La Digue

La Digue takes its name from a ship in the expedition of Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, which surveyed the Seychelles in 1768, and the island kept the name when the archipelago passed to Britain. The first settlers were French colonists who arrived with enslaved Africans at the end of the eighteenth century, followed in 1798 by a group exiled from Île Bourbon (now Réunion) for taking part in a rebellion there; some of today's islanders still carry their names.

The economy that followed was coconut. Copra — dried coconut flesh pressed for oil — was produced at L'Union Estate, where oxen turned the mills and the plantation house stood among the palms; vanilla was grown alongside, pollinated by hand, and the colonists also burned coral for lime. Britain abolished slavery in 1835, and later a large number of liberated Africans and Asian immigrants settled on the island.

Copra and vanilla remained the mainstays of the economy until about 1960, and the island's museum commemorates them. Tourism grew after the opening of the international airport on Mahé in 1971, especially in the late twentieth century, and the granite boulders of Anse Source d'Argent became one of the most photographed shores in the world. The island still has no airport and few vehicles, and the resulting quiet — bicycles, ox carts, a couple of villages — is now a large part of its appeal.

The island is Creole and Catholic, and small enough that its culture is visible in a day: the church in La Passe at the centre of village life, the cemetery at L'Union with the graves of the first settlers, and the same few surnames on the shopfronts. Kreol Seselwa is spoken everywhere, with English and French used in writing and with visitors.

Music and dance are moutya, the slow drum-and-chant form descended from the songs of enslaved people and inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, and the faster sega; both are heard at feast days and during the annual Festival Kreol. The copra kiln and the old plantation buildings at L'Union keep the island's working past in view.

Daily manners are those of a village. People greet each other on the lanes, cyclists ring and pass, and a stranger who says bonzour first gets a warmer answer. Dress is modest away from the beach and expected to be tidy in church. The island's paradise flycatcher, sheltered in the Veuve Nature Reserve, is a source of local pride and the reserve is treated seriously; so is the requirement to keep to marked paths and to leave the tortoises at the estate alone. Fishing, football and the sea fill whatever time work does not.

About 3,000 people live on La Digue, most of them in the west-coast villages of La Passe and Anse Réunion. Houses sit among palms on small plots, government services are few — a post office, a small police station and a small hospital — and for many of them islanders go to Praslin.

Tourism is the economy. Guesthouses, small hotels, restaurants, bicycle hire, boat trips and the estate employ most working islanders, and the rest work for the government or fish. Building materials, fuel and food come by boat, which makes everything dearer and ties the island's supply to the state of the sea.

The day is early and quiet. The first ferries land day visitors from Praslin in the morning, bicycle traffic peaks in the middle of the day, and by nightfall the lanes are dark and the village still. Pressure from day-trippers on a small island, the cost of living, waste disposal, water supply and the erosion of the west-coast beaches are the standing local concerns, along with the question of how many vehicles the island should allow.

La Digue eats the Creole food of the Seychelles with a strong bias towards what comes out of the water in front of the village. Reef fish — bourzwa, the red snapper, above all — is grilled whole or fried, and served with rice, a lentil dal and satini, a sharp chutney. Octopus curry in coconut milk is the island dish visitors are pressed to try, and fish in tomato and onion sauce is the everyday supper.

Coconut runs through everything, which is unsurprising on an island that made its living from it: curries thickened with the milk, chutneys with the grated flesh, cakes and nougat with the sugar. Breadfruit, cassava and sweet potato fill out the plate, fried or boiled, and ladob — plantain or sweet potato simmered in sweetened coconut milk with nutmeg and vanilla — is the usual pudding, with a savoury salt-fish version under the same name.

Vanilla, long grown on the island, flavours puddings and cakes. Fruit is picked rather than bought: mango, papaya, passion fruit, jackfruit and the sour bilimbi used in chutneys. Takeaway boxes from the counters near the jetty are what most islanders eat at midday, and the drinks are Seybrew beer, rum from Mahé and fresh coconut water.