THE twin-engine Otter plane skimmed across the shimmering turquoise sea, banked to the left and dropped down over the foaming reef to the grass runway. In moments, we had landed on Denis Island, one of the outermost outcrops in the Seychelles, a speck in the Indian Ocean.
You can walk around the island in a morning, barefoot and totally unplugged from the rest of the world, admire the resident giant tortoises, including Toby—who, at 122 years old, is exactly the same age as COUNTRY LIFE —or sit and watch waves from the front of your cottage. But I am a fisherman, so first up was a boat trip into the deep sea beyond the atoll’s reaches in search of tuna and sailfish.
Before long, I had caught a 35lb yellowfin tuna and was battling with another when the water exploded and a silvertip shark grabbed the tuna and hooked itself. After a muscle sapping tussle, we met briefly, before the 8ft shark was released. That evening, the tuna was served as sushi and sashimi by the chef, who had trained in the Hyatt Regency in Tokyo. It was sensational; the other guests were almost as pleased as me.
Denis Island boasts a remarkable farm, set in the shadow of a disused lighthouse, which is full of vegetables, chickens, cows, pigs, and quail. The island is almost entirely self-sufficient and is even able to export some of its production back to the mainland. Produce to plate involves no air miles, merely a few hundred yards down the sandy track to the kitchen.
Rachel fell in love with turtles that grazed the seagrass in the lagoons and allowed us to snorkel alongside them—often, we could see a dozen or more poking their prehistoric heads above the water. It was a privilege, the like of which I may never see again.
Denne historien er fra December 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
