9th January, 2017

 

We have spent the last two weeks, since the children left, cleaning and sorting.  Jonathan took all the winches to pieces, re oiled them and put them back together.  The ensign needed a hole mending so we did that.  We cleaned and scrubbed.  We were anchored off Calvingny Island a private island turned into an exclusive hotel.  From what we could see it had no guests at all.  One large motor yacht, Tango, anchored off it the night before New year and went ashore for a party but left later that night.   We took the dingy to the very pristine beach on the island  (all beaches are public here)  and were greeted by two very boisterous labradors, barking at us, wagging their tales and not at all fearsome.  They came swimming with us and loved having stones thrown for them in the water, it was a pity I did not have a ball or a piece of wood to throw them.  The wind blew hard all week and we had the occasional huge rain storm, usually in the afternoon.

We took the dingy into Le Phare Bleu and booked to go for New Years Eve,  £100 per ticket approx to include food, cocktails and champagne, fireworks.  We thought it would be huge fun with loads of yachties.  It was not, we were greeted with ‘Rum Cocktail’ which tasted like cough mixture, the buffet was very mediocre, the service was terrible, we went on to the 'light house boat' after for ‘dancing’ but that didn’t happen a band played but not music you could dance to, the champagne was only opened just as the clock was striking the last seconds, so J and I helped open the bottles otherwise nobody would have had a glass to see in the New Year, the girl did not know how to open the bottles or pour it.  The firework display, when it happened, was very short and very amateur and boring.  We won’t be going back, such a waste of money.  Not that many yachties, lots of locals, we tried to mix but it was hard work.  We now regret not staying at Port Louis marina where the New Years Eve was amazing.

The day before yesterday we pottered back to Port Louise Marina to wait for Donald Hughes to arrive late that evening.   The following day he rented a car and we set off to see some of the island, visit the nutmeg processing plant, all done by hand and quite interesting.  Then lunch, which was quite good, in a local upstairs cafe, the curried chicken was good.  We then drove back south along the coast road to the rum factory, which Jonathan was very determined to do, unfortunately it closed at 4 p.m. we got there at five mins’ past.  We missed the chocolate farm, which I think would  have been good.  We did visit the chocolate shop and museum before Donald arrived.  It must be some of the best chocolate ever, we now have a few bars in the fridge.

Today at 9.30 am we are sailing up north.  The wind has dropped and gone NE, on the nose, but the sea is dead calm and what wind is blowing  about 14 knots at the moment.

Below are pictures of Grenville where the nutmeg processing plant is.

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