The park
The water around Moyenne Island is not incidentally clear. Sainte Anne Marine National Park was established in 1973 and was the first marine park in the Indian Ocean. Half a century of protection is exactly why the coral there still looks the way it does.
Quick answer
Sainte Anne Marine National Park covers the water around six islands off Victoria on Mahé, and has been protected since 1973. Moyenne Island sits inside it, along with Sainte Anne, Cerf, Long, Round and Ile Cachée. Almost every listing on this page spends its day inside the park boundary.
The six islands
They are close enough together that most trips see several in a day.
9.9 hectares, a planted forest, around fifty giant tortoises and a national park of its own since 2009.
The largest, and the one the park is named after. A resort island, not generally a tour stop.
Inhabited, with beaches and a couple of restaurants. Most Moyenne Island tour listings stop here too.
Small, and formerly a quarantine station and then a prison. Now closed to visitors.
Tiny, with a restaurant, and once a leper colony. Some trips stop for lunch.
The smallest, uninhabited, and a nesting site for bridled terns. Nobody lands on it.
Why fifty years of protection shows
Living coral, unafraid fish and wooded islands. All three are the 1973 boundary.
The coral is still there. Reefs across the Indian Ocean have had a hard fifty years. Inside a park established in 1973, with anchoring restricted and fishing controlled, what survives is visibly different from unprotected water a few kilometres away.
The fish are not shy. In places where spearfishing has been banned for decades, fish do not treat a snorkeller as a threat. That is why the reef here photographs so well through a glass panel or a mask.
The islands are wooded. Moyenne Island is the extreme case — a forest planted on purpose — but the whole group is green in a way that reflects decades of not being built on.
Moyenne Island is a national park inside a national park: the marine park since 1973, and the island itself since 2009.
Who made this island→Book direct
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Common questions
A protected area covering the water around six islands off Victoria on Mahé, established in 1973 and the first marine park in the Indian Ocean.
Yes. Moyenne Island sits inside the marine park, and became a national park in its own right in 2009.
Sainte Anne, Cerf, Moyenne, Long, Round and Ile Cachée.
Trips anchor at designated stops. The shallow coral areas are where the boats go, and they are the reason visibility is so good.
A small fee is paid on Moyenne itself, usually in cash, and is separate from the boat price.
By boat, from Victoria or Eden Island on Mahé. The park starts a few minutes offshore.
Go deeper
One man, 16,000 trees and forty years. The story behind the park.
CostFrom $83, and the park fee nobody mentions.
The verdictFourteen listings, and the four worth your day.
TortoisesAround fifty of them, and how they got there.
SnorkellingWhat you actually see, and which trips put you in the water.
Glass-bottomThe reef without swimming, from $83.
Mahé: Saint-Anne Marine Park and Moyenne Island Cruise
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