Tuesday, 12th October 2010
05.00hrs Skipper was wide awake early, so got about the blog, had a shower in the shore facilities, which were clean and spacious, everything around here still looks good.
The place has lots of sparrows, we have not seen sparrows for a long time, and its always good to hear them chirping away early in the day. Later, after a light breakfast, Skipper met Paul, Susanne, and others ashore for some info swapping, and catching up on the news. All boats are here now, with the exception of Basia, who left the Cocos 4 days after us.
Paul (rally control) introduced us to Philippe the manager, Builder and developer of the Caudan Marina Complex. A very interesting guy and he arranged golf for us later in the week at Gymkahana golf club. Its the oldest golf club in the southern hemisphere and the 4th oldest in the world, so that will be interesting.
10.00hrs (supposed to be 09.00hrs) our hired car arrives at the marina, it seems time out here is a bit like spain, "tomorrow will do".
After some cleaning and preening ourselves, we all piled into the car, a medium sized Mitsubishi, and headed north. We first stopped at the huge shopping mall Jumbo on route north and checked out the place for provisions, which we will get some other day. Following this short stop, we moved to Pamplemousses, where there is a large and beautiful Botanical gardens. We hired a guide for the tour of the gardens, which were initially started way back when, by the Govenor of the Island. This was his residence and had 12 ha of surrounding land, the guide cost about 3 euros. The car, including full comprehensive insurance cost 50 euros per day, that is ok for a mid sized car.
The gardens were very interesting. Originally, the Govener tried growing spices there, but the climate was not right and the spices failed, so they then got developed as a Botanical Garden. and today, they are one of the Islands main attractions. This tour took the best part of 1.5 hours, and then we moved off again, still going north.
Eventually, we arrived at Grand Baie, this large beautiful bay on the NW corner of Mauritius is home to the Islands Yacht club, and home to many top resorts and beaches. All beaches here are public, so no one or company can restrict access to the sandy beaches or sea shore. We paid a visit to Club Med just for a look, and nose around. Awwwww, this place has it all, from pools, to gymn's, to sial boats, to canoes, to baddle boats, and of course the usual fast boat rides, scuba diving, para gliding, etc, etc.
The beaches were fantastic, again all drooping with palm trees, and all this crystal clear pale blue water, gently lapping up over the white sand. The rise and fall of tide here is approx. 2', so nothing to get excited about when going ashore in the dingy.
Later, we had a few cool beers in Grand Baie town itself, a real cosmopolitan place, but all facing right onto the beach, we enjoyed that place, and admired all the photos of monster fish, which they specialise in catching up around here. One blue Marlin weighed more than a half ton, and made the fishermen who caught it look like midgets standing there beside the fish.
We, the 4 of us, then returned to Port Louis, and the boat. Aileen and skipper toddled off to the Tandoorie restaurant and had an excellent Indian meal for just a few euros, great value, there we met Dave and Sue from Voyageur along with John and Jenny fron Tzagine and shared some laughs and some wine. Later we made our way back to the boat, where we found the other 2 had flown off to some other watering hole for more drink.
A good day in all.
That's all for now,
Signed:- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)