Seychelles premium sailing cruise

Planet

Sailing has obvious advantages, and while we cannot use the sails 100% of the time we try to whenever the conditions are suitable.

The smaller size of our ship and the smaller passenger numbers ensures that any detrimental social and environmental impacts are minimised whilst allowing the passengers to visit smaller communities that don’t usually benefit from this form of tourism. Most tourists to Seychelles stay (and often don’t leave) some large resorts in a few restricted locations, so by enabling our passengers to visit some different areas without putting any strain on local amenities, we are spreading the financial benefits and the load of our visit.

We will visit Aride Island, a bird sanctuary run by Island Conservation Society of Seychelles. The only human inhabitants are the reserve's staff. Our visit, apart from educating our guests to the fantastic work being done on the Seychelles, provides a little funding to the NGOs that are working to preserve some of the world's rarest species. Aride is the northernmost island of the granitic Seychelles. It covers roughly 68 ha, is 1.6 km long and 0.6 km wide. Aride hosts one of the most important seabird populations in the Indian Ocean with more breeding species than any other island in Seychelles. In 1973, when Aride was acquired as a nature reserve, there were no endemic land birds on the island. Today, there are five.

We rely heavily on small local businesses for providing local excursions for our passengers, providing an income to several smaller local firms.

All the food on board is bought in the Seychelles; fruit, vegetables, plenty of fish, meat and other staples are all locally grown and produced, and much of it is bought from small retailers or even directly from the grower or fisherman.

People

We encourage all our passengers to engage with the local community on a social and economic level to ensure that this tourism has a benefit to both the visitors and the hosts.

The ship’s managers will buy as much of their produce as possible from local communities, and we will also encourage our passengers to spend money in the communities that we visit. By trying some local fruit juice instead of a well known American brand of soft drink, you will support the economy, it will be better for you and, who knows, you might find you enjoy it more too.

We will endeavour to maximise the benefits of tourism and to minimise or eradicate any downside, socially, environmentally & economically.

We will encourage our passengers to learn and understand as much as possible about the local traditions and way of life to enable them to appreciate the reality of life in the Seychelles.