20:56S 55:16E

 

An uneventful sail over night brought us into Le Port on the north west side of the island. It’s a commercial port with a small marina. We had to come along side a large wall, a somewhat tricky manoeuver as the chains and fenders are for ships and don’t really work for yachts. With a few extra fenders however, we were safely in.

 

This is an incredible island, with huge mountains and so many different climates. From tropical to almost Alpine, all sorts of landscapes can be found but the most impressive are the mountains. We hired a car and drove pretty much the whole island looking for things to see, with an active volcano in the south and waterfalls falling from 1000ft,as well as huge coral boundary reefs, it really is a gem.

 

The local language is French and it was wonderful to have a restaurant in the dockyard that cooked simple but very good lunches – unsurprisingly it’s called Le Dodo Gourmand.

 

One of the downsides of the island is the surplus of Bull sharks. They are a particularly aggressive shark that grows to over 4 metres in length and Reunion has a concentration of them. So much so that it is inadvisable to go swimming anywhere apart from the lagoons created by the reefs. There have been several attacks recently and the government has banned tourists from surfing.

 

We walked the D’os d’ane, the donkeys back, one morning to have a look at the island from on high. Having been at sea level for so long we were soon puffing, but the views were incredible. Long sweeping valleys and impressive peaks. In fact there was an ironman competition on with people from all over the world coming to test themselves on the landscapes of Reunion. We also spent some time in a turtle sanctuary, with Ridleys, loggerheads and Olive turtles all living in huge tanks to recuperate from shark attacks and illness. They also have a breeding program that looks very impressive.

 

Next stop South Africa. We are due to arrive in Richards Bay in Zulu Land around the 8th November.