Day 18- 1.22.17- Mahi, Seychelles

And here in the Seychelles, we are only 4 degrees south of Equator! We just got a small taste of these divine islands today.  We were in port here only from about 8am until 5pm.

 We had our first semi-rainy day.  

Showers just threatened most of the day; 

 there were no big downpours.

Here's our view from the ship on our morning approach!

  

I did a "Coral Cruise", which took us on catamaran out to Moyenne Island, where we did a combination of snorkeling, hand feeding the fish, and viewing the reef in a semi-submarine viewer.

the hand feeding of the fish consisted of tossing them white bread and watching them swarm...

a look inside the semi-submarine viewer. 

Our guide told us, the marine life is so plentiful, that if you go to prison here, they serve only fish Monday through Saturday. Sunday, maybe beef or chicken. 

Thanksgiving: turkey. Otherwise, fish!

I didn't see any scorpion, or red gargonian coral fans; the reefs are actually in recovery from being bleached, 

a result of higher than normal ocean temperatures. 

It was a lovely venture, although we were in the water less than an hour.

----------

With the couple of hours we had left in port, I wanted to see something more of the Seychelles. So I set off on foot, alone, to walk the 1.2 miles to the town center.

This was the only famous Seychelles Tortoise I saw!

Empty Sunday streets

This was a surprise!- Hindu Temple

Not sure what he's looking at- love the color and the gesture

Beautiful, tropical promenade walk along the main street

(Seychelles "pigeons"- pretty fancy!)

-------------------
The whole time I'm flitting about the Seychelles, back at home, history is being made. A revolution of sorts is beginning, in reaction to the new President Trump and the GOP government and its policies, undoing the progress made. It's like we're taking one step forward and two steps back.
  Watching it from afar is unsettling, scary,
and energizing all at once.

Here is one of millions of photos generated from the NYC march.  My friend Katice Helinski Miranda, her husband Jose, their kids and friends shared this one:

So, here are some of my reflections on this day:

 The biggest thing this experience is doing is, opening my world wide open. I mean, we did stand in a slave trade that processed over 60,000 African slaves at its peak. And I cried, big ugly cries mixed with sweat...you could FEEL the pain in that place. It was palpable. Then, we turned and walked the streets in that same town, where Muslims walk hand in hand with Christians, everyone gets along, their differences do not matter.  In CapeTown, where the memories of Apartheid are still so raw, whites now mix with blacks and coloreds and everyone is trying SO hard just to make things BETTER.  There's no division, only efforts toward growth.  And these countries are sooo OLD.
America is just getting started.
We're just a baby in this world story...
I do believe that it's all part of the Plan, and that we ARE supposed to grab our tools, choose our task.  We ARE the ones that have to ask.  It's a beautiful scary thing to watch -from afar- but from this vantage point, after lots of crying and anger, whatever revolution will take place, there is hope.