The beautiful, sand-ringed islands of the Seychelles are about a thousand miles form anywhere – the nearest continental landfall is Kenya, around1500 kilometers east across the Indian Ocean.

The land area of the Seychelles is tiny; the sea area is extraordinary. More than 115 coral and granite islands are scattered across 400,000 square kilometres of ocean. The northern granite islands are all that remains of a massive granite shelf that tore away from the coast of Africa around 65 million years ago.  The 73 coral islands were formed from ancient coral reefs, set in atolls around shallow lagoons.

Their remoteness has bred a remarkable biodiversity on the islands: many species are found nowhere else. Cousin Island, for example, has more tan 300,000 seabirds, although it is less than a kilometre wide.

The 115 islands of the Seychelles are jaw-droppingly beautiful, the granite islands in the north rise dramatically from the ocean, ringed by white beaches and curiously eroded granite boulders; the coral-fringed outer islands stand not much higher than the lagoons that surround them. In the centre of Praslinis is one of he most striking landscapes on earth.