Au revoir, Rodrigues
Fleck
Wed 13 Jun 2012 08:43
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Wednesday, 13th June 2012
Position 19:41.5S 61:47.7E
Left Rodrigues last night, as a brief fine weather
window has appeared. Today is perfect on the ocean, blue sky, reasonable typing
conditions, though one finger only, and very good speed in F5 winds. Tomorrow it
all comes back again, for another two weeks, so a number of boats went out
yesterday, I was last. The sharp guys will be in Mauritius before the weather
breaks, but then they didn't get to do the East coast beach walk yesterday,
which was great.
Rodrigues was really excellent: European summer
climate, very safe environment, very friendly and helpful locals, and a good
infrastructure, especially buses, to explore the Island. Pretty though not
absolutely stunning scenary, hardly any mossies. Good eating places, and a great
fresh food market, though most surprisingly, no fresh fish! Delighted to find
friends Peter and Cathy from Leto, who I last saw in Langkawi two years ago.
They have done the West coast of Sumatra, real sailors! Saturday night everyone
went to the Marmite for supper, seperate tables for the French and English, but
convivial, and much banter. Discovered that marmite is not just a sticky spread
currently making a fortune for John Lewis, but is a French cooking pot.The main
town, Port Mathurin, is just a small grid of shops and houses, but just about
everythig is available here. And goodness, a branch of Barclays Bank that had
the grace to accept my previously blocked credit card: so now I am solvent
again.
For the young there is excellent kite surfing, for
the rest of us, walking. There are many footpaths.The trailheads are up in
the mountains, and you take a bus up, and walk down to, and along the coast till
you see another bus which always stops, and takes you back to Port. I did the
Trou d'argent (it is a pirate beach, with buried treasure of course) yesterday,
and the day before the Baladirou treck which was quite a scramble down a very
steep ravine, and consisted largly of rock hopping in the dry river bed. The
walks are 10 km or so, and despite their downhill nature, are good exercise for
my ship softened legs. They are also an exercise in orienteering, as there are
precious few trail marks, and the written blurb is completely unhelpful: They
prefer that you take a local guide of course, but not my scene. I followed one
quite hopeful looking pathway for4 a mile or so, only to discover that it was a
pig track: but even the pigs were friendly, though poor with their
directions!
The local dish is octopus: and quite delicious,
they do it in all sorts of sauces, and though a bit chewey, they get a much
better flavour and texture than we have ever managed at home: Definitely
something for me to try at home, once I have perfected my rye bread. So could
have stayed for a month or more, and everyone says that once you have been to
Rodrigues, Mauritius itself is allways second best. But that is where I may be
able to lay up until the Northern Winter, so need to press on.
Shipwise, I have made some progress with my leak
problem. One of the Stbd bulkheads has become soaked with water from a leaking
limber hole: just the same problem that arose last year on the other side
of the boat. A patch of epoxy soaked acrylic canvas over the crack seems to
have contained the port side problem, so I have tried the same trick on the
starboard side, it would be great if that will get us dryly back to the UK,
as a definitive repair is a big job. Sad to say goodby to my LED headlamp, which has seen me through many
midnight adventures on board, but which I now recall leaving on a seatback in
the Marmite. If there is a problem during the rest of this trip it will be the
torch between the teeth trick, at least that one stops you swearing too
much!
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