The Seychelles: An Unforgettable Reality

My Seychelles journey was two-fold with a stop on the front to spend a couple of days at Alphonse Island Resort and then a follow on to Cosmoledo Atoll for a week.

The anticipation building up to this trip was immense and when the time came to head to the Seychelles, I was bursting with excitement and admittedly, a little bit of angst. The conflict taking place with Iran had disrupted countless flights throughout the Middle East and it felt like a roll of the dice on whether I was going to make it to my intended destination. All in all, I had faith that everything was going to work out and felt extremely grateful that it did.

Leaving Oregon, I had my first connection in San Francisco (SFO) and then it was a straight shot to Dubai International Airport (DXB), UAE. That was my first experience with the airline, Emirates, and what a phenomenal job they do overall. After a late-night layover in Dubai, I hopped on the last leg from there down to the largest island in the Seychelles, Mahé. Arrival flights here are generally in the early morning, so travelers can choose to try and get an early check-in for a nap at their hotel or try to adjust to the local time as best as possible by exploring the island. Personally, I couldn’t wait to rent a car and go explore a bit, so that’s exactly what I did. The island has quite a few beautiful beaches spread throughout, and it was also fun driving a vehicle that had the steering wheel on the opposite side of what I am used to driving back home. I visited many beaches and eventually, making it to Anse Major hiking trail, which was quite amazing. It was a great way to spend the first day in country!

Alphonse Island Resort

The following morning, I made my way over to the domestic terminal of the Mahé airport and met the representative from Blue Safari to catch my flight to Alphonse Island Resort. The flight was quick and painless. Stepping off the plane, there was a warm greeting from the staff as they show you over to the golf carts to head to the main lodge for orientation. Bags were delivered to our rooms and we had some time to relax and get settled in, before meeting up later for dinner. On this first round with Alphonse Island Resort, my stay with them was a mix of a few days of fishing and a few days of checking out their various activities like a sailfish & manta ray snorkels, Bjoutier Island visit, Farm Tour, etc. I had so much fun participating in all of these and it made for some awesome experiences.

To quickly summarize some of the highlights from these days spent on the island, one of the coolest was the bonefishing I experienced on St. Francois. Met up with my guide, Will and another guest that fishing for the day, and we had a falling tide all morning and in

turn, bonefish were just piling out of the flat. Every time I turned around from releasing a fish, there was a new group of fish ready to cast at. Hands down some of the best bonefishing I have ever experienced. Had a fun day out on the water on a tour and our group was able to jump into the water and swim in the vicinity of the dolphins around the atoll. They were certainly shy but we could all hear their clicks, squeaks, and whistles, which made for a really cool experience.

I got to spend another day out on the water and got to see a giant school of trevally working a shoal. We poled into position and I managed to get the fly into the front of the school. A couple of quick strips produced a swipe and a miss, which after a few more strip that followed up another fish that smashed and came tight. After a bit of a fight, I could just tell something wasn’t quite right and that I wasn’t attached to a GT. We quickly discovered that I had a solid blue trevally on the line, but not the intended hope of hooking the coveted GT. After the release, we did our best to try and catch up to the school, as it appeared to not have disbanded. As we worked our way along the reef edge, we ended up not being able to locate where the school had gone. At this point, we figured that we should take a little break. Funny how things work out sometimes, as the spot we picked on a sandbar, ended up having that same school we were chasing, pop up a little ways down and come barreling down the edge of it. I grabbed my rod and jumped in the water as fast as I could and made a run to try and gain an edge on the school. Stopped at a good spot, made the cast, strip, strip, strip… set! Immediately into the initial run, I knew we had a geet on the line. It was super great to be able to get a GT to hand within the first couple of days of this trip and my guide, Big Brad, was excited to get me into my first Seychelles GT as well.

Overall, Alphonse Island Resort was such a great time and the staff is awesome from top to bottom. They truly make you feel like you are part of the crew and I completely understand why so many guests return there year after year and sometime multiple times a year, as I saw during my stay.

Cosmoledo Atoll

On the second leg of my trip, my next stop was Cosmoledo Atoll. Weather was rolling in on the Seychelles as a whole and it threw a change up into how we were getting out there. Under normal weather conditions, guests normally fly from Alphonse Island to Astove Atoll, where they jump on a boat and head to Cosmo, but the ocean conditions were definitely rough and a big thanks to everyone that saw that we got to the atoll safely. We ended up taking another smaller plane from Astove over to Cosmo, since the airstrip there requires a smaller craft. We were well received by the crew at Cosmo and all got settled in for the week.

Cosmoledo sort of blew my mind and it felt like I was in a Nat Geo documentary just about every single day. The bird life was spectacular! The sheer concentration of biomass

all in one, arguably small place, left me in awe. Some of the other wildlife involved giant coconut crabs, tiger sharks, sea turtles, manta rays, etc. One animal encounter that stands out above the rest, was when we watched a mother turtle under red light in the middle of darkness, build a nest for her eggs. Seeing that special moment take place was a bucket list experience for me and I’m forever thankful for that. As for the fishing, our overall week had it’s challenges, primarily due to the weather system that was present. There were days where boats didn’t leave the beach due to safety in the bay and amidst the heavy white caps that continued to develop in the inner lagoon, I was happy to not spend the time in the boat getting our spines rattled.

The days where we couldn’t get out, we simply fished the “camp water”, which ended up being plenty productive. Some tides were great and had plenty of solid bonefish action and then we had other windows where we found GT’s on rays. On the boat days, we had a mix of being able to pole flats looking for fish on rays, cruising edges, or casting on coral heads in certain parts of the lagoon. It made for a solid all-around mix. I know everyone comes to Cosmo for the GT’s (and we landed a handful of good fish), but some of the most memorable fishing from the trip, was chasing BIG bonefish on foot over white sand and on some grass flats. I can say now that my biggest bonefish to hand were on Cosmo.

The staff and guides at Cosmoledo were world class and can’t thank them enough for their professionalism and hospitality. Accommodations and meals were wonderful as well. It amazes me what these operations can accomplish in the middle of nowhere. The Seychelles is truly an amazing place and I’ve been day dreaming ever since of getting back down there and reuniting with the wonderful Blue Safari Fly Fishing crew.