Final Post - Reflections of the last 6 months

 I left Seychelles now 4 days ago. I feel utterly miserable and heartbroken, and I feel like part of me stayed over there. I am having a lot of trouble coping with all the emotions conflicting in me right now, and even though I leave for another adventure in 2 days, I still spend every single waking hour wishing I could hop on a plane back to Seychelles. So  here are some of my reflections of the last 6 months of my life.

The most important thing I get from this trip is that I do not have any regrets. None. Nothing I wish I had done differently, nothing I wish I had done or not. I have enjoyed every single second, taken every opportunity and made the choices that would make ME feel good without worrying about anything anyone else had to say or about what people would think. I have taken every emotion in, whether good or bad, and dealt with them.
Now I would advise to anyone to take a year off and discover the world. The world is so beautiful. DO IT. I have met so many incredible people and experienced so much new stuff and I have realized that life is so beautiful.

I have obviously learned a lot about marine life, marine conservation and coral reefs. I  have also learned a lot about working in a dive shop and in the tourism industry. It was quite challenging and a little rough sometimes, but in the end, it was a great experience to have. I swam with 3 whale sharks, a manta ray, numerous sharks and dolphins, I have seen 100+ turtles, been urchined 10+ times in the legs, and been surrounded by schools of hundreds of rays and fishes. 

But this trip was obviously not all about marine biology and diving. Well, most of it was, but it's everything that happened on the side that have changed me and helped me discover who I really am.

I have gotten out of my comfort zone every single day and do not regret any bits of it. I have danced on bars, danced in the street, rode in the back of many trucks, went inside a club without shoes on, got free drinks from French/US/British/Spanish/Dutch navy men, and watched sunsets and sunrises on the beach countless times. I have sneaked inside hotels in the middle of the night and swam in their pool , or climbed fences of these same hotels to get shelter from the pouring rain.

I have been on a near-sinking boat, where we had to get our life jackets out and jump out, and I went through shock-management for a week. First time in my life I was terrified of the ocean. It's all good now, but I will never forget how I felt the next 48 hours after that. It was all about mental toughness.

I swam with a manta ray, which as some of you know was one of my dreams. And when I free-dove with that manta, I remember thinking "wow I could die right now". My heart could have exploded. It was perfect and so beautiful. I didn't want to go back up.

 I have been robbed 3 times, was terrified of my own house, and would wake up in the middlde of the night if I heard a leaf move. I left the country with basically nothing left. No wallet, no credit card, no license, no camera, no iPod...I knew my way around the police station and could get in and out without anyone stopping me.

I learned to live without constant access to Internet, emails, newspapers, Facebook and other crap. And guess what? You don't need all of these. Just get out there and discover the world, nothing will happen if you stay in front of your computer or have your eyes set on your smartphone the whole day. Go out there, meet people, embrace the new experiences, say yes to something new and learn from it.

I have learned to husk a coconut. I have learned to recognize the differences between mango trees from papaya trees, passion fruits, breadfruits, guava and other tropical trees. I have learned to make bread, to cook for 40+ people, to scale a fish, to make breadfruit chips.

 I learned to drive a boat and enjoyed the freedom of driving it around the island. I have spent virtually 5 months shoe-less, walking barefoot along the roads and the beaches.

I spent countless hours on the beach watching the sunsets, the sunrises or the stars. I have hitchhiked so many times my mom would yell at me if she only knew.

I have played dominoes (the national sport over there) until 3am so many nights, drinking a beer and listening to reggae music while they were trying to teach me Kreol (completely fluent in Kreol now!).

I have sang along to Bob Marley with one of my really good friend at the guitar, and then we were joined by so many people singing and dancing with us. This moment will for ever be in my mind.

But most importantly I met people. I have experienced the local life. I met incredible people who really taught me about life and about who I want to become. That's what travels are for you know, growing up.I also think I have inspired some people, well at least two because I know they told me. I have inspired them to be better people. Because you know, life is hard over there. It's not all beaches and sun and paradise, life is real tough. But again, I am so glad to have seen it from this perspective and not the tourist perspective. I have been told I was someone very special, that I was so beautiful and I didn't even know it. These people have changed me so much - now I tell people what I think of them, and I have become a very honest and sincere person, and in peace with my inner self. I have learned to love and trust easily and freely, because you get more out of life that way.

And finally, I met my chouchou, B., who turned my world upside-down. I have discovered that somewhere out there, there are very  nice guys with beautiful souls and hearts. And he was one of them and it kills me every second to know that he lives there and  I had to go back home. See, maybe my only regret is to not have met him earlier, but there is nothing I can really do about that, can I? But hey who knows, I believe in fate. Remember that one guy I worked with at the aquarium in Boston two years ago and we met each other in Seychelles and we had no idea? The world is terribly small.
But every single minute of every waking hour I wish I could take a plane back there. It's very hard but I am so so thankful to have lived something like that.


It has been one hell of a ride. Thank you Seychelles.

And thank you all for reading this blog over the last 6 months. Now what? Well I am about to embark on a new journey to Africa, where I will be traveling around Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe for 2 months. I have no idea how my Internet access is going to be so I will not make a blog for this trip.
After that, I will have to settle at home for a bit, make some money again. And finally, I have been accepted into my top graduate school choice at the University of Miami, so it looks like I will be going back to the USA in a couple of months.

27 - Mon anniversaire, voyage d'iles en iles avec maman , Bird Island et encore de la plongee...

17 Fevrier 2012

Desole pour le manque de mise a jour. Mais comme d'habitude, la vie ici est assez mouvementee. Je viens aussi de realiser qu'il ne reste plus qu'un peu plus de deux semaines seulement ici. C'est dur a croire que la fin approche deja!

Par ou commencer?

La plongee s'est nettement amelioree. La mer a ete agitee depuis plusieurs semaines mais cela s'est enfin calme et nous avons droit tous les matins a une mer d'huile. Il faut espere que ca reste comme ca! Du coup, cela nous permet de partir sur des sites de plongee plus eloignes. Le travail a finalement ete recompense, et moi et une autre divemaster avons eu la chance de partir a Shark Bank, un site que nous revions de faire depuis que nous travaillons au magasin. La visibilite etait incroyable - plus de 30metres! Quelle sensation geniale de descendre dans le bleu en voyant le fond et les plongeurs qui sont deja 20 metres plus bas! Nous avons vu plusieurs requins, des raies, un banc de barracudas, un banc de milliers de poissons comme j'en avais jamais vu, des homards, des murenes et un gros perroquet a bosse (photo ci-dessous)

J'ai fete mes 23 ans avec mes amis de GVI et locaux, et c'etait une bonne soiree. Il y avait aussi quelques membres du staff GVI qui avaient fait le deplacement. Le jour de mon anniversaire, ma maman est arrivee aux Seychelles donc j'ai passe les 10 jours suivants a jongler entre elle et le boulot. J'ai eu la chance de pouvoir prendre 5 jours de conges, et on a donc pu partir d'iles en iles: Praslin, La Digue, Curieuse et Bird Island. J'ai finalement recu ma carte de resident Seychelloise, et j'ai donc pu profiter de super prix sur les ferries et les hotels.

J'etais deja allee a Praslin, Curieuse et La Digue avec mes amis, mais ca fait du bien d'y retourner. Ces iles sont beaucoup plus relax que Mahe. J'adore aussi Curieuse, ou j'ai eu la chance d'aller voir une de mes amies qui y travaille a la base GVI.

Bird Island etait fantastique. Cette petite ile est situee a 30minutes en avion au nord de Mahe. La piste d'atterissage est en fait simplement de l'herbe. On a pris un tout petit avion de seulement 5 places, dont une a cote du pilote. Mais le temps la-bas etait formidable, et on a meme eu la chance de voir 321 bebe tortues embriquees partir vers la mer. Robby, le guide nature de l'ile, surveille de tres pres les nids de tortues et se preoccupe de leur securite pour qu'elles arrivent a la mer sans problemes. Les deux nids que nous avons vus etaient situes du cote de l'ile ou l'eau n'etait pas assez profonde et les bebes n'auraient pas survecus aux predateurs. Donc Robby a amene les bebes du cote plus profond de l'ile et les accompagnes tranquillement jusqu'a la mer. C'etait vraiment incroyable a voir!

Bird Island est tres reposant - il n'y a pas de telephones, pas de tele ou d'internet. Pendant la saison des oiseaux, principalement en Mars et Avril, il y a plus de 6 millions d'oiseaux qui se regroupent sur cette petite ile! J'aurais bien aime y rester une nuit de plus mais il fallait bien que je retourne travailler! Mais je suis deja contente d'avoir pu y aller!

Je me suis fait beaucoup d'amis locaux ces dernieres semaines, et je traine avec eux pratiquement tous les jours apres le travail. Du coup mon Creole s'est beaucoup ameliore, et ca fait aussi du bien de sortir un peu du domaine "plongee" et de parler d'autre chose. Pour la St Valentin, nous etions tous emsembles assis sur la plage, a regarder le coucher de soleil avec quelques bieres, et puis nous avons eventuellement allume un feu de camp. Meme si ca peut paraitre "triste" de dire ca, je dois admettre que c'etait la meilleure St Valentin de ma vie pour le moment. On a beaucoup rigole et l'ambiance etait vraiment tres agreable.
C'est aussi avec eux que je joue aux dominos, qui est un peu le sport national ici aux Seychelles. J'ai gagne quelques parties mais je dois encore faire quelques progres au niveau de ma technique et surtout de la vitesse. Jouer avec les locaux peut devenir assez stressant, surtout quand ils jouent vite, mais ils sont quand meme assez sympas de s'arreter et de prendre du temps pour m'expliquer les bons coups.

Sinon rien de plus. Comme je l'ai deja dis, il ne reste plus que deux semaines.Je m'envole des Seychelles le 5 Mars, je reste en France pour seulement quelques jours puis je repars vers le Kenya pour 2 mois de voyage a travers l'est de l'Afrique - Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzanie, Mozambique, Malawi et Zimbabwe.
Mais d'abord, il faut que je profite au mieux de ces 2 prochaines semaines!

27 - Birthday, island-hopping with my mom, Bird Island and more diving

February 17, 2012

I apologize for my lack of uploading this blog. Life here has been quite intense lately, and I have come to the realization that I am leaving in a little more than two weeks. I cannot believe the end is near.

Where to start?

Diving has been quite good. The sea was rough for a couple of weeks but it finally came down and it is now dead flat, which allows us to go to further away sites. Hard-work finally paid off as me and another divemaster got to go to a site called Shark Bank, which we have all been dreaming of since we started working at the shop. The visibility was incredible - 30meters vis! It is such a great feeling to sink down into the blue and being able to see the bottom and the divers that are already 20m below. We saw a couple of sharks, rays, a school of hundreds of barracudas, thousands and thousands of grunts - i had never seen such a high concentration of fish in my life before - a couple of lobsters, moray eels and a humphead parrotfish (see below)

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with all my GVI and local friends, and it was quite a fun night. Some members of the GVI staff were there as well, and it was refreshing to see their faces. On my birthday, my mom also arrives to Seychelles, so I spent the next 10 days juggling between being with her and working. I had the possibility to take 5 days off work, so we traveled around the other islands such as Praslin, La Digue, Curieuse and Bird Island. We also all finally received our residency card, and I can now say I am a Seychelles resident until December 2012. Which means I paid basically nothing for all the ferry rides and the hotel stays in all the different islands. Weehee!

I had already been to Praslin, Curieuse and La Digue with friends, but it was good to be back. Both islands are much more relaxed than Mahe. I absolutely love Curieuse Island, where I also had the chance to meet with some friends who work at the GVI base over there.

Bird Island was incredible. The island is a 30 minute plane ride north of Mahe. The airstrip is basically grass. We took the smallest plane ever, which only had 5 seats, including one next to the pilot. The weather there was beautiful, and I even had the chance to witness 321 hawkbill turtle hatchlings being born. Robby, the nature guide on the island, monitors carefully every nest and make sure the turtles are safe to make it to the sea. Both nests I saw were located on the other side of the island, where the water was too shallow and the hatchlings would not have survived the predators. Thus, Robby moved the tiny guys to the deepest part of the island and made sure they made it safely to the sea. It was incredible to witness!
Bird Island is very peaceful - there is no phone reception, no TV, no Internet. During the bird mating season, which is mostly in March and April, there are over 6 millions of birds on the island. And like you see in the photos, the island is not that big! I would have loved to stay another night, but I had to go back to work! I was glad I had the opportunity to go there though!

I made a lot of local friends over the last couple of weeks, and I hang out with them basically every day after work. My Creole has improved a lot and it's just good to be talking about something else than diving. For Valentine's Day we all sat on the beach, watched the sunset with a couple of beers and eventually set a bonfire. As sad as it may sound, I have to admit it was probably the best Valentine's Day I've had so far. We laughed a lot and the atmosphere was good.
I have also been playing a lot of dominoes with these guys, which is the national sport here. I have won a couple of games ah but I still need to play faster. Playing with the locals can be quite stressful, but they are all nice enough to take some time to tell me what's good and what not.

Not much more, like I already said, only 2 weeks left. I fly out of  Seychelles on the 5th of March, stay home for a couple of days and fly again to Kenya for another two months traveling around Africa - it will be Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi and I will stop in Zimbabwe. So it looks like I'll still be on the road for another couple of months! But now is just the time to make the most out of the next two weeks !

26 - Ces 2 derniere semaines...

14 Janvier 2012


Je dois admettre que ca devient assew dur de mettre le blog a jour, enfin surtout de trouver des choses interessantes a raconter sur ce blog.


Vendredi dernier nous nous sommes fait cambriolees encore une fois, mais cette fois ils sont rentres dans la maison en forcant la porte de derriere et beaucoup de nos objets de valeurs sont partis: les 3 iPods de mes colocs (le mien ayant deja ete vole precedemment), des appareils photos reflex, porte monnaies, sacs a main, telephones portables, reveils...Nous etions toutes assez secouees par cet evenement, et je dois aussi avouer que notre boss n'a pas ete du plus grand support dans cette epreuve.
Ce qui a suivi pour moi est digne d'une serie policiere. Je me suis retrouvee au milieu de l'affaire a aider les policiers, et je savais bien que je mettais les pieds dans quelque chose bien plus grand que moi. J'etais a la station tous les jours cette semaine, mais je ne peux en dire plus a cause de la confidentialite de l'affaire, mais tout ce que je peux dire c'est que j'ai fait un meilleur boulot que les flics eux meme, et je leur ai quasiment tendu l'affaire sur un plateau d'argent. Mais tout n'est pas fini malheureusement, et on espere encore attraper le voleur.


Au centre de plongee tout va bien. J'essaye encore de decider si j'aime etre Divemaster ou pas, et sincerement, je ne pense pas que j'aime le boulot tant que ca. Je suis vraiment reconnaissante d'avoir cette chance, mais ca me permet aussi de realiser que je ne veux pas travailler en tant que Divemaster. J'adore toutes les plongees, montrer la vie marine aux plongeurs et etre sur un bateau toute la journee. J'ai eu quelques clients vraiment tres agreables, qui me disent qu'ils ont adore la plongee ou alors que c'etait la meilleure plongee qu'ils aient jamais faite. Mais il y en a trop peu pour balancer avec ceux qui ne sont pas contents ou qui sont difficiles a gerer en plonger. Il y a encore beaucoup trop de plongees ou je suis stressee car les clients sont des debutants donc il faut vraiment s'en occuper, etre sur qu'ils ont une bonne flottaison, assez d'air, etc... Et puis il y a aussi ceux qui sont pas contents, comme hier ou ils ont fait une scene car je ne les ai pas amene assez profond ( ce qui n'etait de toute maniere pas possible sur le site de plongee et a cause des limitations). Donc meme si il y en a des sympas qui font plaisir a avoir, il y en a tro peu pour moi et pour me donner envie de faire ca comme boulot.


 J'aime beaucoup l'opportunite de travailler au centre. Je me sens beaucoup plus confiante en mes connaissances sur la plongee. Et puis, tout le monde au magasin est vraiment bien. On traine pas mal ensembles et on joue aux dominos avec eux apres le travail. Les dominos sont ici le jeu national, et tous les locaux y jouent au moins une fois par jour.


Mais quoiqu'il en soit, le temps passe trop vite. Il ne nous reste plus que 6 semaines ici. 6 SEMAINES! En un clin d'oeil on sera a l'aeroport en train de se dire au revoir. Les nouveaux internes de GVI commencent leur formation a Cap Ternay aujourd'hui, et on a eu la chance d'en rencontrer quelques un a Beau Vallon. On leur a parle beaucoup du camp et ca nous a tous rappele de tres bon souvenirs!

26 - Summary of the last 2 weeks.

January 14, 2012

I have to admit it has been quite hard to keep up with the blog; or actually to find anything interesting and worthy of blogging.

Last Friday, our house got broken into big time. They broke the back door while we were out and most of our stuff is gone: all three of my housemate's iPods, dSLR cameras, wallets, bags, cellphones...All of us were quite shaken, and I have to admit our boss has not been the most supportive person during this situation. What followed for me was as good as an episode of CSI. I was right in the midst of the action, and I knew I was stepping into something much bigger than myself. I have been at the police station every single day this week, but I have agreed that everything needs to stay confidential so I will not say more. All I can say is that I have done a much better job than them, and basically solved the case for them. It is not closed unfortunately, but we are still keeping hope it will soon be over.

All is well at the shop like always. I am still trying to figure out if I like being a divemaster or not, and I have to be sincere, I don't think I do. I am so thankful to live this experience, but now I can fully realize I don't really want to be a divemaster and I have stopped looking for jobs in that field. I do love the diving and showing people around and being on the boat every day. I do get really lovely clients, and a couple have told me their dives with me have been their best dives ever. However, there is so few of these nice people to counterbalance all the annoying or harder ones. Way too many times the dives are stressful because the clients are simply open-water so they need to be watched very carefully, or I need to make sure they have a good buyoancy, or enough air, etc...And sometimes, you get the very moody ones, making a scene because I did not bring them deep enough for their own liking.
So even after I get a "it was a great dive, thank you so much" from the nice persons, I still feel like it's not enough for me to want to actually do that as a job.

I do love the opportunity to experience life in the shop though, which I really like. I also really appreciate all the diving knowledge I get out of this experience, and I definitely feel like a better and more knowledgeable diver now. Everyone at and around the shop is amazing. We hang out with them and play dominoes with them after work. Dominoes is the big national game, and all the locals play it all the time.


Time is going by way too quickly. We only have 6 weeks left here. 6 WEEKS! How did that happen? Soon enough, we will all be saying goodbye to each other at the airport. The new GVI interns have started today their adventure at Cap Ternay, and we have had the chance to meet some of them while they were staying in Beau Vallon. We talked a lot about base and reminisced about some of the great memories we had there.

25 – Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année!

3 Janvier 2012

Je souhaite à tout le monde un très joyeux Noel et une très bonne année! J’espere qu’elle apportera pleins de bonnes choses. Désolé pour le manqué de mises à jour, mais je dois admettre qu’il ne se passé pas grand-chose de nouveau depuis que j’ai commencé à travailler au centre, alors j’essaye de faire de mon mieux pour les mises à jour ! 

Dimanche dernier nous avons feté Noel avec la plupart des stagiaires Divemaster de GVI à la maison. Nous avions cuisine un gros repas pour tout le monde, dont des poulets farcis, du poulet au curry, de la purée maison, des légumes rotis au four, des pommes de terres au four, et un gateau au chocolat pour le dessert. La viande était censée etre cuite au barbecue, mais il a plu tout l’après-midi donc on a du se débrouiller avec notre four pas très performant, et il a vraiment fallu plusieurs heures pour cuire tous nos poulets.

Le jour de Noel, Nicole avait acheté des chapeaux de Noel rouges pour nous trois et avait acheté des petits cadeaux ! Génial non ? Et elle me connait tellement bien; j’ai eu droit à une bouteille de coca et une tablette de chocolat ! On a passé le reste de la journée à trainer dans la maison car encore une fois il pleuvait dehors. On a regardé « Love Actually» dans nos pyjamas sur un gros matelas que nous avions installé dans le salon, et Yoda est arrivée à s’endormir dans l’un des chapeau de Noel.

Les 3 jours avant la nouvelle année, nous étions vraiment occupées au magasin car la Marine Française était en escale aux Seychelles. Ils sont normalement basés à la Réunion, mais ils ont eu droit à des vacances aux Seychelles pour le Nouvel An, et certains d’entre eux en ont profité pour venir plonger. Pour nous, cela a surtout signifié un bateau rempli à capacité d’hommes, et beaucoup d’activité au magasin toute la journée. C’était quand même bien sympa ! On leur a quand même dit qu’ils étaient nos clients qui avaient mis le plus de foutoir pour le moment, et ça les a fait bien rire ! Après une plongée, ils ont commence à tous sauter du bateau et même à nous pousser dans l’eau avec eux ! ca faisait du bien pour nous de se relaxer un peu et de rire un bon coup ! Et puis, ils ont aussi bien apprécié être en compagnie de filles – sur leur bateau, il ya 110 hommes pour environ 9 femmes. Dur !

Comme vous l’avez déjà surement deviné, j’ai passé mon réveillon avec la plupart d’entre eux et mes amis à Tequila Boom. Et puisque j’etais la seule à pouvoir parler français, j’etais très bien entourée toute la soirée ! Je ne vais pas mentir, c’etait un regal d’avoir autant d’attention! Ils m’ont payé des verres  toute la soirée,  et un qui venait de Béziers, qui est a 30min de chez moi, m’a meme payé l’entrée au club ! Je ne me plains pas !

Le 1er Janvier était aussi l’anniversaire de ma coloc’ Emily, et je lui avais donc cuisiné un bon gateau au chocolat avant que l’on sorte pour le Réveillon. C’était en effet une très bonne soirée avev tous mes amis de GVI, mes amis locaux et bien sur les militaires français ! 

Alors 2012 je t’attends, tu as de grandes chaussures à remplir après 2011 !

25 - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

January 3, 2012

I am sending everyone warm wishes for the New Year! I hope everyone’s Christmas and New Year’s Eve were fantastic. Sorry for the lack of updates but not much out of the ordinary has been happening lately! I will try my best to keep this blog up to date as often as possible!

Last Sunday we celebrated Christmas with some of the GVI Divemaster Interns. We had cooked quite a big meal, including stuffed chickens, curry chicken, mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, gravy, roasted potatoes and a big brownie for dessert. The meat was supposed to be cooked on the braii but it poured rain the whole afternoon so we made everything our not-so-great oven, so we ended up cooking the chicken for a couple hours. 

On Christmas day, Nicole had bought red Santa hats for the three of us and put little goodies in there. How amazing? And she knows me so well; she had bought me a bottle of coke and a chocolate bar. The whole day was spent lazing around the house since it rained most of the time. We watched Love Actually in our pajamas on a huge mattress in the living-room, and Yoda managed to fall asleep inside one of the Santa hats. We had also bought cardboard Christmas hats for our guest in the evening, and Ben took on the project to create a hat for Yoda. It only last 30minutes before she attacked it.

For the last 3 days before New Year’s Eve, we had been extremely busy at the shop because the French Marines were in town. They are usually based in La Reunion but were in Seychelles for holidays, and some of them took the time to do some diving. It also meant for us a boat full to capacity of only men, and craziness in the shop throughout the day. It was really fun though and met some great guys. I have to admit they were probably our messiest clients so far. After one dive, they all started jumping off the boat and pushing us Divemasters off as well. It was fun to relax though and let it all go. And they sure enjoyed being in the company of girls for a change – there are approximately 110 men for 9 girls on their ship.

As you can guess, I spent my New Year’s Eve with them and my friends at Tequila Boom. And since I was the only one speaking French, I was surrounded the whole evening by most of them. I’m not going to lie, I quite loved the attention! They all bought me drinks and one guy who came from Béziers, a town 30min away from where I live, even paid for me to get in the club. Not complaining! They all went crazy at midnight and we danced all night long. 

On January 1^st was also my roommate Emily’s birthday, and I had made brownies for her before we all went out to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It was overall a great evening with all my GVI and local friends, as well as some crazy French Marines! 

Bring it on 2012, you have big shoes to fill in !!