Sailing around the World ( presently in Mauritius, )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 13 Oct 2010 04:48
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TUESDAY 12th October
2010
05.00hrs, skipper was wide awake early, so got
about the blog, had a shower in the shore facilities,
which were clean and spacious, everything around
here still looks good.
The place has lots of sparrows, we have not seen
sparrows for a long time, and its always good to hear them chirping away early
in the day.
later, after a light breakfast, Skipper met Paul,
Susanne, and others ashore for some info swapping, and catching up on the news,
All boats are here now, with the exception of
Basia. who left the Coco's 4 days after us.
Paul ( rally control ) introduced us to " Philippe
" the manager, Builder and developer of the Caudon Marina Complex,
A very interesting guy and he arranged golf for us
later in the week at " Gymkahana " golf club, Its the oldest golf club in
the southern hemisphere
and the 4th oldest in the world, so that will be
interesting.
10.00hrs, ( supposed to be 09.00hrs ) our
hired car arrives at the marina, it seems time out here is a bit like spain, "
tomorrow will do "
After some cleaning and preening ourselves, we all
piled into the car, a medium sized Mitsubishi , and headed north,
We first stopped at the huge shopping mall " Jumbo
" on route north and checked out the place for provisions, which we will get
some other day.
Following this short stop, we moved to
Pamplemousses, where there is a large and beautifull Botanical gardens, We hired
a guide for the tour of the gardens, which were initially started way back
when,, by the Govenor of the Island, This was his residence and had 12 ha of
surrounding land,
the guide cost about 3 euros
the car , including full comprehensive insurance
cost 50 euros per day, that is ok for a mid sized car.
The gardens were very interesting, Originally , the
Govener tried growing spices there , but the climate was not right and the
spices failed, so they then got developed as a
Botanical Garden. and today, they are one of the Islands main
attractions, This tour took the best part of 1.5 hours, and then we moved
off again, still going north.
Eventually, we arrived at " Grand Baie," this large
beautifull bay on the NW corner of Mauritius is home to the Islands Yacht club,
and home to
many top resorts and beaches, All beaches
here are public, so no one or company can restrict access to the sandy beaches
or sea shore.
We paid a visit to " Club Med " just for a look,
and nose around, Awwwww, this place has it all, from pools, to gymn's , to
sial boats, to canoe's
to baddle boats, and of course the usual fast boat
rides, scuba diving, para gliding, etc etc.
The beaches were fantastic, again all drooping with
palm trees, and all this crystal clear pale blue water , gently lapping up over
the white sand.
The rise and fall of tide here is approx, 2'
, so nothing to get excited about when going ashore in the dingy,
Later, we had a few cool beers in" Grand Baie "
town itself, a real cosmopolitan place, but all facing right onto the beach, we
rnjoyed that place, and admired all the photo's of monster fish , which they
specialise in catching up around here,
One blue Marlin weighed more than a half ton,
and made the fishermen who caught it look like midgets standing there
beside the fish.
We , the 4 of us , then returned to Port
Louis, and the boat,
Aileen and skipper toddled off to the Tandoorie
restaurant and had an excellent Indian meal for just a few euro's , great
value,
there we met Dave and Sue from Voyageur along with
John and Jenny fron Tzagine and shared some laughs and some wine,
later we made our way back to the boat, where we
found the other 2 had flown off to some other watering hole for more
drink.
A good day in all.
Thats all for now,
Signed:- Stephen Hyde.. (
skipper )
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