Justin woke up a little before 06:00, with Crystal just a little after.  It was incredibly muggy outside, and really cloudy.  We checked the weather, and there were high chances of thunderstorms all day; that didn’t seem promising for a helicopter ride to see the various islands, but time would tell.  In fact, the whole week looked like it was going to have humid, cloudy, stormy weather, and it occurred to us that this is the weather we would’ve had if we hadn’t needed to move our trip up by a week, so maybe we should be thankful that happened.  We paid the bill, packed, and were ready by 06:45 for our 07:15 departure.  We left the room at 07:00, just as they were about to deliver a packed breakfast for us.  So we just ate some of it in the waiting area.  Elvis met us again, to take us to the jetty.  We got to the jetty about 10 minutes before the boat arrived (we think from La Digue).

We were in business class again, and it was good we had comfy chairs because the boat was very rocky, probably because of the inclement weather.  A nearby baby was not happy, but it was actually pretty decent (for a baby).  We started nodding off from the Dramamine, which we’d thankfully remembered to take at breakfast.  We arrived in Mahe a little after 09:00, with our stomachs in decent shape.  At the jetty, we think we might have had the same driver as a week ago - the man who drove us from the airport to the jetty.  This morning, he took us up to a lookout point, but we couldn’t see more than a couple miles because of the weather.  He told us that apparently yesterday Praslin and La Digue were easy to see.  Whilst disappointing, it wasn’t a huge deal, since we’d been to both Praslin and La Digue the past week, we knew what they looked like up close.

We went back down the hill, then over to L’Escale, our hotel right near the airport.  We found out that it is a new hotel, having opened in late 2020 (not the best timing).  There are just 25 rooms, near Eden Island, a marina project that recently finished.  Everyone was very nice and welcoming.  We were able to check in early, and got in our room around 10:00.  We didn’t have anything scheduled until 14:15, so we just futzed around online a bit.  Closer to lunch, we walked over to Eden Island, which was nearby.  The mall was kind of sad.  We’d walked over there because there were a number of restaurants, and we decided to eat at Bravo.  

Like most places we’d eaten in the Seychelles, the food was meh, but also expensive.  Crystal had a peri peri half chicken, and Justin had peri peri wings.  The best way to describe the food in Seychelles restaurants is that it has been Applebee’s quality at 2-3x the cost.  This was surprising to us, given all the French and Indian influences.  Walking back to our hotel we saw a woman almost get run over, within a foot or so.  We had no clue what was up with the driver - he/she sped off in a hurry.  The pedestrian seemed kind of shook up, but much less shook up than we would’ve been.  As soon as we got back to the hotel, we got word the helicopter tour wouldn’t be going forward.  They wanted to reschedule for dawn the next day, which seemed odd given that the forecast for then was even worse.  Once we determined that there would be no penalty for canceling, we just canceled, as we didn’t want to wake up extra early just to be let down again.  

So we just spent the afternoon reading and playing video games, then we went down to the lounge, and then the bar since the lounge was empty.  Crystal got 2 passion fruit margaritas, and Justin got 3 L’Escales - light rum, dark rum, triple sec, mango, and passion fruit.  The drinks were pricey, but they seemed to be stronger than drinks we’d had elsewhere, so at least we got our money’s worth.  We played Words With Friends for the first time in a long while - we each won once.  We didn’t feel like dinner.  We watched some TV for the first time all trip - Brooklyn 99, and then replay of the Australian Open men’s final.  We both fell asleep with the TV on, just like at home.  Crystal couldn’t turn off the TV very easily, as she was trying to use the remote upside down, but eventually figured it out.