We spent our first few nights in the southeast, on Blue Bay, named for obvious reasons but so truly deserving of the name. An enormous stretch of coral reef we'd admired even from our descending plane arches boldly out from the shore, embracing a small, wooded islet and a shallow bay steeped in a myriad shades of blue. A shallow channel brought in the rising tide from somewhere behind the islet, and well beyond that, against the ramparts of coral, thumping waves from the South Indian Ocean sent mares' tails of sea foam flying towards shore.