Le Reunion becomes Le Departure

Many croissants after our arrival, nineteen days in fact, we are now preparing to leave this little gem of the Indian Ocean.

Sitting in the saloon yesterday watching the masts of or neighbours, in line with ours, jostling and jiggling around you’d think we were all fighting for a position on the start-line at the beginning of a race, but no, the surge from the onshore breeze outside had the whole marina of yachts sliding around on their lines, creaking and groaning like half of Nelson’s and Bonaparte’s fleet. The noise was disturbing, no matter what we did to rectify and tighten the lines the effect was short-lived, mother mer would have her way. We even slept with ear plugs in one night just to get some peace and quiet. But all is well again now.

“We’ll pay up in the morning and I’ll take you for a walk around the harbour,” Rob said yesterday. So off we went, broad brims on against the intense sunlight and happily paid the £455 for our stay, chatting with the charming marinier in Franglais, I spelled out Zoonie’s name in the French language alphabet, “Ah so you are the teacher,” he said, well I was once to some reluctant learners on the Isle of Wight.

There were some reluctant learners here too. The Nautical School is busy most days with kayaking, Optimists for beginners, the lovely two-masted dinghies you see and that I have never seen before and the dragon boats that require a certain discipline and team mentality a lot of these youngsters have yet to discover in themselves. “They just can’t get it together can they,” said Rob. “I think a lot of it is that individuals are not concentrating,” I ventured, instead young lads were looking all around them, their paddles randomly touching the water. They did get better with the lead pair in time with the drum beat and the ones behind following them. Wherever they were we could locate them in the harbour and over the wall from the ‘bump, bump, bump’ of the drum.

I included the pictures of the water in our marina including the ‘canal’ right by the wall to bring you hope for the future of the marine world, it does for me. In this and most other marinas we have ever been to we discover they are nurseries for baby fish and here the water is so clean that corals are gradually growing on the rocks, pontoon supports and even the rubber tyres. Lots of tropical fish thrive here, the global pipefish, scissortails, dark fish, white yellow and black striped fish, I want to say angler fish and the shape of Moorish Idols, (Alison will know!) some blue lipped mullet, and above the water red bodied dragonflies shoot along the surface around the uninterrupted canal who in the evening are replaced by numerous bats, by elimination from the other listed possibilities, they must be Natal free-tailed bats because unlike the others on the list they are tiny, not extinct, nor very rare and do not have white bellies but are native to Mauritius and Reunion.

So whenever I am submerged in the anxiety of mass extinction, in the marine world I find hope in the marinas, secret places where mother-nature can repair herself.

Another very pleasing thing was that here there are still craftsmen working on wooden boats; I remembered the old Hillyard in New Caledonia watched over by a man working from his little cabin who said her French owners didn’t know what to do with her because “no one works in wood here anymore”.

The entrance channel is being dredged as you can see and the spoil of smoothly rounded rocks are being taken away. The bulldozer is pushing the lorry over the basalt sand until it can get a grip. We wondered where the spoil was going, since it was already ground smooth by the sea it would be useful for decorative building projects or maybe is needed where the new offshore road is nearing completion.

It is only 6.20am today, Saturday and already there is loud music coming from the Nautical School sheds where youngsters are bustling around ready for a day afloat. If they don’t already they will in years to come realise how lucky they were to have these opportunities to learn to sail and paddle and grow their minds. For us we must do the last bit of food shopping and enjoy a final evening meal that I have not had to prepare and tomorrow Rob is on clothes washing and I am on cooking and Monday after the Customs have visited us we’ll be off to Durban on our ‘alternative lockdown’ voyage.