Anse Intendance

Anse Intendance is the great beach of southern Mahé, a wide unprotected bay with no fringing reef where the open Indian Ocean rolls straight onto the sand between two headlands of rounded granite. There are no shops, no vendors and only one hotel set back among the palms. The absence of a reef is what makes it dramatic and also what makes it dangerous, since a strong shore break and rip run through the southeast trade wind months. Hawksbill turtles come ashore to nest here between October and February. A car is needed to reach it, and there is no bus stop at the bay.