Cerf Island (1.31 km²) lies 4 km off the northeast coast of Mahé in the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...

Geography

Cerf Island measures long and wide, it reaches a height of . The island is surrounded by a

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...

and the geology is

granitic A granitoid is a generic term for a diverse category of coarse-grained igneous rocks that consist predominantly of quartz, plagioclase, and alkali feldspar. Granitoids range from plagioclase-rich tonalites to alkali-rich syenites and from quartz- ...

. It is part of the Ste Anne Marine National Park.

History

Cerf Island was named after the royal

French navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

frigate '' Le Cerf'' which arrived at Port Victoria on 1 November 1756 during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...

. On board was Corneille Nicholas Morphey, leader of the French expedition, which claimed the island by laying a Stone of Possession on Mahe, Seychelles’ oldest monument, now on display in the National Museum of History, Victoria. In the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Some properties on Cerf Island suffered minor damage.

Demographics

Cerf Island is one of the islands in the marine park to have a small local population (not resort staff or rangers), who commute to Mahé for their daily business. It has a local population of 100, mostly centered in the southwest corner of the island, which allows them to make the short commute by boat to Mahé for work. Well-known residents of Cerf formerly included the celebrated South African novelist

Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...

, writer, explorer and treasure hunter William "Bill" Travis and yacht designer Phil Southwell. Artists Lisa Swerling and Ralph Lazar lived for a year on the island in 1998, where they created the cult cartoon Harold's Planet.

Administration

The island belongs to

Mont Fleuri Mont Fleuri () is an administrative district of Seychelles with its main part located on the island of Mahé. It also includes the six islands of the Sainte Anne Marine National Park and two islets further east ( Beacon Island ( Île Seche) and Ha ...

District.

Tourism

Cerf island has a small art gallery, Anglican chapel, Catholic chapel, and a cemetery. A high standard of accommodation is available in 3 hotel establishments (Cerf Island Resort, Fairy Tern Chalets, and L'Habitation) currently on the island. There is also a guest lodge, 3 restaurants (Kapok Tree), a spa, a small shop, and a beach bar. There are no paved roads or local infrastructure on the island; travel to-and-from the island is by boat and by helicopter which lands at the helipad.Cerf Island Resort Seychelles
/ref> There are no roads or local infrastructure on Cerf. Telephone service and electricity is provided from the mainland Mahe. Diving centers are plentiful on Mahe and snorkeling equipment is available for hire on the hotels of Cerf Island.

Flora & Fauna

Due to Cerf Island's location, in a National Marine Park, the waters around Cerf Island prove a spectacular sight. The deepest point of the Marine Park is and the Park offers exceptional marine life, with more than 150 species of reef fish,

crabs Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

sea urchins Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

, starfish,

octopuses An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, ...

and many more. Cerf Island is home to the

fruit bat Megabats constitute the family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera (bats). They are also called fruit bats, Old World fruit bats, or—especially the genera '' Acerodon'' and ''Pteropus''—flying foxes. They are the only member of the ...

and

giant tortoises Giant tortoises are any of various large land tortoises Giant tortoise or giant tortoises may also refer to: * Galápagos giant tortoise, ''Chelonoidis nigra'' are a complex of the largest living species of tortoise. :: Pinta giant tortoise or ...

. On the north side of the island are superb coral reefs, where sea turtles swim with clown fish.

Image gallery

File:Seychelles large map.jpg, Map 1 File:SC-Mont Fleuri.png, District Map File:Seychelles Ile aux Cerfs.JPG, Cerf Island File:Ein Strand auf der Insel Île au Cerf.JPG, Beach File:Picture1 311wi.jpg

References

External links

Official Cerf Island Guide

National Bureau of Statistics

Mahe Map 2015

Info on the island

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cerf, Seychelles Islands of Mont Fleuri