Carol’s Column

It's so easy to adapt to life in an island paradise

The thing about sleeping with a peacock is it makes the loudest sound imaginable if disturbed. Indeed, being woken by a screeching peacock is possibly the most frightening sound you may ever hear.

Clothilde, a large and truly magnificent female peacock, has been sharing my bed for the past few nights and all was well until she was disturbed.

My second son Ralph is at present living with his fiancée Lisa on Cerf, a tiny Seychelles island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

“Ma, you must come and visit,” the kids said. “It is like nothing you can imagine.”

So I did and they're right.

The many islands of the Seychelles are perfect. More beautiful than you could possibly imagine with beaches so pristine you could eat off them. Well, figuratively speaking as sand isn't the best accompaniment to food.

Cerf is a 20-minute boat ride from Mahe, the main island of the Seychelles archipelago and our transport was an ancient but worthy rowing boat painted bright white and turquoise named Luna Spoon and propelled by a 25 horsepower motor.

The Air Seychelles flight from South Africa arrives after dark each Saturday night which meant we did the crossing by moonlight accompanied by flying fish, skates and green turtles for fine company.

The cottage on Cerf has its own private palm-fringed beach, a garden filled with frangipani and other scented tropical flora and is shared with a golden dog called Theo and two cats, He and She. There is a giant-sized cockroach known as Boris, at least 25 brightly coloured island birds and Clothilde the peacock.

There are also many non-malarial mosquitoes which is why Clothilde and I slept under a tented mosquito net which is when Clothilde screeched us awake and I got such a fright that I almost had a coronary.

Ralph and Lisa were right. Their hideaway is unique. Take the shower tree. A shower fitting is attached to a takamaka tree and you shower gazing out to a coral fringed lagoon.

I'd just soaped myself thoroughly when the water vanished. “Don't worry,” said the kids. “There's a bit of a drought so the water, which is piped under sea from Mahe, is switched off for most of the day.”

I didn't worry and instead did some instant bonding with my about-to-be daughter-in-law as she sprinkled me with water from a watercan.

Breakfast was in the form of pawpaws and mangoes picked from surrounding trees swilled down with coconut milk from coconuts also picked from surrounding trees.

One becomes incredibly adaptable because of necessity. For instance, the menagerie, instead of being fed the usual pet food, enjoyed rice and tuna and we ate fish caught each night and grilled over a coconut husk fire.

Clothilde took a fancy to me but resisted coming into the water to snorkel which means she missed coming face to face with a sweetlips, a Picasso trigger fish and a variety of marine life which would have left her dazzled.

On the final day, crossing to the mainland en route to the airport, a dolphin performed acrobatics beside Luna Spoon leaping at least five metres in the air. It was breathtaking.

Then, at the airport, we learnt the plane had been delayed for two days. Air Seychelles would put everyone up on full board until the departure of the flight, they said.

In all the years of flying, it's the only time I've ever heard a group of passengers cheering with joy at the thought of being marooned at the Seychelles for a further few days.

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