We docked on the island of Mahe…… the capital city is Victoria. Jeanette thought we should twin with our city of Victoria, Canada.. This is paradise. Right near where we were docked though,there was a tuna fish plant (yellow fin tuna). Oh my did it ever stink but heh…. it’s the “smell of money”. Anyway this country is absolutely worth returning to. They speak English, French and Creole so language is not an issue. We did get out on our scheduled excursion although we had arrived late….. by about 3 hours. It was a trip out on a catamaran where we first went on a glass hulled boat and then went snorkelling. We saw quite a lot of beautifully coloured fish…. several different coloured parrot fish, tiny fluorescent turquoise blue ones(cannot remember the names of any of the others), lots of black and white striped ones, blue bodied ones with bright yellow “beaks” and fin and tails, thin all yellow ones with very pointy noses and only a couple of longish multi-coloured with fluorescent turquoise ones. It was amazing. Both J and i previously had bought full-faced masks with snorkel included. They worked well especially if there was any chop in the water. There were quite a number of others that had brought along masks that were very similar. The weather was hot and sunny but just as we were coming back…… after we were basically all dried off, the skies opened. It was like someone emptied buckets onto us. We could not have been more wet…… kind of reminded me of the deluge we experienced at Boca da Valera on the Amazon . I had thought I would like to go to the Apple Store to find a replacement iPad after returning from our excursion but that pouring rain did not let up at all. Oh well….. i guess I’ll be writing using my iPhone. 
Next day, November 23rd, we were in Praslin, also in the Seychelles. In the morning I just walked toward the town…. away from jetty. This place is lovely but OMG …. talk about sweat! It was dripping off my nose,into my eyes…. unbelievable! On the way back I ran into Faye from TO. We were both on another snorkelling excursion at about 1. Jeanette had taken a walking tour in the morning (it was pouring again when they all left) of the tropical forest park …. to see the worlds largest “nut”. It is a palm that produces a Coco de Mer I think it’s called…. that weights like 26 kgs. No glass bottomed boat for me this time but still another catamaran. We anchored off Coco Island ….. the most beautiful island “nature reserve park”. We did not go on land but just snorkelled again amazing! Saw what the natives said were blue mackerel but I wouldn’t say they were mackerel…. toooo wide in the body but beeeeautiful! Also a strange one that when you looked at them from above, between the tail and the body was what looked like an 4-petalled bright orange appliquéd flower. At first I thought maybe it was a “tracking device” but others saw similar ones. Another strange thing that occurred to me as well as many others on the boat, a intermittent prickly sensation on different parts of our skin. We were told they were tiny jellyfish. They were so small you could not see them…. we all thought it was just our imaginations. 
Last evening we were invited to another “solo travellers” dinner in the Grand Dining Room (with 2 of the entertainers). That always includes unlimited wine. Oh my we are treated very well but Oceania. (Two nights previously we had dinner with Lisa-Jean and Samantha Ivey, the guest singer that was leaving the next day). The lead singer Lisa-Jean last night, was telling us that when they were travelling in the Red Sea between Yemen and Somalia (before we got on board) that they were approached by a boat with fresh fruit for the ship. It also included a number of men that had plenty of arms with them that stayed on board….. to provide protection for the ship from pirates…. until they neared Dubai. Then they left.