Seychelles

Ladies and gentlemen, and the new country in my collection is..... Seychelles :D

I've found this great card today in my mailbox. Country #90!! It was sent by Brigitte "apperveilchen".

"Seychelles is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar. Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest, and the Suvadives of the Maldives to the northeast. Seychelles has the smallest population of any sovereign state of Africa." - in: wikipedia

This cards is from one of the many small islands of the archipelago, Île Cocos. It has been a marine park since 1996 and is a great spot for snorkelling and diving. On the right side of the card there's the coco de mer, a big double coconut that only grows on 2 of the inner Seychelles islands.

When i was looking for some information about Seychelles, i've discovered that the the first recorded sighting of them took place in 1502, by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama :o This is something new for me. I need to creat a list of the countries discovered, colonized by the portuguese. Since i joined postcrossing, i'm discovering some interesting things about the portuguese discoveries ;)