, because Jacque kept giving us more every time we got on the boat, even if we hadn’t finished what he had previously given us.  We put everything in the fridge, decided to drink as much of it as possible, and to bring the rest with us to Mahe.  We walked down to Cote D’Or, as the menu had looked good the night before and we planned to have dinner there until they changed the music.  But tonight it was buffet night, so we decided to eat elsewhere.

We walked west on the beach, watching the sunset.  We wanted the clouds to get colorful, but they didn’t, but then the sky itself did.  The sky faded in a ROYGBIV pattern, with an especially vivid lavender band.  We’d never seen anything like it before.  Then, as if that wasn’t enough, when we turned around, a huge full moon was rising right behind our hotel - we couldn’t get a photo fast enough, though, before the moon went behind some low clouds.

We tried Les Lauriers for dinner, as we’d had a good lunch there, but it was buffet night there too.  La Goulue was closed on Mondays.  We had both independently taken notice of Pirogue when we’d walked past it a few minutes prior, so we backtracked there, and they had a regular menu, so we grabbed a table.  Justin ordered steak frites with a peppercorn sauce, and Crystal ordered prawn skewers.  The garlic butter sauce not what Crystal was expecting, but she still enjoyed her meal.  Justin ordered an “Orange Rum Ginger” that was quite refreshing, and Crystal got a Sapphire and Tonic.

We walked along the beach in the moonlight to get back to the hotel.  We were trying to remember the last time we did that, and Crystal remembered that we did that in Baja the night we went jumping into the bay with the bioluminescent critters.  This was a much longer walk, however, though it was no issue except for some massive crabs we had to steer clear of about 85% of the way home.  At the hotel, they’d come into our room, despite the Do Not Disturb sign being out.  They could’ve just slid the bill under the door, or emailed it to us.  We went to sleep not long after returning, a little after 21:00.