Swimming with ocean giants
The autumn whale shark season is the perfect time to visit remote Silhouette Island in the Seychelles, writes Neil Geraghty
From Bora Bora to St Lucia, the names of tropical island paradises roll seductively off the tongue, but none of them sounds quite so alluring as the Seychelles. Cast your eyes over a map and each lilting French Creole place name conjures up images of fluttering Jolly Rogers and buried treasure.
Silhouette Island, located 30km west of the main island Mahé, completely upstages the other islands in the archipelago with its swashbuckling credentials. Not only is it shaped like a giant skull, legend has it that it was once a hideaway of Jean-francois Houdoul, a notorious French privateer who, during the Napoleonic Wars, amassed a small fortune plundering the British mercantile fleet in the Indian Ocean.
With thoughts of pirates' treasure buried on pristine tropical beaches, I excitedly board a helicopter at Mahe’s sleepy international airport for a thrilling 20-minute scenic transfer over to Silhouette. The 115 islands of the Seychelles are ancient fragments of Gondwanaland, the southern supercontinent where dinosaurs once roamed. As the helicopter ascends I get jaw-dropping views of Mahé's jungle-covered mountains wreathed in wispy clouds, and if it wasn’t for the absence of pterodactyls I’d swear that I was flying over Isla Nublar from the Jurassic Park movies.
The islands are comprised of granite which along the coastlines is eroded into striated cliffs. These occasionally collapse and tumble down onto the beaches, strewing them with giant boulders which in turn become smoothed and rounded by the ocean waves. Known geologically as nubbins, these huge rocks framed by leaning coconut palms have become the defining image of beach paradise holidays in the Seychelles.
As we fly over the channel that separates Mahé and Silhouette I keep my eyes peeled for whale sharks which throughout the year can be spotted feeding in the plankton-rich waters.
My visit coincides with the peak September to November whale shark season and I’m hoping that during my stay I'll get the chance to swim with these gentle ocean leviathans.
From the mid-19th century to 1960, Silhouette was privately owned by the Dauban family, a wealthy dynasty of French Indian Ocean traders who established coconut plantations around the coastal strip, but left much of the mountainous interior undeveloped.
In 1983 the Seychelles Government bought the island and began opening it up to tourist development, allowing a hotel to be built which was later expanded into a luxury resort, Labriz.
With the rise of environmental awareness in the late 1980s, the Seychelles Government quickly recognised the importance of Silhouette’s pristine natural environment and further development was curtailed.
In 1987 the waters around the island were declared a Marine National Park while in 2010, 93 per cent of the island became protected when the Silhouette National Park was created. Labriz, now owned by Hilton, works closely with the Seychelles' Island Conservation Society and has introduced a variety of environmentally friendly initiatives that include eliminating the use of plastic bottles, operating solar
The soft sand is ideal for nesting green and hawksbill turtles
powered resort buggies and planting an organic garden that provides much of the resort’s fresh produce.
The Labriz resort consists of 117 spacious villas strung out along a tranquil 2km long bay fringed by a dazzling white beach. The soft sand is ideal for nesting green and hawksbill turtles and during the autumn it’s possible to sit on the verandas of the ocean-facing villas and watch giant turtles clamber up from the ocean to lay their eggs.
After a light lunch at the poolside cafe, I head over to the resort’s Eco Centre to join a late afternoon guided hike into the jungle. Our softly spoken guide, George, has an infectious love of Silhouette’s unique flora and fauna and during the hike he keeps his beady eyes open for the island’s many endemic species, pointing out striped skinks basking on rocks and beautiful Seychelles blue pigeons roosting in the tree canopy.
Towards the end of the hike we stop at La Passe village where the Seychelles Nature Protection Trust runs a breeding reserve for giant tortoises. The tortoises are always happy to see visitors and when we arrive they trot over to greet us, straining their necks with excitement.
However, it’s not food that they’re after. They absolutely adore having their throats tickled and for the next 15 minutes or so they look at us with doe-eyed rapture as we obligingly give them a good scratch.
In the evening Labriz has an extensive range of dining options to choose from. One of the most atmospheric choices is the Grann Kaz, a restored 19th-century plantation house where I spend a relaxing evening sampling aromatic Seychellois curries and enjoying the lilting melodies of traditional Sega music played by a live band.
In the morning I walk over to Labriz's Dive Centre to join a snorkelling excursion on one of the resort’s catamarans. The underwater scenery of Silhouette mirrors the beauty of its interior and I spend the several hours snorkelling around enormous coral-encrusted boulders.
I spend the next few days happily exploring Silhouette’s mountain trails and beautiful coral reefs but the whale sharks prove disappointingly elusive. However, on my final morning, just after I’ve finished packing, the Dive Centre receives an alert that some whale sharks have been spotted just offshore. With my heart racing, I open my suitcase, grab my swimming trunks and jump into a motorboat in hot pursuit.
Jimmy, our skipper, has eyes like a hawk and it doesn’t take long for him to spot a whale shark’s fin rising out of the choppy ink blue water. As we near the shark he switches off the engine and, kitted out in snorkelling gear, we jump into the ocean. If it wasn’t wise to do so underwater, I’d gasp in amazement.
At over 10m long the whale shark is the size of a small submarine. A large retinue of smaller fish are swimming either side of it and as I join them I can feel the slow rhythm of the whale shark’s tail beating the water which propels us forward. It’s the most thrilling hitchhike ride imaginable and a better late than never climax to the spectacular wildlife of these enchanting islands.
Kuoni offers a six-night break to Hilton Labriz departing in November 2021 from £1,631pp, including flights via Dubai and transfers from Mahe to Silhouette. www.kuoni.co.uk For more Seychelles holiday ideas, vi sit www.seychelles.travel