The annual festival has been running in Søndervig for a few years now, I believe, and the theme this year is “The Roman Empire and its Rulers”.

The artists are from all over the world and I was very impressed by the sculptures! The details are amazing, as should be evident from the photos below by Asta Poulsen.

The festival runs till 25 October, and you can get all the details including entrance fees and opening times from http://www.sandskulptur.dk/frontpage.aspx

I often come back from a holiday, wishing I could recreate some of the delicious dishes that the local cuisine had to offer. For most people this would just be a matter of looking up the recipe and start cooking. I, however, cannot cook to save my life, so I resort to hunting down restaurants who might offer the dishes.

Seychelles was no different – who knew cabbage salad or mango salad could taste so divine? But the one thing I wish I could have brought home with me from Seychelles, is the SeaPearl Ginger Ale. I don’t normally drink ginger ale, but this ginger ale is not only the best ginger ale I’ve ever tasted, it is also the most refreshing soft drink, I’ve ever come across.

Anyone, who knows me, will know that I’m a massive Coke drinker, but I would switch in a heartbeat, if the SeaPearl Ginger Ale was available in the UK.

We chose Seychelles primarily for its snorkelling, and boy did we go snorkelling! I spent so much time face down in the water that my back is still two shades darker than my face.

We did most of the snorkelling in the bay of Anse Petite Cour on Praslin, straight off the beach of La Reserve hotel. The bay offers calm water and plenty of fish including the beautiful but very defensive Picasso Triggerfish, the spectacular but poisonous Lionfish, Porcupinefish, various species of Butterflyfish and Angel fish, Surgeonfish, Parrotfish, Trumpetfish and many, many more.

We also snorkelled for a few hours off Anse Source D’Argent on La Digue and off a small beach cove at the Hilton Northolme on Mahe. The water at Anse Source D’Argent was a bit cloudy on the day we visited La Digue, so we didn’t see as great a variety of fish as we saw at Anse Petite Cour on Praslin. The beach itself was gorgeous though.

The water at Hilton Northolme was very choppy when we were there, quite low visibility and only suitable for strong swimmers on that particular day. I found the highest concentration of fish around a group of large rocks situated a good distance off the beach, where a massive group of squid nearly spooked my snorkel mask off my face, as they swam across my path.

We found the best snorkelling, though, around Felicite and Isle Coco. We saw the same species of fish as we had seen at Anse Petite Cour, but at a much higher density. I caught a brief glimpse of a ray as it was swimming away from me at Coco island, where we also got to see a sea turtle.

I’ve extracted a few stills from our snorkelling videos, see below. The videos were shot with a dodgy point-and-shoot through an Aquapac, so please excuse the poor quality. I’ll try to put together a small compilation video over the next couple of weeks, so you can get a better feel of the snorkelling opportunities on Seychelles.

There is of course no guarantee that the camera will catch the northern lights, but the Aurora Sky Station website displays the latest 700+ photos captured, and they often include brilliant shots of the lights.

As I write this, (4 January 2011 at 20:48), the northern lights is putting on the most magnificent display you could wish for, so hurry over to  the Aurora Sky Station website to see for yourself.