Introducing – “CHASING THE SUN: Seychelles” – a tropical trip teaming with vibrant visions. If you’re reading this now, smile – You’re about to step back in time for an island experience all too sublime…
The following is an excerpt from the travelogue of Sanuk surfer & scribe, LAUREN HILL:
Say shells? Sea shells?
Seychelles: the planet’s oldest islands are surrounded by a thousand mile moat of balmy Indian Ocean between India and Africa.
The idea of traveling for 30 hours or more to get to the Seychelles prompted me to consider: what is a good reason for traveling? What justifies traversing half of the globe to (maybe) slide along some little ocean waves beside glittering granite boulders?
Wonder! Beauty! Magic! Pink pineapples!
Three phenomena made the islands uniquely irresistible: the wonder of empty line-ups, the magic of native pink pineapples, and the beautiful lore of the Coco de Mer tree, the world’s largest coconut
Not many people surf in the Seychelles and maps and bouys are still unreliable for swell prediction, so we quit looking at them all together. It’s a ‘wake-up and see’ kind of place. We didn’t have maps or a guide; no ‘pointers’ to where the waves were. We just had to find them; lucky we had good walking shoes.
So, we meandered through spicy-sweet Seychellois vanilla groves and biked through shady palm plateaus, searching for surf, lucking into local delicacies like cassava cake, always ready to plunge into the crystalline waters of the Indian Ocean.
Along the way we stopped to smell the ripening pineapples, found ourselves silenced by the majesty of an ancient Coco de Mer forest, scraped our knees climbing up 750 million year old granite boulders, and basked in gratitude for almost always being the only surfers in the water.
The Seychelles’ oceanic isolation makes the islands an important stopover for millions of migrating birds each year, so you’ll want to bring your ornithological binoculars. Travel tip: use Sanuks to amplify auditory abilities so you never miss the rare call of the Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo, or the more common white tailed tropic bird.
It’s always important to color-coordinate your footwear with 750 million year old granite boulders. Just out of respect. These particular boulders, which make up the heart of the Seychelles’ main island group, are ancient shards of the Himalayas, left mid-ocean from the tumultuous break-up of India and Africa.
Falling coconuts kill around 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks. There’s no telling how many fatalities are caused by rogue shoes falling from coconut trees.
Coconuts drip from the trees in the Seychelles, a former exporter of copra, but don’t expect them to be free unless you do the climbing yourself. Seychellois know how to make a living from the humble coconut (by charging tourists $10 a pop after their first swig). Pay first, drink later and always haggle.
Subtlety defines the beauty of longboarding; a gentle shift of weight into the pinky toe, for example, can mean the difference between trimming through flat sections or finding yourself kicking the reef. One smiling step at a time makes for an excellent journey, even if we never make it to the destination.
Sunset, wavelets and no other surfers in sight: one of those precious moments that keep us Chasing the Sun.
One hundred percent of coral reef breaks rely on the health and wellbeing of the coral beneath them. El Nino smoked the Seychelles’ coral reefs in the late 1990s with warmer ocean temps, leading to a mass die-off that took nearly 80% of corals around the islands. There’s still plenty of life making due with the recovering coral populations, and organizations like Nature Seychelles are innovating new ways to grow and repopulate the reef systems.
The coconut is one of the ultimate vagabonds; they’re part of a family of plants known as ‘drift seeds.’ The coconut’s direction is wholly determined by the whim of the salty elements to deliver them to some open stretch of beach where they can lay down roots. We intercepted this one making its way through the line-up toward the sparkling Seychellois sand.
Eyes on the horizon for the next instalment of Chasing the Sun ….
All Photos: MING NOMCHONG / @THEDRIFTERBLOG.
Thanks to SANUK, BILLABONG, CONNER HATS, YELLOWLEAF HAMMOCKS, SEYVILLAS and TROPICSURF for making this journey a reality.
For more Lauren, follow her flow on Instagram: @THESEAKIN