What a wonderful place is Mauritius. We are all in paradise here. After adifficult voyage from Darwin, to Cocos, to here we are happy to be on land and have a time to relax and get some sleep. Everyone from the World ARC looks so happy and refreshed after only a few days of being on land. This was a major part of our trip. To accomplish this leg is quite exciting to say the least.
It was so very wonderful to see the smiling faces of Paul and Susanna as we approached the harbor. They had a wonderful fruit basket and rum to celebrate our arrival. As each boat arrived we all cheered each other for a trip well done. This is the advantage in coming in the rally. We have made some wonderful friends along the way.
Everyone has their own story of challenges they faced in getting here. Bill and I may never make it back here in this lifetime but it is a wonderful place to visit with lots to do or not if one choses. Bill and I are currently staying in a hotel called the Labourdonnais. It is quite snazzy with all the luxuries one could expect. I will have a massage here and perhaps a pedicure. Matt is staying on the boat and glad to have some time away from his parents and rightly so! I have been shopping with several of the ladies and we are having a ball. What can I say. After that trip we are worth every penny we spend!!!!
Perhaps the difficult label comes because of the days of rain, stormy skies, gale force winds, and confused seas. That was 6-8 days of challenging sailing for many of us. However, the crew of Lady Lisa was ecstatic with the weather and thought it great fun! I guess everyone has a different perspective. Usually, we expect some time of rough weather but that was just too many days in a row of it for me.
We have had some problems with our sat phone and I am still not sure it is working correctly. It was incorrectly showing us in the North Pole for some of our last leg. Hopefully we have that problem corrected for the next leg. It has been a few days since I have blogged so all is well but we have just been busy cleaning the boat, shopping, and touring around. We hope to get a group of us together to do the underwater walk up near Grand Baie. There are some good trails up some mountains we would like to explore too.
Rosemary, Bill and Matt