Curieuse Island was a leper colony from 1829 until 1965, its isolation chosen precisely for the qualities that now draw visitors: 741 acres of wilderness accessible only by boat, separated from Praslin by a turquoise channel just two kilometers wide.
The island's name honors the French exploration vessel La Curieuse, which surveyed the Seychelles archipelago in 1768 and identified this granite outcrop as uninhabited. Today Curieuse functions as a marine national park and tortoise sanctuary, home to over 300 free-roaming Aldabra giant tortoises—the world's second-largest tortoise species—that graze beneath takamaka trees planted during the colonial administration's final decade.
The full day Praslin and La Digue tour routes thread through the inner Seychelles, linking Praslin's northeast coast with satellite islands that remain largely roadless. Curieuse preserves the only wild population of coco de mer palms outside the Vallée de Mai, its northwestern plateau dense with the endemic palms whose double-lobed seeds weigh up to 25 kilograms. The island's mangrove boardwalk, constructed in 2008, spans 200 meters of tidal wetland where juvenile reef fish shelter in the tangled prop roots. St. Pierre Island, a five-hectare granite dome 1.5 kilometers off Praslin's Côte d'Or, anchors a protected marine zone where hawksbill and green sea turtles forage year-round among boulder gardens that plunge to 18 meters.
Praslin la digue island hopping excursions operate daily from 08:00 to 17:00, departing Côte d'Or or Anse Volbert depending on tide and swell. The marine national park entrance fee—300 Seychelles rupees for non-residents above 12 years—grants access to Curieuse's trail network and designated snorkeling zones. Most island combination tours anchor at St. Pierre's eastern lee for 45 minutes of reef snorkeling, where hard coral coverage exceeds 60 percent and visibility regularly reaches 25 meters. The Seychelles Parks and Gardens Authority maintains the ranger station at Anse St. José on Curieuse's western shore, where the ruins of the leprosarium's main infirmary stand beneath a canopy of Indian almond.
Curieuse's geology mirrors Praslin's: Precambrian granite weathered into rounded boulders and coarse white sand derived from coral and shell. The island receives fewer than 12,000 visitors annually, a fraction of Praslin's quarter-million, ensuring that the boardwalk and beaches remain uncrowded even during the southeast monsoon high season from May through September. Seychelles multi-island excursions typically include a barbecue lunch served at Anse St. José, where picnic tables occupy the shade between tortoise enclosures and the restored doctor's house, now an interpretation center documenting the leprosarium's 136-year operation.
7 hr
