25 February 2010
Fregate is a paradise island with lush green jungle and unadulterated luxury.
Ah, what a delicate balancing act luxury travel is. The trick is to seek out a destination that's difficult enough to get to (think helicopters and chartered boats) but not at all difficult to navigate once you've arrived. The Seychelles has come to pretty much define such luxury - and, among their constellation of super-secluded islands, Frégate Island Private may be the most remote, beautiful and natural. The only accommodations are 16 villas, ensuring that there are never more than 40 people inhabiting its 740 gorgeous acres.
Ah, what a delicate balancing act luxury travel is. The trick is to seek out a destination that's difficult enough to get to (think helicopters and chartered boats) but not at all difficult to navigate once you've arrived. The Seychelles has come to pretty much define such luxury - and, among their constellation of super-secluded islands, Frégate Island Private may be the most remote, beautiful and natural. The only accommodations are 16 villas, ensuring that there are never more than 40 people inhabiting its 740 gorgeous acres.
In 1721, when an infamous, one-eyed, French pirate called Olivier Levasseur captured treasures of untold magnificence from the Portugese galleon Nossa Senora do Cabo as it sailed near the Swahili coast, he is said to have buried the haul on Frégate island. An old parchment map shows that Frégate was then called Skeleton Island. Levasseur, also known as The Buzzard, because of the speed with which he attacked his enemies, met his maker nine years later at the hangman's noose, leaving the mystery of his unclaimed treasure. A treasure that included a golden cross inset with rubies and chests full of gold coins that still remain undiscovered today.
I arrived on Frégate after a 20 minute helicopter ride from Mahé, and on my first morning, my guide takes me on a tour of Frégate by golf buggy. We stop and walk through jungle. "Well, the treasure could be buried anywhere here" he says, pointing at a muddy spot, "People have come looking for it, with metal detectors and the like, but no-one has yet unearthed it. These tortoises are sitting on a fortune".
Wild giant tortoises are everywhere, foraging for their daily diet of pumpkin and breadfruit. Thousands live on the island and they are only found here and in the Galapagos.
"We have 70,000 birds on Frégate," says my guide, "Species include the endangered Seychelles White Eye, the Madagascan fodi, as well as 70 out of the world's total of 100 magpie robins." He goes on to tell me that the island is named after a bird. Lazare Picault, a more benign 18th-century seafarer, called it Frégate in honour of the distinctive native frigates that he found nesting in the rocks. These black-and-green feathered birds have downward-curving beaks, forked tails, and look almost prehistoric.
In true skull-and-crossbones-style, if Hollywood ever needed a location for a swashbuckling film, this is it. It would also make a great second for the next Jurassic Park film.
The island's sinuous, root-choked lanes, steep green angles, preternaturally beautiful beaches and tranquil rainforests make it feel like a small continent.
If I have a single enduring memory of Frégate, it's the abundance, the variety, the omnipresence of vivid colour; not just the dazzling green of the Takamaka jungle, or the salt-crusted vermillion granite cliff that encircles much of the island, nor the emerald fields and pink flowers of its lush interior, but the exorbitant turquoise of its seas, the wedding-cake white sands, the technicolour sunsets and salmon-pink dawns, and the small, inquisitive white doves and birds with feathers that look like they've been randomly splashed with pillar-box red paint.
Lying just four degrees south of the Equator, this paradise is ultra-exclusive and often yours alone. Being a private island, no day-trippers are allowed; the resort’s tariff keeps away all but the most determined sybarites. It has become a favourite amongst the stars of Hollywood and all across Europe—A-list couple David and Victoria Beckham celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary by renting the entire island.
Owned by a reclusive German tycoon, Frégate looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain (as it happens, Pierce Brosnan is also a frequent guest). Barefoot luxury and conservation are the guiding principles—all 16 villas and the main pavilion keep with an all-natural aesthetic, designed by renowned American design firm Wilson & Associates.
My secluded villa is a marriage of Balinese-style stone, Chamfuta teak and thatch and bamboo pavilions, built into cliffs among dense palm groves that barely interrupt the island's natural beauty. My bedroom has four-poster canopy beds with a palatial bathroom of Italian marble leading out to an al fresco shower. It's the size of a mansion. Outside is a 33ft long infinity pool. A private butler is assigned to each villa and with a staff-to-guest ratio at three-to-one, they're miraculously there when you need them and absent when you don't. My only company is a giant fruit bat that keeps flying past.
The Rock Spa is run by Bernadette Chang Ty Seng who is a "Madam Dibwa" (a Seychelloise word meaning 'Fairy of the Forest'). She uses generations-old knowledge of local herbs and plants for healing spa treatments. No product line is used in the spa - all treatments are freshly made from the organic produce of Frégate Island.
After the jet-lag of the 12 hour flight from London, I'm soon feeling chilled after a one hour massage inside the tranquil interior of bamboo rafters, dark wood columns, Buddhist temple gongs and Indonesian rice chests. I'm served champagne and chocolates after the session ends.
I've stayed at a number of top ranked resorts and this secret hideaway is blessed with perfection. It's quite possibly the best resort in the world. My days are spent walking the many trails, wildlife-spotting, visiting the museum housed in the Plantation House that documents the European Corsair pirates who settled on the island in the early 18th century - or swimming in solitude at Anse Victorin (a groin-achingly beautiful crescent beach 230 paces from end to end, backed by palm forest and hemmed in by sensuously-shaped boulders; in one of the more surreal touches, staff will close off the pathway down to this beach if you request to have it all to yourself!). I also explore the island's plantations—most of the fruit, vegetables, salads and herbs consumed on the island are homegrown: the plantations are full of mangoes, papayas, guava, coconuts, melons and bananas. I savour the distinct aromas of coffee plants, chillies, mint, cashew apples and vanilla, as well as a staggering 17 species of banana. Produce is harvested daily and the resort's chef places a firm emphasis on simplicity to maximise the food's natural goodness.
The colonial-style Plantation House serves Indian-Asian fusion or Creole dishes. The alternative dining venue is Frégate House, where gourmet international dishes are served. For me, the breakfast was so memorable, with homemade jams and freshly squeezed juice from the fruit trees dotted around the island.
Private dinners on your balcony are the norm. If you try really hard, you may see another guest. I saw maybe two or three guests at breakfast once and that's about it. And the island was almost fully booked.
Frégate's conservation projects have yielded dramatic results: the Seychelles Magpie Robin, still the world's seventh rarest bird, has been rejuvenated from a global population of just 22, all on Frégate Island, in 1995 to over 180 today.
Whilst I didn't find any pirate's treasure, the real treasure was the chance to stay in this modern-day Garden of Eden and the glorious oneness with nature that entailed.
Factbox
More information, rates and bookings can be made via Frégate's website www.fregate.com, +49 69 86 00 42 980 or e-mail reservations@fregate.com. Rates for Frégate Island Private start from €1,300 per person per night. Flights from London to the Seychelles are with Air Seychelles, touching down on Mahé. Frégate will organise transfers from Mahé. If you want to stay on Mahé before or after Frégate, check out the Banyan Tree (www.banyantree.com/en/seychelles/index.html).
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