Alphonse Island Resort - 2018

Third time's a charm - as they say.  Turned out to be true as far as our latest visit to this wonderful fishing resort is concerned.  We've been amazed at the quality of the experience each time we've visited here.  Happily the friendliness of the staff remains the same as it's always been.  Mostly South African employees, these are really great people who seem to always enjoy helping the guests to have a great time here. 

The owner and management keep tweaking the facilities every season, and some needed upgrades were made again.  There's a completely rebuilt Beach Bar on that end of the island to service "sundowners" night, and it's also open for daily use by guests.  The road getting there has been improved and LIGHTED - making it much safer in both directions at night.  A new bathroom facility has been created right next to the lodge bar (this was much needed).  All the villas have had an outdoor soaking pool installed - great for families with kids.  The breakfast operation has been relocated and nicely expanded.  On the "eco" front, we saw lots of new solar panels installed next to the air field.

Some interesting new construction is going on as well.  The first of what apparently will be three new full sized homes to accommodate larger families is coming out of the ground, and the nine A-frame chalets that used to house the fishing guides are being completely remodeled apparently to be used for housing single clients who visit the resort instead of having them stay in the larger existing bungalows adjacent to the lodge.  (Yes, the guides also have new residences too).

And about the food...................it just can't get much better.  The resort's garden produces the finest, freshest fruit, vegetables, and herbs we've found anywhere on earth.  The seafood is right out of the water just before being cooked.  And the chef's creativity with ethnic dinners is amazing. (Don't forget to ask for the homemade ice cream after any meal.)

OK.  So the big question is - how was the fishing?  In one word, great.  We probably released thirty different species of fish.  The bone and trevally fishing was the best I've found it there in the past three trips.  Only problem we had involved the tides.  The lows were too high and the highs too low - if that makes any sense.  My issue with higher low tides is that it makes it virtually impossible to access the edge of the reef in the lagoon where so many large species hang out.  Next time we come here, we'll check the tide tables ahead of time to make sure we're not going to have the same problem.

And finally it looks like we're starting to understand the methods it takes to be more successful on all the different fishies here.  If our learning curve continues to rise, we may actually get fairly decent results here before I die.

That's about it.  Here's the scruffy and overly long video of the fishing:

Then we had to leave.