20:09.6S 57:29.8E Cocos Keeling to Mauritius
Babe!
Paul & Trish Ducker
Tue 5 Nov 2013 09:12
Hope you are all well, both Trish & I have been missing family, friends and
home - a long passage and with little in the way of decent comms doesn't
help either.
So we left Cocos on 22/10 for an anticipated 15 day 2350nm crossing of the
Indian Ocean to Mauritius. A number of other yachts had decided to stop-off
in Rodriguez on the way (smallish island circa 320nm to the east of
Mauritius), but we've got a deadline of eventually getting to South Africa
for 24th Nov and decided would rather do Mauritius and Reunion islands.
No sure what we were expecting of the Indian Ocean, but turned out to be a
really good passage, good winds and reasonable sea's for which we made a
good average speed of 7.3knts (10th fastest of the fleet of 22 yachts, for
which as one of the smallest Babe is a great performance, or is it the
skipper?)(and the rest of us) and completed the crossing in 13 days! All
fairly uneventful, left Cocos with a pod of dolphins, which against the
crystal blue waters and palm island backdrop was a stunning sight! Came
across a number of Indonesian and Japanese fishing vessels, which seemed to
float around during the day and fish at night - and for saying we were
circa 1500mile from the nearest land god only knows what state the fish were
in when they eventually got back to land! Only real negative of the trip was
falling onto my new laptop screen, which ended up looking like a spiders web
whilst PDS working (yea I know) on a night shift, oops!!
We weren't really expecting too much from Mauritius to be fair, expecting a
resort type of island, but actually we were pleasantly surprised - a rugged
volcanic landscape and actually a large island (circa 1m population). The
landing was in the main port of Port Louis which has a small marina right on
the front where clearly a lot of investment had occurred with smart hotels
and posh tourist complex, so right in the middle of the action.
The Mauritius tourist board, being aware of the Oyster World Rally had
organised a reception, comprising a blessing of both yacht and it's crew, a
eventing party and a day trip around the island - what amazing hospitality!
All free
The blessing was a strange event, comprising a reading by 4 religions: the
Christian blessing was mush as expected, local Mauritian doing a few
passages and throwing water over the crowd of us. The Muslim blessing was
slightly more entertaining being sung with a typical nasal sounding
resonance. The Hindu blessing was really impressive, with the priest dressed
in typical Indian finery and with more melodic singing and finished off with
him blowing a shell horn - really loud and slightly amusing. Finally the
Buddhist blessing - this was really, really weird - two old Buddhist nuns
randomly standing up surrounded by incense sticks and chanting (singing?)
with a circa 5 second delay between them, one in a medium pitched screech
and the other in a low pitch drone - both looking like they were completely
out of it and tapping on a small bell, generally out of sync - they went on
for ages. All very priceless!! The various faiths were introduced by a very
enthusiastic lady from the tourist board building everything-up as if on a
performance at the Palladium!
The evening do was good fun, local Mauritian female dancers in their local
costumes with backing band - of course wasn't very long before I was among
them, showing how we dance UK style (er well my interpretation of such) - I
even made the local press (see
http://www.maurise-info.mu/quand-les-marins-dansent-le-sega.html)!!!! What
was really nice was that this all took place on the hard at the side of
where the yachts were moored, hence felt like it was a proper yacht party.
Wasn't long though before we'd eaten all the local food on offer and drank
all that was available and so was onto Babe for the carry-on session,
although we really weren't expecting circa 25 bodies on board - need a
bigger yacht me thinks :) and got a comment the next day that it looked like
the bow was pointing to the stars with all the weight on the back of Babe!
On the Thursday we did the organised tour, getting a real feel of the island
and including the amazing sights of :
1. 1/3rd full reservoir (currently there's a drought)?
2. Hindu festival site, with massive (100ft?) statues of one of the gods,
with a second one also being built
3. Hindu temple where Tish & I got our 3rd eye - didn't appear to work, so
eventually washed it off
4. Local Tea plantation and tour around the tea factory
5. Lunch at smart restaurant on the top of the hill overlooking the south of
the island (millionaires salad specially for us!)
6. Colonial house with tea and cakes
7. Small rum producer at the colonial house, hence sampling of the 6 or 7
rums on offer, yummy
Unfortunately whilst in Mauritius Jack (the lad) had come to the end of his
time with the rally and had to return home. Great lad with loads of fond
memories (throwing me in on my Birthday, picking me up and transplanting me
onto another chair for chatting too long with his girls friend, watching him
sail boarding, cheeky picture on my phone.......). Sure we'll catch-up
again!
OK that's enough from us, except to say that it's Movember on the OWR, hence
apologies for the dodgy photo's this month!
Next stop Reunion Is, approx. 130nm away.
Take care all,
Luv
Paul & Trish
A few links from local Australian press that may be of interest:
http://oysteryachts.com/documents/Reviews/Sails-22-OysterWorldRally.pdf
http://www.oysteryachts.com/documents/Reviews/floating-asset-oct-13.pdf
Photos:
a) Goodbye Cocos
b) Fishing vessel encounter
c) Babe sailing into Mauritius
d) Buddhist Nuns
e) Trish & I at the Hindu Temple??
f) My third eye + Movember effort (as of 7/11/13)
