Mauritius

Lydia
Donald Begg
Wed 31 Oct 2018 10:30
Mauritius is a charming island with charming people, just the tonic after a long sea crossing. The dominant race is Indian, but there is a mixture of cultures and religions, including Christian, Hindu, Islam, Tamil, and Chinese.
Our crew went separate ways. Simon’s better half, Chris, flew out to join him, they stayed with friends and by all accounts had a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable time. Doug went to the South of the island and hit the beach. The skipper, no sympathy please, had engineering problems to attend to. Chief amongst these was the damaged generator, which was removed to a workshop, was re-wound and refurbished, and re-installed in the boat in apparently fine order. It hurts my back just to think of the three lads who manhandled the beast out and then back in. There was time for an enjoyable boat trip from Black River Bay and for a touristy coach-tour of the island.
We had one bad night when the wind blew up from the wrong direction and the boat ground quite badly against the concrete jetty, with some resulting damage to the hull’s long-suffering paintwork.
We had a multi-faith blessing on the jetty with Chinese dancing-lions to discourage any demons.
On his return from the beach Doug Nethery left the ship, so we are now down to two.

At midday on Thursday 25th October we sailed from Port Louis. At first the wind was weak and contrary, but once clear of the shadow of the island it came up at 20 to 25 knots from the South, and we had a brisk and invigorating beam reach for the 136 miles across to La Reunion, on a lovely moonlit night, entering the approach channel to Le Port Ouest at 9.25 on Friday morning.