Mauritius first impressions...
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 3 Jun 2011 08:06
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Friday 3rd June 0936 Local 0536
UTC
20:09.61S 57:29.77E
Well here we are ensconced in the little Caudan
marina in Port Louis Mauritius. Another country sailed to. It is such an
amazing feeling which I don't think I will get tired of - using the
wind to navigate and sail your way to a new landfall and to watch it
appearing over the horizon.
In this case although Mauritius
appeared with its orange glow of lights through the night and after taking
some sleep I got up to find Trish at the helm in the bright dawn sunlight -
apparently anxious to get to dry land... On this passage we did not have to burn
one litre of deisel - setting sail outside the reef pass in Chagos and taking
down sail inside the harbour channle in Mauritius!
The temperatures are noticeably lower now and you
will see that we are at 20 degrees south. However at this time of the year the
sun lives in the northern hemisphere at around twenty degrees north. So
though we are only twenty degrees below the equator we are forty degrees away
from the sun. Forty degrees north of the equator due the positioning of the
worlds great land masses and in the atlantic fringes where the gulf stream is
such a possitive temperate influence, forty degrees of latitude has
pleasant weather. Forty degrees south, due to lack of land masses and the
constant influence of lows running unabated round the wilderness of the southern
ocean things are different. At forty dgrees south you have the "Roaring
Forties". Our plans will take us to near 35 degrees south - but in the southern
winter - 55 degrees of latitude from the suns northern summer
home.
Our arrival late morning in Port Louis meant we had
taken just under six days to complete the 1250 mile passage. Not bad considering
I was sailing conservatively on this passage! We tied up as instructed by the
port control, at the customs dock where all formalities were completed
efficiently and by friendly officials from all offices. Not only were
they very pleasant and courteus there were charges at all and without
exception all officials welcomed us to Mauritius and wishe us a pleasant
stay.
We were off to a good start though both spearguns
are back in captivity ..... everyone was so friendly. People
seem joyous.It was interesting sitting in a
cafe along the waterfront to see people light heartedly enjoying and expressing
themselves. Lots of couples sitting and walking together, friends meeting and
kissing or shaking hands. It was very uplifting and liberating after spending
since February in more religiously observant and dominated locations
where people were much more reserved.
Where a people are
influenced, dominated or in some cases controlled by religion,
ideology or government a very orderly and in fact safe society, of
course can be maintained at the cost of
liberty, freedom and individual _expression_.
Where there is no societal guidelines or controls
from "the centre" most likely personal safety and security along with chaos
would be the order of the day.
If one assumes that somewhere in the middle is
where we wish our society to be how do we decide where we want that society
to be on the scale of constrained order on one hand and unconstrained chaos on
the other? How can one have ones exact prescription of desired freedom of
individual _expression_ and liberty in an environment where either the choice of
the masses through "democracy" must prevail and or the choices imposed by
religion, ideology or government prevail? You cannot really, you have to live in
and go with the "consensus" even in a free society. In the many closed
societies of the world you have no choice but to conform to the imposed will of
whatever "regime" you may live in.
Sailing off around the world, long term as is the
case for many people that we have met on our circumnavigation, with no fixed
abode, no ties to any country, government or legislated controls democratic or
otherwise, certainly allows the maximum freedom you could wish for
without being subjected to what you may consider to be the negative
consequences from living in a society where there is no consensual rule of
law or conversely where there are strict rules applied which you may not
like.
Anyway what inspired me to think about these issues
is the contrast we immediately noticed when out and about in Mauritius
compared to the places we have been over the past few months. It will be
interesting to observe what negative consequences there are for society here
from the place they have positioned themselves on "the scale". It certainly was
the case in the Maldives despite the religious code the islands live by that
crime and substance abuse problems were still evident.
Interesting perhaps - if you can figure
out what on earth I am on about.
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