Île aux Cerfs Catamaran Cruise

Overview

A full day on a catamaran from Trou d'Eau Douce to Île aux Cerfs: sailing across the lagoon, snorkelling stops in sheltered water, a barbecue lunch, and several hours on the island's beaches.

What to expect

• Morning boarding at Trou d'Eau Douce.
• The sail out across the east-coast lagoon.
• Snorkelling in shallow, sheltered coral water.
• Barbecue lunch, served on board or ashore.
• Several hours on Île aux Cerfs to swim, walk and sit.
• Return under sail in the afternoon.

The reef is why the water looks like that

The whole east coast sits inside a barrier reef, and everything about this day depends on it.

Ocean swell breaks on the reef a long way out, so the water between the reef and the shore stays flat regardless of what the open sea is doing. That is what produces the colour: shallow water over pale sand, undisturbed, with the light going straight down and coming straight back. It is also why the sailing is comfortable, why the snorkelling suits beginners, and why the island has beaches at all.

You can usually see the line of white where the swell is breaking, out on the horizon. Everything inside it is the lagoon.

An island with no deer

Île aux Cerfs means island of stags, and there are none. There were once — deer were introduced by Dutch settlers and later hunted here, which is where the name comes from — but the population is long gone and the island now belongs to visitors and a golf course.

It is worth setting expectations. This is not a wild island. It is a beautiful, comprehensively developed one, with beach bars, watersports operators and a lot of people on the sand near the jetty. The walk matters: fifteen or twenty minutes along the shore away from the landing point and the crowd thins to almost nothing, which is where the day becomes what the photographs promise.

Snorkelling in a lagoon, honestly

The snorkelling here is easy rather than spectacular. Shallow, warm, sheltered water with good visibility and no current, over coral that has taken a beating from bleaching and heavy visitor traffic over the years.

If you have snorkelled the Red Sea or the Coral Triangle, this will not compare, and it is better to know that now. If you have never put your face in the water before, it is close to ideal: you can stand up almost everywhere, nothing is going to push you around, and there are fish.

Practicalities

This is a shared catamaran and the day runs to the boat's schedule, not yours.

Sun on the water is the main hazard. There is shade on board but not much, and the island's beaches near the landing have limited natural cover. Reef-safe sunscreen, a shirt for snorkelling and a hat are all genuinely necessary rather than nice to have. Bring cash if you want anything from the island's bars, take a dry bag for phones, and be back at the jetty when the crew says — the boat will not wait indefinitely for one party.