One of our blog readers, Patrick from South Africa, sent us an email pointing out that I did not provide the location where we anchored here at Desrouches Island in our blog. I try to do that so that other cruisers may be able to use that information when planning their visits to the places we have been to. While I did forget to put that in our previous blog one should be able to get that information by checking the GoogleEarth map that plots our progress with its location along the bottom right side of our blog page. I mention this just in case I again forget to post our anchorage position in a future blog.

By the way, our position here at Desrouches Island is: 05°40.83'S: 053°40.33'E. We are anchored in 28 feet of water in a sandy patch that is surrounded by coral and/or grass. We first tried anchoring a few hundred meters to the east of here but we could not set the anchor and when we brought it out, some stag head coral pieces were caught in the anchor.

Late this morning, once the sun was moving overhead, we all hopped in the dinghy and motored over to where the resort's map of the island indicated was the "aquarium". It is where they recommend to their quests to go snorkeling. It is toward the east end of the island which is the opposite end from where the resort is so we had high expectations of a great dive.

As we looked to find the area we spied a pink mooring ball and a raft platform moored to the bottom. While we could not get the dinghy to either of these features because the bottom was too shallow (even for the dinghy) we did find a nice sandy spot to set the dinghy's anchor in about 10 feet of water. We donned our gear and fell into the water. Ahhhh, it is always so nice to be in the water. The visibility was only about 25 or so feet but compared to what we had left in Mahe, it was an improvement.

The reef was all coral and seeing it made us realize how much we had missed snorkeling on a coral reef. While the reef was very damaged it was obvious it was making a come-back. While not the most beautiful reef we have seen, we enjoyed diving on it and took pictures of the coral and the fish we saw. We spotted a number of fish that none of us had seen before. I will post their pictures once we get Internet again.

After an hour or so I was getting cold so I returned to the dinghy and laid in the sun to warm-up while the others enjoyed their snorkeling. The water temperature is only 79 degrees so after about an hour I get chilled.

When we returned to Leu Cat Portia and Steve made quesadillas for all of us and paired with a nice cold beer and taco chips it all went down so nice. For dinner we decided to make it a Mexican day by having beef tacos and refried beans. Yum!

Between meals we played some more dominoes and this time Portia won. Mary Margaret had won a game the other night so now it is I who is the only one who has yet to win. Steve has won 4 times, and Portia and Mary Margaret have won once each. Oh well, I am lucky in love, not Mexican Train Dominoes�...

Tomorrow afternoon we will leave for Alphones Island. It is only about 100 nm to the SW of here but the winds are predicted to be light. Because we need to enter its lagoon at higher tide to clear the lip of the reef that protected the channel into the lagoon, we are restricted to entering in the afternoon. I figure if we sail or motor around 4.5 to 5 knots, we should arrive around noon if we leave here around 1500. We shall see�...