Five minutes from the capital
Sainte Anne
Island · Marine national park
Sainte Anne in short.
Sainte Anne is the island Victoria looks at, and it gives its name to the marine park around it: eight islands in shallow, protected water, declared in 1973 and the first marine national park in the Indian Ocean.
Can you go?
Open. The park is the standard boat day out of Victoria or Eden Island, and several operators run it.
Sainte Anne, in 6 frames.
Every frame below was found in this island's own Commons category and its own title names the island. Captions are the file's title, so you can check the call.
Photographs, under Creative Commons: A.Savin, FAL Prométhée, CC BY-SA 3.0 Hansueli Krapf, CC BY-SA 3.0 Remi Jouan, CC BY-SA 3.0 A.Savin, FAL Remi Jouan, CC BY-SA 3.0 A.Savin, FAL
The park, not the island
What people mean by a day at Sainte Anne is a day in the park. The boat crosses in a few minutes, stops for snorkelling over the coral and the seagrass, usually lands on Moyenne or Cerf for lunch, and is back by the middle of the afternoon. Glass-bottom boats run the same water for people who would rather not get in.
Fishing and water-skiing are prohibited inside the park, which is why there is anything to look at. The seagrass meadows here are among the largest in the country and are what the turtles come for.
The island itself
Sainte Anne is 2.19 square kilometres and is occupied by a single resort with its own beach. For anyone not staying there, the island is the backdrop to the day rather than the destination, and the islands you actually set foot on are Moyenne and Cerf.
Round Island, the small wooded islet on the same run, is 1.8 hectares and was a leper station in the early twentieth century. It has a restaurant and a beach and is a stop on some park trips. It has no page of its own on this site, because there is no photograph of it we can put at the top of one and stand behind.
How you arrive
Boats leave from the Inter-Island Quay in Victoria and from Eden Island, and the crossing takes five to ten minutes. Almost everybody arrives on an organised day trip rather than under their own steam.
The sheet.
Checked 2 September 2026 against the sources named in our island file.
- Distance from Victoria
- about 5 km
- Island area
- 2.19 km²
- Park created
- 1973, the first marine park in the Indian Ocean
- Islands in the park
- eight
What people ask.
Can we visit Sainte Anne?
Open. The park is the standard boat day out of Victoria or Eden Island, and several operators run it.
How do you get to Sainte Anne?
Boats leave from the Inter-Island Quay in Victoria and from Eden Island, and the crossing takes five to ten minutes. Almost everybody arrives on an organised day trip rather than under their own steam.
What we do arrange.
We do not sell islands, and most of these could not be sold to anybody. What we do arrange is everything that gets you to them and around them once you land.
Car hire, from €45 a day
Ten cars, no deposit, handed over at the airport, the jetty or your hotel.
Days out and excursions
Island tours, boat days, snorkelling and walks, with real ratings and free cancellation to twenty-four hours.
Airport transfers
A driver who watches your flight number and waits with your name on a board.
The terminal photograph above: Remi Jouan, CC BY-SA 3.0
Planning around this island?
Tell us the dates and what you want the trip to feel like, and Meera will write back with what is actually possible.