Mahe is the largest island of the Seychelles archipelago. We stayed and dove near Beau Vallon beach in early April. We saw many big schools of fish, eagle rays, turtles, a few sharks and very cool rock formations. Due to bleaching coral cover suffered quite a bit but some sites especially around L’ilot island had healthy coral and good macro including moray eels, frog fish and octopi. Top side is stunningly beautiful with perfect sand beaches, spectacular rocks and easy going vibe.

What to see

Logistics

Mahe is the largest island and home to Seychelles capital Victoria and the international airport. There are many high end resorts around the island as well as self catering accommodation. We stayed in a condo near Beau Vallon beach primarily because this is where dive shops are. Car rental is easy and as we were driving around the island it seemed at least half of the cars were rentals.

Most of the restaurants are in large hotels and are pricey. We mostly cooked ourselves buying fresh fish from fishermen straight off the boat. There are many small shops in Beau Vallon where you can get basic food supplies. The large supermarket is in Victoria and one can stock up on the way from the airport before heading over to the other side of the island in Beau Vallon.  It is still a small island though and the drive from Beau Vallon to Victoria is only about 15 minutes.

We dove with Ocean Dream Divers and were very happy with their well run operation. We did two dives a day. Usually the boat would come back to the shop after the first dive as some of the divers would only do one dive. All dive sites we went to were within 10-20 minute boat ride except for the Shark bank which is further out off shore. In early April visibility was reasonable at about 15 meters and water was nice and warm at 28C.

In the afternoon we drove around the island stopping at various beaches for a beverage, swim or snorkel.  The sea and the islands are stunningly beautiful. Water color is a perfect blue which is hard to describe and at sunset the sky turns unreal shades of pink and purple. We heard from some of the regulars that the island is getting busy with so many more flights now flying to Mahe compared to what it was even 5 years ago.  Undoubtedly it will be getting more tourists and there is a fair bit of building going on what looks like more accommodation.  For now though it is still on a quiet side as far as prime ocean tourism locations go. Besides just an hour by boat and 10min by plane is a smaller and quieter Praslin island.